Tell your nearest and dearest, then work out from there
I’m sure you have probably already done this but just in case, it is best to start letting those closest to you know before posting on social media. You want to be the one to tell your parents, siblings, grandparents and besties instead of Facebook. So get on that phone and do the dialling! You can do this straight after the fact or busk in your private engaged bliss for a few days. Remember that eventually everyone is going to find out, it will be common knowledge that you are engaged, and there will be expectations floating around about attending your special day. Don’t commit too early to people you aren’t sure will make your final guest list, it will save any awkward conversations later on!
Have an engagement party
Totally up to you if you decide to have one, some do some don’t. We didn’t mainly because we had just started building a house so had absolutely no spare cash to spend on one and didn’t want our friends and family paying for the costs associated either. We live in Marlborough and knew that for our wedding everyone was going to have to travel so wanted to save them some coin. If we had more people living in our town we most definitely would have had a celebration! An engagement party doesn’t have to be a big party with a venue hired and a caterer doing canapes, it can be pizza and drinks at your house, a dinner out at a restaurant or a few drinks down at the pub. There are no rules when it comes to weddings so you might as well learn that as early as you can in the planning process.
Begin to look into your realistic budget
As much as you can plan and Pinterest away, at the end of the day it always comes back to costings and how it will fit into your overall budget. You can start to research vendors in the area you want to get married, construct an estimate budget that you can work from when booking vendors and from here work out how long you might need to save for before the wedding. This can be helpful when it comes to setting a wedding date, you might want a short engagement but realistically if you can’t afford to pay for the wedding you want in only 5 months, you will either need to change the wedding you had in mind or choose a date further out to allow for you to save the extra cash.
If you have family members that want to contribute to the wedding costs, this is the ideal time to sit them down and have a constructive conversation. Make sure everyone is on the same page as to what their budget might be, how much they want to contribute and if there are any strings attached. They might want to add a couple of their friends to the guest list or have their money pay for a specific aspect of the wedding. It is better to get these things out in the open now than get further into the planning process, you don’t want to book a $5k photographer but your parents, who are paying for the photographer, have a $3k budget in mind. If you aren’t good at budgets I would highly recommend getting help from a family member, friend or wedding planner to help. With a planner, it will cost for their services but seriously they can save you thousands in the long run making sure you don’t overspend on things that aren’t important to you and won’t be biased or try to convince you into something you might not want.
Set your date
Woohoo! This is the coolest thing to do. It sets everything in stone and from here you can start locking in vendors, creating save the dates and invites and most importantly, when people ask if you have a date set, which they will because we are all nosey parkers that love weddings, you finally can say yes! There are many things that can contribute to helping you choose the right date, if you have your heart set on a particular venue or vendor it is best to check with them any potential dates they have available and choose your date from there. You might want to choose it spontaneously out of a hat or throwing a dart at a year calendar. You might want to be romantic and have a date that already means something to you, or be like my husband and go with one that is easily remembered. Either way you will be able to find the perfect day, and remember, there are no rules! It doesn’t have to be a Saturday, it doesn’t have to be in summer, it can be whenever the heck you want it to be!
Don’t forget to be excited!
You’re engaged! In the near future you will be married to your best friend! Enjoy that feeling and don’t let it go, because at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
Happy planning!
Ash xx