Congratulations on your engagement. You’re on cloud 9, you’ve retold the proposal story a hundred times and you and your future spouse can’t stop talking about the future and your ‘big day’. But just how do you plan a wedding, and where should you begin?

Dream Big
Yes, you have permission to start dreaming about your wedding!  Go wild, what would you choose if money was no object?

Suss out your style
Buy a variety of different wedding magazines, start a Pinterest board, and browse wedding blogs to get a feel for the kind of wedding you want.  The style of wedding you want is likely to evolve over time, but it can have a big impact on other parts of the day, such as venue, so it’s important to get a good idea early on.

Think of a date
Think about which season you’d like to marry in and what year.  Are there any special dates that mean something to you both as a couple?  Must it be a weekend, or will you consider midweek (which could be considerably cheaper for venue hires)

Who to invite
It goes without saying that you’re going to want to invite all your friends, family and work colleagues to your special day – but wait until you’ve crunched some numbers before you start verbally telling everyone they’re invited – every guest has a price to their head! A rough number of guests is necessary for when you start shortlisting venues

Budget
The average UK wedding costs £20k, but you can spend considerably less or more – what can you afford? Are you paying for the wedding or will family be contributing? Figure out what money you have saved, and what you plan to save leading up to the wedding. 

Venue
Start discussing the type of venue you want and ideally the location.  Will it be where you live now, or where one of you was bought up?

Get Pinning
Pinterest is great for bringing all your ideas together.  As planners we  love it – sometimes it is clear a clients verbal description of what they want for their wedding is very different to the visual description.  Having Pinterest will help formulate your ideas when speaking with designers (stationers, planners, florists, cake makers) for your wedding. You can easily create private boards and show just key people involved in the wedding – keep the big reveal for your guests until the day itself.

Plan it together
Try to plan your wedding together, after all you are entering the ultimate partnership as a married couple, so start as you mean to go on and learn the art of compromising! The wedding day should end up being a culmination of both your ideas and personalities.  It’s also important not to lose sight of what the day is about – you as a couple – you will not be able to please everyone!

Photo by Simon Carr