The season of engagement is full of Pinterest browsing, playlist making, and arguing over which of your mom’s friends will make the cut on your guest list…🙄

HERE ARE THE THREE THINGS WE RECOMMEND EVERY NEWLY-ENGAGED COUPLE DO TO START PLANNING THEIR DREAM WEDDING:

1. Identify The Top Priorities For Your Wedding

This is the secret to everything in wedding planning!

PICK WHAT'S IMPORTANT TO YOU.

• Is it your dress? 

• That Instagrammable couch for your portraits? (If so, feel free to start browsing now😉)

• The most delicious food and drinks for 200 of your closest friends? 

• The ultimate dance party at your reception?

When you identify the moments you most want to experience - you'll have the direction on where to focus.

This is the best place to start planning and will make every decision easier.

2. Set A Budget for Your Wedding

Setting a budget is by far one of the most difficult parts of wedding planning, but you can't officially make any other decisions until you have one!

HAVING A SMALL BUDGET DOESN’T LIMIT YOUR EVENT - IT HELPS GUIDE IT.

Find out how much you have to work with, and then use your priorities to allocate fractions of your budget to each area.

It’s normal to not know the cost of many of the vendors, services, and items you’re budgeting for in event planning. It’s new territory, but the good news is that beautiful weddings can happen with any size budget.

Having a budget in place, even if there’s some wiggle room, before you start meeting with vendors will be a tremendous help. And don’t underestimate the value of a budget “range” when meeting with your wedding vendors.

Helping your vendors understand your budget will allow them to give you creative suggestions, and direct you to best ideas to make your ideas come to life.

3. Choose Your Wedding Venue

Your venue will affect nearly everything else you plan.

When you're deciding on a venue, there are a few things to take into consideration:

• How far are people willing to travel?

• Will you be okay with the possibility of a rainy ceremony if you're outside? (We've seen it and it's beautiful. Don’t believe us? Click here.)

• How many people will you need to accommodate?

• Is there enough space at the altar for your bridal party?

• Are you allowed to bring in your own vendors?

Use your list of priorities to help you find a venue that answers “yes” to all of your dream wedding must-haves. 

Let’s Review: The First 3 Things To Do In Wedding Planning

1. GET YOUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT

2. SET A BUDGET (OR RANGE) TO GUIDE YOUR PLANNING

3. CHOOSE & BOOK YOUR WEDDING VENUE

   BONUS: Toast to yourself often ‘cause you deserve it.\

Phew, Now You Can Move On To More Fun Parts of Wedding Planning & Start Dreaming About Your Day.

Getting started can be overwhelming, but these first three decisions will help every decision afterwards feel less stressful and more inline with what you truly want.

Now that you’ve gotten started, how about you begin to dream more and browse all the pretty things you may need…

*Cue the cozy pj’s and a glass of wine.