You’re Engaged ... Now what?

Congratulations! You’ve just gotten engaged and you’re riding the adrenaline high that transpires post ring. But now what? You might be tempted to set a date, frantically start the venue search or . . . start that guest list. Suddenly, overwhelm takes over and you’re frozen on what to do next.

Take a long deep breath. I have you. In a series of blogs to come, I’m going to tell you exactly what to do and in what order. Order matters greatly here, so take a pause before you start planning.

I can’t promise you are going to love this advice because it's not the most fun conversation to have, but it's the necessary conversation to have.

You have to set a budget.

The overwhelm might be starting to kick back in, but keep breathing, you’ve got this! You wouldn’t start a construction project without a budget, right? So why would you start planning the biggest event you’ll likely ever host without one? Too often couples move forward with “more exciting” tasks prior to setting a budget. I’ve seen this shake out many times before and what ends up happening is decisions are made to book vendors or a venue that might not actually line up with your overall budget and if this happens other areas will suffer.

No matter what your budget is, there is a perfect wedding for you. You just need to know what you are working with to get started down the right path. Light bulb moment, this is where hiring a planner comes incredibly handy. 

First, figure out who is contributing to the budget. I know this is not the most comfortable conversation to have if you believe parents might be contributing and oftentimes couples want to wait for parents to bring it up first– this is very understandable, but instead of waiting on a conversation that perhaps your parents have no idea needs to happen first try these conversations starters: 

“We are so excited to get started planning the wedding, but first we need to solidify our budget.” This gives parents an opportunity to open the door to offering financial assistance if it is available. 

“We heard from a local planner that we shouldn’t pick a date until we calculate our budget.” 

“We aren’t going to create a guest list until we know what our budget is, since the guestlist will be one of the biggest impacts on the budget.” 

The last one was my sly way of sneaking in some much needed information to you . . . let me say that again, the guest list will greatly impact the budget. Food and beverage will be your highest cost and that is directly related to how many guests you host. Let that soak in. We will talk about that more in the next blog.