Wedding Wednesday: First Things First

In honor of my sister's upcoming nuptials, I've decided to start a blogging series on weddings and wedding planning (because I heart weddings). I tried to journal during the planning of my own wedding, but was marginally successful at best, so this is my attempt to remedy that. Plus, I now have one wedding under my belt, so I feel more confident in sharing advice on things that did (and didn't!) work. I hope this can be kind of a "behind the scenes" look at wedding planning; I plan to gloss over a lot of the basic timing guidelines and tips because, well, you can go about anywhere on the internet and find a variety of guides and timelines and other things (The Knot is a great resource with a timeline customizable to your wedding date; eleGALA has a nice, printable workbook that you can use as well as another customizable timeline). Instead, I hope to give you some tips and tricks to make the whole process go a little bit more smoothly--because looking at a to-do list with 284 items on it can seem pretty overwhelming!

Where I want to start today is the basics, the first considerations to make after saying "yes". While the thought of planning a wedding may seem daunting to some, you can't get anywhere if you don't know where to start!

First Things First

The first three things that you and your new fiance need to roughly determine are, in no particular order:

--Budget
--Guest List
--Approximate wedding date/season

The order in which you will determine these will mostly likely depend on which is the most important element. If you know that the budget is going to be limited, that will likely affect the number of guests you invite (more guests = more expensive) and the timing of the wedding (traditionally, peak season weddings--summer in most places--are more expensive than non-peak weddings). However, if you are dead set on having a massive party with as many guests as you want, then the budget will have to be increased adjusted accordingly. And obviously, without a wedding date, it will be near-impossible to secure the other vendors that you will need for your wedding. Plus, knowing the season will help you determine what we'll be talking about next week--the theme/color scheme!