Congratulations on your engagement, I hope the proposal was magical, Down on one bended knee? Will you marry me? So now the big questions start, then stress levels are rising, and you need to start tying down some details, you may want to do everything at once, the time to fly by and the wedding day to arrive, however by ensuring everything is organised, or at least planned, you will save yourself a lot of wedding related stress. NWD Wedding have prepared some starting pointers for you to ensure you make the best start with your wedding planning.
Budget
Set a wedding budget. Very important before you start to set yourself some limits. It is very easy to let a wedding budget run out of control. Spiraling costs are all to common a tale. You need to decide if you will be funding the wedding yourself, if the finance is coming from the bride’s family, the groom’s family, or a combination of sources. It may be a good idea to set yourself up a spreadsheet to keep track of your planned costs. You could have a column with your estimated cost-of-item per person (make sure you research these, don’t just guess!). Then add a column for number of people/number of that item. Remember you may want to split adults and children numbers up on your spreadsheet if the costs differ. The final column is your total cost for that item, you just need to multiply the cost-per-item by the number of that item. You can add up the total to see if you meet your budget, or if you need to change the numbers etc. Editor’s Tip: Add a 10% slush fund to your budget to absorb any overspend
Guests
Look at the wedding guest list. Always a flash point for any Bride and Groom to be, and their families. It’s a good idea to only finalise the list of guests you will be inviting just before you actually send out the invitations, about 3 months before the big day. What you do need to do at this early stage is work out a rough guest list, only so you know rough numbers – this may then affect your choice of wedding ceremony venue, or wedding reception venue. Remember, this is only a rough list, it is not final, therefore it is not worth getting into any arguments about it!
Date
Maybe you’ve already set a date for your wedding day? Maybe there’s a special date you have in mind which means a lot to you both – an anniversary, a relation’s birthday, a bank holiday weekend? Some couples simply pick a day randomly – there’s nothing wrong with that! One Bride to be I know is hoping to secure the 8th of August 2008 – 08.08.08, now that is an anniversary your future husband/wife cannot forget. It’s a good idea to look at a sporting calendar to ensure there are no major clashes with your perfect day, you don’t want to find gentlemen rushing their wedding breakfast just to check the football score with the nearest waiter, or find a Tv. screen in the hotel somewhere.
Ceremony
Civil ceremony or religious ceremony? This may be a question that you already both know the answer to. You may be regular church-goers, and believe that a church is the only place to get married. You may have your heart set on getting married in the small friendly church, local to the bride’s parents. Most churches will display the telephone number of the local vicar or reverend, you can telephone them for an informal chat to find out how to start the whole process. This usually just involves meeting after a church service, or calling around to the vicarage or rectory one evening. If you have any questions or worries about Church, the ceremony, or marriage, please feel free to contact our very own NWD Wedding Resident Reverend; Jan Harney. Jan is available to answer any of your emails or phone calls and has her own Resident Rev blog. Your local register office will be able to give you a list of local venues where it is possible to perform a civil ceremony. These can include stately homes, agricultural colleges, register offices, castles, etc. Whichever venue you decide on for your ceremony, now is the time to make your minds up, confer with each other and your parents, and then take that step, make that telephone call, and book your venue.
Reception Venue
Before you both can relax, there is the small task of finding, choosing, and confirming your wedding reception venue. You’ve decided where you would like the wedding ceremony to be held, so now you need a wedding reception venue which is not too far away, is available, and can hold, seat, and cater for your number of guests. The best thing to do is to look through the list of reception venues we are building on NWD Wedding, purchase a copy of your local or regional wedding magazine, ask around and build a list of venues which are suitable in terms of distance from the wedding ceremony venue. The next step is to telephone each of the venues and check availability for your chosen date, and whether they have the capacity for your number of guests; both for the wedding breakfast, and the evening party (if that’s the format you’ve chosen). This should now provide you with a shortlist of venues to arrange to visit with your partner. You are likely to visit a venue a few times before committing to holding your wedding reception there. Once with your partner, probably a second time with partner and parents, and then again with the Best Man, and Maid of Honour. This is a good idea because others may need to see the venue, and meet the main staff to help your wedding reception be perfect. You may also just want to show them that you have found somewhere magical to celebrate the wedding.
Save the Date
Once you have your heart set on the date, the venue, and your booking is made, you may wish to notify those who are nearest and dearest. A good way to do this is to send out ‘Save the date’ cards just to let definite guests know your chosen day a little earlier. If you are well organised, you could combine this with your Christmas cards, saving on two amounts of postage.
Wedding Photographer/Videographer
Wedding photographers can be chosen on grounds of location, budget, and many other factors. Remember this is one of the most important days of your life, and you will want the photos and/or video to be your lasting memories. Because of these reasons, it is best to go for recommendation, word of mouth, and look through a selection of portfolios before making your decision. Wedding Videographers are becoming more popular, and in many ways are a better record of the day – and can prove to be very entertaining afterwards. I personally would highly recommend using a Wedding Videographer, as they capture all the scenes you never got to see on the day, the dancing, the music, and the atmosphere. They record the vows you make to each other.
Choose a colour scheme for your wedding
Having seen the wedding ceremony venue, and the reception venue, the bride may already have chosen her dress, now it’s time to select the colour scheme for your big day. This will then have affect on the wedding party’s wedding attire, the flowers, the table decorations etc. A good place to start for ideas are wedding magazines. When you find pictures of other people’s wedding days, their reception, their dresses etc., then tear out the pages, and create a colour board, or scrapbook. This will help remind you of all the little detail which you would like to include where possible. It will also help you to explain to your partner, the florist, and anyone else involved, the kind of scheme you’ve thought of, and help them to visualise the details in your mind.
