The romantic proposal is over, you have a beautiful engagement ring on your finger and you’ve told all your family and friends, but what now? It’s time to start planning your big day.
Getting engaged is only the beginning of what can seem like an exciting, yet stressful task of planning your own wedding.
There are some basic decisions to be made- where to get married, who to invite and the maximum amount of money you want to spend.
Initially, your wedding budget is the main factor you need to consider for pretty much everything!
You need to take in to account the ushers and bridesmaids, young or old!
Then there is the food- do you imagine a seated meal would go down better than a buffet?
Of course, all these things need to be discussed with your fiancé before any final decisions are made, but brace yourself for disagreements from relatives.
Disagreements from relatives can add emotional stress to the planning, but one of the most important things you need to remember is not to get so carried away that your fiancé feels uninvolved. You both need to be on the same page, which creates more of a united front and in turn supports you, as the main wedding planner.
There are so many things to consider when planning a wedding! It is always a good idea to write everything down in a journal and break it down into manageable chunks.
A technique for a stress free wedding, specially advised by professional wedding planners is to ban the word ‘perfect’ from your vocabulary. Think about weddings you have been invited to in the past- was it ‘perfect’? Were the couple still amazingly happy?
All these aspects can make you realise that the ‘perfect’ wedding doesn’t mean choosing options that please everyone else.
Another important (and sometimes expensive) factor to take in to consideration on your big day is the flowers. They are always a beautiful feature to any wedding but can sometimes be pricey, damaging your budget more than you expected. Shop around before you make any decisions, try out local florists as well, as they can usually suggest cost-effective ways of using blooms.
The wedding photography market is growingly vastly as passionate photographers are seizing the opportunity to turn a hobby in to a profession. Before booking a photographer for your big day, it is important to see a portfolio of their work, specifically a whole wedding album of a wedding they’ve already photographed.
Saving the best till last in many women’s case, is the dress. Depending on the venue for the wedding, there are a great range of wedding dresses available, with gorgeous boutiques on almost every high street. Your venue has a huge impact on your dress. Do you picture your ideal venue to be a beautiful old country house with wild flowers and a vintage edge? Then you will probably be looking for a vintage inspired cream dress with soft lace. Would you love to get married in the city? Then a fitted, yet elegant dress with a small split on one leg could be the sexy finishing touch you were looking for.
Either way, there are dresses to fit almost every build or complexion, so buying a wedding dress should be the least stressful and daunting part of planning your own wedding – enjoy it, you only do it once!
Now the relaxation really starts! The honeymoon- a picturesque skiing resort iced with snow or a scorching beach lined with golden sand? The choice is yours.