First of all, when you are planning a wedding you have to start by setting the date. Once the date is set you can move on to bigger things like finding the church and the hall. If you have your heart set on one certain place for either the ceremony or the reception, be flexible with your date. I’ve known people to set up their entire wedding around one location.
Once you have a date set and want to start scouting locations make a checklist. Make an estimate of how many people will be attending the event. If the location is too small, move on.
Things to ask about:
- Will your church allow flowers?
- Will hey allow the use of a unity candle?
- Can you pick your music? *If you don’t want to be traditional*
- Will they require you to attend classes before the wedding?
- Will they be available for a rehearsal the night before the wedding?
- Is there a room where the bride and bridesmaids can get ready?
- Is there a room where the bride can hide until the ceremony starts?
- What time can you be at the church?
- Does your reception site allow outside entertainment?
- Does your site allow an outside food source?
- If they allow outside food do they have a kitchen available?
- Does this location allow alcohol? * There are people that will come to the reception just for the open bar.
- Is there a designated space for outside entertainment?
- When will the reception site be available for decorating?
After you figure out the when and the where, hopefully along the way you answered the question; “Are we having an outside food source and an open bar?” If you haven’t then those are things you need to think about. Open bars can run about $7 or $8,000. Now you can move onto things like dress shopping! This is the fun part, round up the girls you picked to be in your wedding, or just go with your mom, or your sister, whoever you chose and try on as many as you like! Then pick the bridesmaids dresses. Make sure you check with them to see what kind of budget they are on. Then it’s on to men’s wear. That’s an easy one, just grab the groom to be and head to the tux shop.
Depending upon how far ahead you start planning you’ll need to pick out invitations. You can do that at any time I the process. A few months before hand sit down with your bridesmaids and fold and stuff those envelopes. Another thing to do a few months before the wedding is go register. Go to your favorite store and wander up and down the aisles and pick out anything your heart would desire for your new home together. Pick out some reasonably priced gifts as well; some of your guests may be on a budget. While you’re out shopping browse around for bridal party gifts!
This has just been a basic outline to give you a start on planning. There can be so much more depending upon the type of affair you are planning. The more formal you go the more work there is involved. Please remember not to get in over your head, and not to expect the world from the bridal party.
A Helpful Tip
Something I would personally suggest if you want to cut down on a lot of the hassle of planning the wedding is to hire a wedding planner. I’ve been to a few lately that the bride planned on her own and they came out decently. Meaning the couple got married, but there was so much going on that was unorganized that it took away from the event. The last thing you want to be doing on your wedding day is washing dishes like they had to because they didn’t have a wait staff. If you can’t afford a wedding planner sign up with a wedding planning site. I had a wedding planner for mine and I still signed up for the wedding planning sites and everything went off without a hitch!