People
Pick your cast; Best Man, Maid of Honour, Ushers, Bridesmaids, Who will be giving you away? It’s choosing the cast for your wedding day which can cause huge amounts of pleasure, excite the people you’ve asked, and offend those you haven’t. Don’t choose too early, as circumstances may change, and as you progress through the wedding planning stages, it will become clearer to you, the type of person you need to rely on for the day – may not necessarily be the person who you would automatically choose to be the Best Man or Maid of Honour. The role of the Best Man and Maid of Honour are to support you in the lead up to the wedding day, to make sure you are prepared for the day, and on the day. They are also the people who you will be relying on for the day to ensure everything goes according to plan.
The Bride and Groom tend to be quite busy on the day itself, so involve the Best Man and Maid of Honour throughout the process from now on – this way by the time the wedding day arrives, they won’t need to check details with you, they’ll know just what you would say! You can now draw out a list of people you would like to ask to be Ushers and Bridesmaids. These are quite often brothers and sisters of you both. This is an excellent way of involving your close family, and making them all feel part of the day, not just guests. The Ushers will form the Best Man’s crew for the day and will need to be willing to take instruction as such. It is a good idea to have someone from each family, and one from your group of friends. This way everyone of your guests will have a friendly face they know on arrival at your wedding. Will the Bride’s father be the person to give the bride away? Maybe the step-father? This is the normal approach, however it is not always the best option, or not possible. This is an honour of the highest level from the Bride, and although only a ceremonial appointment, the person who gives the Bride away will feel very proud, and will treasure the moment forever. If the Bride’s father is not a viable option, then maybe select a brother, the Groom’s father, or a family friend.
Wedding Flowers
Present your colour scheme colour-board, or scrap book to a number of local florists, and ask them for their advice on what floral arrangements would be suitable, or which flowers are available for your day, or seasonal. Explain your budget for flowers to them, and ask them to try and maximise the appearance for the money you have to spend. If your wedding ceremony is to be held in a Church, you may find that the Church already has someone who does the flowers for them and will arrange your wedding day flowers for you for a very reasonable price. It may also be the case that you are not the only wedding on your chosen day – and you can share the flowers, and the cost of the flowers with another couple. Remember to check the date and time of day your flowers will be delivered. You won’t want them too early otherwise they may wilt, but you won’t want to be waiting for them to arrive either.
Wedding Cake
You may have fixed in your mind the type of wedding cake you are looking for and just need to find a wedding cake maker. Again it may be time to flick through those wedding magazines for ideas, inspiration, and pictures for your scrapbook. One couple I know had their cake made by the local bakery. It’s not necessarily the first place that springs to mind for wedding cakes, however the result was a beautiful cake, made by experts who make cakes every day, for a fraction of the normal cost – and it was to the Bride’s own design.
Wedding Transport
How will the Bride and Father of the Bride get to the Church or Ceremony Venue? How will the Bridesmaids get to the Ceremony? You need to arrange transport, whether that means the Father of the Bride driving, a friend of the family, or a chauffeured classic car. The Best Man will be responsible for arranging transport of him and the Groom. If you attend local Wedding Show’s then you will quite often find that stationed outside the front door, or in the car park, there are a number of Wedding Cars parked for you to have a look around, sit in, and chat to the driver. Remember you will want someone you an rely on to be on time, to keep the vehicle clean (so as to protect the Wedding Dress), and you will probably want the the vehicle to just ‘look good’ for the wedding photos. Wedding Cars can get booked up quite quickly, so it’s a good idea to decide early and get it booked!
Wedding Attire
Bride’s Dress, Groom’s Suit, Best Man’s Suit, Father of the Bride’s Suit, Ushers’ suits, Bridesmaids’ Dresses, Father of the Groom’s Suit. These form your main Wedding Party and you will probably want to arrange for them all to look similar for dramatic effect – for the photos, for the wedding guests. You don’t have to hire suits for all the Ushers etc. You may just choose to ask them all to wear their own black suits, white shirts, and you will provide them with a tie each which matches your colour scheme. You may need to order your suits/dresses early, but remember to leave time closer to the day for fittings and measurements. This would normally be 6 weeks before for suit hire, and maybe up to 3 months prior for Bridesmaids’ dresses.
Find accommodation list for guests
Contact the relevant local tourist office, they will normally be happy to provide a local accommodation list of hotels, bed and breakfasts, guest houses, etc. for you. You can also ask your wedding reception venue for their advice – where do guests normally stay? You can try to negotiate a special discount rate for bulk bookings – but remember you already have a lot on organising and planning a wedding – it might be best just to leave your guests to arrange their own accommodation.
Confirm Guest list and send Wedding Invitations
3 months before the Wedding Day is a good time to send out your Wedding Invitations, it gives people enough time to organise accommodation, time off work if necessary, etc. You need to sit down with your partner and both sets of parents (not necessarily all together) and decide on the final guest list. Will cousins be invited? Is it close family only? Do you want a third of the guests to be Bride’s family, a third Groom’s family, and a third your friends? You need to know the maximum capacity for your ceremony and reception venues, and if there are minimum numbers you need for discounts on room hire etc. Once the list is agreed, the Wedding Stationery chosen, and the post office raided of stamps, then the long process of name spell checking, address finding, and hours of writing begin. It is normal for the Mother of the Bride to write and send the wedding invitations.
Enjoy it
Remember to enjoy every moment, and that includes the wedding planning process – the next few months will fly by very fast
This is by no means a complete to-do list for organising a wedding, however it is meant to give you a good structure to work from. Please have a look through the various categories of articles we have here on NWD Wedding, each item on this wedding planning list will be covered in far greater detail within their individual areas. Please do leave comments about other things to consider which you feel are important and I may have missed off. You can add you comments by clicking on the ‘add comment’ link at the top of this article.
