YOU’RE ENGAGED!!! Ahh, what an exciting season! 🎉 We are so thrilled that you found the love of your life and that you’re on this journey to plan your wedding!
Planning a wedding is a fun but busy season, so we wanted to give you a general guide of how to book vendors and walk you through what you need to do… and when! Every couple’s timeline is different but, no matter how long you have to plan, this order of steps will still apply!
Sound good?!
ALSO, a little preface: The biggest thing to remember when you’re planning a wedding is that you are getting to marry the love of your life! Legally, you only need an officiant, a few witnesses, and a marriage license to get married. Everything else –the food, the dress, the décor, the flowers, the photographer - is secondary and makes the day fun, but the MOST important thing is that you two are committing to loving and serving each other for the rest of your lives! There are lots of decisions when it comes to planning a wedding, but as long as you’ve chosen the right life partner for you the rest is all just extra and fun.
OK, so with that being said…
AHH, YOU JUST GOT ENGAGED! So, what’s next?!
1. Set a budget and determine your priorities: Decide how much you want to spend on your wedding overall. Maybe do some initial vendor research to get idea of how much things cost where you live so that your budget is reasonable! Then, sit down with your love and have a chat about what things matter the most to you about your wedding day! Do you want your guests to be served an incredible 5-course dinner? Do you want to have a one-of-a-kind dress or an amazing photographer? Determining your priorities will help you decide on what really matters, and then you can use more of your budget towards those things and less of it towards the aspects of the wedding that don’t matter to you both as much.
2. Create a rough guest list: Decide who you want to invite! You don’t need to know an exact number or anything, but make sure to have an idea so that you can look at venues that will fit the amount of guests that you expect to have!
3. Hire a wedding planner (if desired): A wedding planner will be able to gather your style, budget, and vision, and then recommend vendors and details for your day based on your preferences!
Next…(10-12 Months before the Wedding)
4. Start dress shopping: Make a few appointments at bridal boutiques and try on some dresses! Sometimes it can take a while to find a dress you love, and sometimes it takes a while for the dress to be shipped into the store! So, it’s best to start the dress shopping earlier rather than later!
5. Book a venue and send save-the-dates: Besides a wedding planner, venue is the first thing to do! Some venues have a coordinator that’s included in their package to help your day run smoothly and help you in the preparations! Once you know the venue and the date, send out save-the-dates so that your guests are aware and have the day in their calendars!
6. Book key vendors: Book a photographer, videographer, officiant, and caterer. The rest can be done closer to the wedding, but these are the main ones that book up early!
7. Do engagement photos: It’s great to schedule a session with your wedding photographer once you’ve booked them! The photos can be used for your wedding invitations, your wedding website, and are such a fun way to celebrate your engagement season.
Next…(6-9 Months before the Wedding):
8. Decide on colours and finalize attire: Let your bridal party know what you want them to wear and finalize your wedding dress/suit to be sure that it all arrives in time!
9. Meet with your officiant: Discuss the specifics of your ceremony with your officiant! Decide on readings, how you will do your vows, and music.
10. Book all the other vendors: Book your baker, florist, decorator, hair stylist, make-up artist, DJ, etc.
5-6 Months before the Wedding
11. Send invitations and make a wedding website: Mail/email out your wedding invitations. Lots of couples make wedding websites and share the URL on their invitation. The website is a great place for your guests to find all the details about your wedding day and for them to find your registry!
12. Purchase your wedding rings: Find wedding rings that you love! They typically take a little while to arrive, so we recommend doing this sooner rather than later.
1-2 Months before the Wedding
13. Create a day-of timeline: Share with vendors and bridal party. (PS: this is something we work on at our coffee meeting together!)
14. Write your vows (if personal): Make yourself a coffee or tea, get cozy, and write what you want to say to your person on your wedding day. (Tip: It’s a great idea to agree on how long you want your vows to be roughly, maybe a paragraph, or a page? You probably don’t want one person to have a paragraph and the other to have 10-pages! So to avoid that awkward situation, it’s a good idea to agree on a general length that you will both stick to.)
15. Get a marriage license: If you’re getting married in BC, here are the details about how and where to get your marriage license: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/life-events/marriage/marriage-licences. This is the part that makes it all legal and official!
1-2 Weeks before the Wedding
16. Confirm details with vendors: It’s a great idea to send a “final” email out to all your vendors including your timeline, everyone’s contact information, and any other details so that everyone is on the same page! If you have a wedding planner, they will likely do this for you.
17. Delegate tasks and make last-minute decisions: Assign responsibilities to trusted friends or family. Things to think about are who will be driving the bridal party around, how will the florals be transported, who will have the veil, where will your reception dress be stored, etc.
18. Enjoy the week of your wedding! Your wedding week is HERE! We hope that you’re able to soak in this time with your fiancé(e), friends, and family. We hope that these steps will help you get things done early so that the week of your wedding isn’t stressful but is a time to pamper yourself instead! Get a mani-pedi, go for Starbucks with friends, go shopping for a cute honeymoon outfit, and get so excited for the lifelong journey you’re about to begin!
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