Hi Everyone!
I’m so excited to share my experience and thoughts with all of you via my blog! As a professional in the industry and a current bride myself – I feel like I have a unique insight into the planning process. Everything I share with you all comes from either situations I have experienced as a professional or from my own experience in planning my wedding! With this first blog post, I want to share about what to do after you’re engaged!
Before starting to plan - I highly recommend that you take a week or two to just enjoy being engaged before jumping into the process! This is such an exciting time for you and your fiancée and you want to savor every moment. The first step that I think every couple should take is to sit down together and realistically discuss your budget. It isn’t the sexiest conversation or the most fun part of the process but it is SO important. When I asked my fiancée what his expectations on a budget were – we quickly realized that there was a $20,000 difference in what each of us was expecting to spend. That is huge! By having the discussion at the beginning of the process and creating a budget we both agreed on, we were able to avoid arguments later on.
If you're parents are willing to pay for some or all of the wedding, make sure you also discuss budgets with them! It is very important that all parties contributing to the wedding are on the same page from the get go! Trust me - it will save you from issues down the road!
After establishing our overall budget, we discussed what the three most important pieces we were willing to spend a bit more on and then where we could save (I’ll write another blog post about picking your important factors). Once we had all of this established, I started to research and request proposals from venues. Since I had my budget in mind, if a venue proposal came in far above what I was willing to spend, I ruled that option out. This process really helped me narrow down my top 3 choices before going on site visits to make our ultimate selection. The venue selection is really the first big step as until you have a date and a venue, you really can’t go any further.
As a professional planner, I would love to help you find the venue of your dreams and embark on the process with you! I’m always happy to hear from you all and answer questions you may have!
With love,
Alyssa Jean