What if I told you you’ve been planning your wedding out of order? You’d laugh, right? There’s so much information on wedding planning out there that you couldn’t possibly have gotten some misinformation… right?
I promise I’m not trying to make you nervous! There’s so many awesome resources out there for wedding planning. For the most part they’re great! They cover all the expenses you may not have thought of and mention all the logistics that you never knew about. I was a bride once and I planned and executed my own wedding without a professional planner (I would NOT recommend that, btw) and I used all of those spreadsheets and read all of those articles. They’re great! But what they didn’t prepare me for was the order I should have been planning everything in. Here’s the order I wish someone would have told me about before I started putting down deposits:
Get a vision – Pinterest ftw!
Select ideal vendors
Get quotes (Yep! Quotes FIRST!)
Set a budget then set a date
Hire the planner
Plan the wedding
The most important step is to get quotes before setting a budget. Here’s why: you’ve likely never planned a wedding before. You likely don’t know how much things cost and you may have sticker shock on a few items. This can leave you reeling! Before setting a date, gather quotes from your favorite venues, planners, photographers, and videographers. You may find that in order to have the wedding you imagined you need to push back your date and save some more money. Or, you might adjust your expectations on the services you can realistically afford and press on with a sooner date. Go in to planning knowing exactly what you need to make your dreams come true, then start booking. That is my #1 wedding planning tip for you!
xoxo