Your Tasks to Complete 12 Months Before Your Wedding

I'm here to talk to you today about what to do when you're just getting started with wedding planning. On the resources page you'll find a handy 12 months checklist that is a great way to get you started while you're working through your wedding planning process. If you're right at the beginning and you just got engaged, first of all congratulations! This is such an exciting time but it can also feel very overwhelming, “Oh my goodness I have a wedding to plan and I've never done this before and I don't really know what I'm doing!” 

I'm going to help guide you through some easy steps to take month by month to get you down the aisle to say “I do!” There are a couple things I want you to start with. First I always encourage people to consider hiring a planner or just reach out to me to chat. There's plenty of places on my website to book a chat and we can just get started by hearing what your hopes and dreams are for your big day. I'm always happy to share some tips and tricks, but you also might find that some of my services like Planner Dates or my We Do Workshops are a great way to give you the little bit of help you need to feel good and confident about what you need to do. 

Next, you should start by thinking about a wedding budget. Weddings come in so many shapes and sizes so get really serious about what kind of investment this is going to be for you, your partner and maybe the families involved. I've seen weddings that are beautiful for $10,000 and I've seen weddings that are beautiful for $40,000. There are ways of going about it in between those budget ranges. Again on my resources page I do have a budget planner that you can use to start filling in some estimates. I recommend you start with your top priorities of what is going to make your wedding day perfect. Personally for me I was all about the flowers and all about the dress so I did some research on what type of investment I needed in those two areas before I moved on to filling in cost for other things. Think about what your big day is and your top three priorities and do a little bit of research on the investment you're going to need to get exactly what you want for those areas and then from there start filling in the rest of the blanks. 

Now you want to start thinking about a guest list for your wedding. How big is this wedding going to be? Are we doing a small intimate wedding, maybe under 50 or 75? Or are we doing a big wedding over 200? Start compiling your guest list with the people you know absolutely have to be at your wedding for it to be your special day. Then you can start to think of the people that you need to invite because either they're family or just a certain acquaintance that you know has to be on the list. Then start making some groups of people that would be nice to have but you don't necessarily need to have them. You now have some tiered breakdowns of what your guest count could look like. Your must-haves might land you at a hundred, adding another tier of people might get you closer to 150, and a final threshold might all of a sudden push you close to 300. 

You can use this guest list and think about it in tandem with your budget because there is the concept of cost per person at a wedding. When you're configuring cost per person you want to think about things that add up for every person you invite. They need a meal, they're probably going to have some drinks, they're going to sit in a chair, they’re going to be at a table, they're going to have a napkin, they're going to have silverware, they're going to have a place card, they might have a favor and so on. All those little odds and ends start adding up to what we call cost per person. Figuring out what your cost per person is going to be based on your wedding style will help you understand if I add 20 more people I can expect to see my budget increase by this many dollars. 

The last thing you can start to think about is whether or not you're planning on having an engagement party or really any other celebrations along for the ride. Bridal showers, bachelorette parties and get the wheels turning on what those additional celebrations are going to be over the next coming months. Hopefully these tips help you get started and help you focus on where you need to be right now. You've got that ring on your finger and you're ready to go! You've got this and don't forget I'm right here so if you ever need, help reach out for a chat and we can get a Planner Date going or of course we can build a package that is tailored to exactly the help you need to during your wedding planning process. 

Congrats again! Your happily ever after is going to be here before you know it!