Are you newly engaged?! Congratulations!!! Being engaged is SO exciting!! You’re in love, your man wants to spend the rest of his life with you, and you just can’t control your excitement! After you’ve called everyone and told your proposal story a thousand times you you realize… I have to plan a wedding!!! You need some wedding planning tips!

Planning a wedding can be stressful! But we’re here to help. 🙂 The best thing to do is to make a list of what you need to do and then slowly tackle it. You definitely do NOT want to try to tackle everything all at once! There are big things that need to be settled on early in your engagement, but the rest of it is really pretty flexible! In fact, Stephanie & I both planned our weddings in REALLY short amounts of time. We’re talking 2 months or less!

We’ve been there before, and we know how stressful it can be. Our goal is to help our brides plan their wedding as easily as possible! So we will be writing some blog posts on wedding planning tips to help you out! Today we’re sharing the first 5 things you should do after getting engaged!

Wedding Planning Tips – What to Do After Getting Engaged

1. CELEBRATE!!!

We know you’re doing this already, but it doesn’t hurt to emphasize it! The first thing you should do is celebrate and enjoy the moment with your brand new fiancé. Don’t worry about planning right at the beginning! Share the news with your friends, your family, and show off that brand new diamond ring! Take a while to soak it in without the craziness of wedding planning! Enjoy being in this stage of your life because it goes by SO fast!

2. DECIDE ON A DATE

This part is tougher than you think!!! Christi’s wedding date got changed multiple times before we finally settled on a date. Have patience during this process because it is often difficult to get both families to agree on a date for the wedding! Once you decide on your date and it works for your families, relax! There will be people that can’t attend, and some of those people you will be extra sad about! Don’t sweat that stuff though! The important thing is that you and your fiancé will tie the knot.

3. BOOK YOUR VENUE

After you’ve picked your date, the first thing you want to look into is finding a venue! Venues fill up so far in advance! Sometimes they can be booked a year or more in advance! If you’re having a shorter engagement, you may not be able to get married in the venue that you always envisioned. But you know what? That’s okay! Your wedding day will be picture perfect even if you end up with a different venue than you thought!

4. BOOK YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER

After you’ve picked a date and a venue, the next thing that you want to do is book your photographer. Like venues, photographers are often booked a year or more in advance! Our average bride has a 6-month engagement, so we tend to get bookings six months in advance. Other brides choose to have a longer engagement and other photographers fill up 1-2 years in advance! Do not wait until the last minute to pick a photographer. The longer you wait to book your photographer, the less likely you are to get a photographer you love!

5. BOOK A PLANNER/COORDINATOR

We HIGHLY recommend working with a planner or coordinator for your wedding! Some venues offer day-of coordinators, but they are usually just there to make sure everything is okay at the venue. If you really want help during the planning process, you’ll want to book a planner! We recommend Allie from Katharine Marie Weddings. She’s AMAZING!

If you don’t need help planning but know you’ll want help coordinating the wedding, then book a coordinator! Your wedding coordinator will make sure everyone knows what time to get to the venue and be ready for photos. The coordinator will also make sure the vendors arrive on time. Not only that, they’ll help make sure your wedding party knows when it’s time to enter during the ceremony. There is SO MUCH that goes into making sure a wedding goes off smoothly that you do not want to miss having a planner or coordinator!

And then…. Relax!!!!

Some of the toughest decisions in the wedding planning process are picking your date, venue, photographer, and coordinator/planner! Once you’ve got that out of the way, you can celebrate again and relax!!! The other items like colors, food, music, etc. are less important to plan right away. Our biggest piece of advice for anyone planning a wedding is to relax!

Stressing over the decisions that need to be made is simply NOT worth it! We know first hand that it can be hard to juggle what you want, what your mom wants, what your friend thinks you should do, what your grandma thinks is best, etc. The important thing is to stay focused on what matters: you are getting married and you should be enjoying this time of your life! The details will work themselves out and they aren’t worth adding stress to your life!

WOOHOO! As always, if you have any questions at all, let us know! We would love to help answer ANY questions you have about the wedding planning process.

Ready to book your photographer or need more wedding planning tips? Contact us today!

Happy Planning,

– Stephanie & Christi

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