What should I do first after I get Engaged?
A very common question you may ask! What should I do first after I get Engaged?
Right after Engagement, you are fully in love! You want to dive into Wedding Planning, but don’t know where to exactly begin. The first steps after you get engaged in the Wedding Planning Process, is to decide if you want to hire a Full Service Wedding Planner or plan most of the Wedding yourself. If you want to hire a Full Service Wedding Planner, reach out to Wedding Planners in the area with experience, and go from there. Go with the Wedding Planner that you feel most connected to and could trust with one of your biggest days of your life! If you decide not to hire a Full Service Wedding Planner, you may change your mind down the road, or decide on just a Day Of Coordinator to manage the Full Wedding Day. Once you make that big decision, then you can proceed onto booking your biggest vendors: Venue, Photographer & Catering.
Booking a Venue secures your Wedding Date. After Engagement, spend some time touring venues that you love in the area you would like to get married in. Once you fall in love with a venue, proceed to the booking process with them and this confirms the Time & Place for the Wedding! The next vendor you will want to proceed into booking is your Photographer. Photographers book out fairly quickly, and a majority of them can only book one Wedding a day. If Photos are a big deal to you on Wedding day, then you will want to finalize a Photographer that fits your vibe, that you like their artwork, and that you could trust with this big job! Moving onto booking a Caterer, food is pretty important on Wedding day, and one of the biggest things that guests remember from past Weddings. These 3 Vendors + your Wedding Planner and/or Day Of Coordinator take up the biggest chunk of your Budget for the Wedding. Having these vendors booked ahead of time, and being able to see how much is left in your budget, and where you would like to put it, gives you a clearer overall image for the Wedding Day.
Another thing to begin brainstorming shortly after Engagement is Save the Dates! After you finalize that Venue, the Where and When, you have all the information you need to send out Save the Dates. We recommend sending them out about 8-12 Months in advance to the Wedding Day, to give your guests an advance announcement on When and Where your Wedding will be taking place. Save the Dates are definitely not required! If you are on a tight budget, I would recommend skipping out on Save the Dates to save some money here and there. There are multiple ways you are able to create them as well, from homemade through sites like Canva, The Knot, Minted, and Zola, to designed by professional stationery artists around town.
These are my personal recommendations for the first steps to do after your Engagement! Enjoy the Engagement, throw an Engagement party, begin to have fun touring and falling in love with Venues, finalize that Date and Location, start to book your Wedding Planner, Photographer and Caterer, and begin to brainstorm your Save the Dates if you are interested in passing those out. Overall, enjoy your engagement, for at the end of the day, it is all about you and your other half, beginning your forever together!
