Start Planning!

Congratulations you are engaged to be married!

This may be your first experience of planning a wedding or you may have helped a friend or relative with their wedding. Whatever your experience your dream wedding will take very careful planning. There are certain things you will need to consider at this early stage and will help you start your wedding planning process:

1. The first thing you both need to do is decide on a date when you would like to be married, what month and year. Be flexible with the date as the venue you set your heart on may not be available the day you want it and you may have to change to a date as near as possible. Do consider family and friends commitments if you really want them at your wedding.

2. Decide if you are going to plan your wedding yourself and whether you have the time available with your work and leisure schedules to commit at least 250 hours to plan your wedding.

3. You both have to settle on a budget for your wedding celebrations based on who is paying for your wedding, the style and theme of the wedding you want and what you can realistically afford. A wedding planner will take care of this aspect for you and manage your spending throughout the planning process to keep your expenditure on track.

4. Decide on the style of the wedding you want, where you want to get married, your preferred time of day and have a rough idea of how may guests you want to invite as this will determine the type of venue you select.  

5. As the most popular venues get booked up early you should select a venue as soon as possible to accommodate your guest numbers and complement your wedding vision. Off peak and any day other than Saturdays will usually be cheaper and often discounted.

The sooner you can start your planning the better and most weddings take approximately 9 months to one year to plan. If you hire a professional to help you in the planning and co-ordination of your wedding you will find that most of the stress is taken away from you and you are ensuring that everything goes to plan and runs smoothly.