Engagement Kickstarter: How to Start Wedding Planning | Inside Scoop
We’re in the heart of post-holiday engagement season, our favorite time of year! If you’re one of the happy couples who just got engaged, you might be wondering how to start wedding planning. Well, that’s what we’re here for! We’ve got plenty of wedding planning tips for the newly engaged. Today’s Inside Scoop will offer up some of our best ways to kick-start your wedding planning. Let’s get started!
CHOOSE YOUR PLANNING OPTION
Today’s couples typically fall into two categories…those who want to do all of their own wedding planning and those who choose to hire a wedding planner. There is a third option, though, and it’s one you might not have considered.
In this third planning option, couples handle the bulk of their own planning and then hire a professional wedding planner to bring everything together on the big day. Although the industry term for this level of wedding planning is “Day-of,” wedding planners are typically involved in the planning for weeks or even months beforehand. This option allows you to have all the control you might want over your planning while also allowing you to enjoy all of your efforts on the big day.
CREATE YOUR WEDDING BUDGET
Whether or not you’re working with a professional wedding planner, you should start wedding planning by setting a budget. Sit down with your families to discuss whether anyone will be contributing to the wedding budget. Decide on the best way for those contributions to be made, whether it’s by setting up a separate wedding account or having contributors pay for things directly.
Going hand-in-hand with budgeting is creating the guest list. Narrow it down as much as possible to help your budget stretch further. Food and beverage will be your largest expense, so fewer mouths to feed means more money for everything else!
SET THE DATE
Your next step will be setting the wedding date. When you first start your wedding planning, you might want to narrow down your date to a specific month to offer some flexibility as you look for the perfect venue. Once you know your ideal venue’s availability and pricing, you can firmly set the date. Then it’s time to begin hiring the rest of your wedding vendors!
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF PLANNING TOOLS
There are so many wedding planning apps, workbooks, and websites out there that it can be hard to know where to start. At a minimum, we suggest choosing tools for tracking your wedding budget and vendor contracts, managing your guest list, creating a wedding registry, and designing a wedding website. These are all areas where we can help, so don’t hesitate to contact us!
MORE TIPS ON HOW TO START WEDDING PLANNING
We love sharing insights on how to start wedding planning! Check out some of our previous posts with more helpful tidbits as you get started on your planning. Once you’ve done that, we hope to hear from you with any other questions you might have!
Top 6 Wedding Must-Haves for the Newly Engaged
Completing the Wedding Planning Checklist
You should also download our helpful Wedding Planning Checklist to keep you on track at every stage of your wedding planning:
Be an Insider! Download our Wedding Planning Checklist.
JOIN THE JUST MARRY! FAMILY
If you’d like more personalized help with your wedding planning or would like to speak with one of our planners, e-mail us at info@justmarry.com and we’ll get back to you right away. We’d be happy to customize a planning option that will allow you to enjoy every moment of your planning and your wedding day!
The Inside Scoop is a series featuring insider tips from the Just Marry! team. In this series you’ll pick up helpful insights on everything from wedding planning to all Orlando has to offer. Be sure to stalk us on all of our social media platforms to discover different ways we address every topic in this series!
Engagement Kickstarter: How to Start Wedding Planning | Inside Scoop
