Newly engaged...where to start?!

AndyBSG

These were most of the things we had to cover for our wedding.

- Wedding Date. A summer wedding will cost more. I've seen July weddings ruined because they paid the peak season premium and the whole wedding was planned around expected glorious weather only to be met by rain and that premium payment wasted.

- Venue

- Capacity

- Wedding cars

- Photographer(this is the one area I would advise not skimping on)

- Wedding dress(Buy new, second hand, or hire?)

- Bridesmaid attire(Do you include shoes, do you ask them to contribute, do you pay for their hair and makeup?)

- Groom/Best Man/Usher attire(Again, do they provide their own suits, do you hire suits for all of them)

- Bridal party gifts(Best man, usher, bridesmaids, mother of the bride and groom)

- Decide on investing in wedding insurance

- Cake

- Music(DJ or band for the evening and also the actual ceremony music)

- Honeymoon(make sure passports are up to date!)

- Hen/Stag parties

- Stationary. Table plans/invites/place cards. Are you going to send save the date cards or just invites nearer the time. Make your own or buy them(vistaprint actually offer reasonable cost effective invites)

- Reception drinks? Free bar?

- Catering. Buffet, full meal, table wine(supply your own or venue supplied?)

- Wedding rings

- Hair & Makeup supplier

- Table/venue decorations

- Flowers

- Other entertainment. Magicians, sweet stalls, etc. We had a lot of kids at our wedding so in the run up to it we went to the local B&M/Wilko's/etc and just picked up things like bubbles, crayons and pads and other little cheap knick knacks to keep the kids entertained.


Also, don't forget the hidden costs. We didn't initially think of things like meals for the photographer, cost of copies of the marriage certificate(you'll find one isn't enough when you have to send them to banks etc to register change of name), stamps to send out invites, also found myself forking out for a pizza delivery on the day because my Bride and her bridesmaids hadn't considered their need to eat during the 4 hours they spent getting hair and makeup done!

Zeni

Definitely start with the venue first. I did the same and went for a hotel and did everything in one place which was so much easier to deal with as less vendors etc and worked out a lot cheaper than if I had separate venues and transports costs etc.
Try and do as much research as possible - I used my county councils approved venue list to find out what venues we could get married in locally and then worked down the list and then looked them up online as a lot of have price/brochures on their websites. Then I made appointments to go and see the ones I liked to get a grasp of what kind of prices I would be looking at and the range of prices. Hope that helps as a start point!

arbrighton

And you can't sort registrar for civil ceremony without the venue!

ani*fan

Congratulations on your engagement! How exciting and fabulous in every way! I got engaged at Christmas, isn't it great?

I would say definitely work out first a rough idea of the kind of wedding i.e. who you will invite. I don't mean a guest list, I just mean that a register office with 4-5 guests is very different from a big bash with everyone you have ever known. Get a rough idea, family? All of them? Friends? Partners too? Me and OH decided on all of our families, cousins, the lot, and our closest friends and their partners. It worked out to be around 80 people so that's what we're working with. You're organising a big do for this amount of people.

After that, some venues will be out of the question, too big, too small, whatever. You don't want to be squashed in or rattling around in a giant hall somewhere. Find somewhere that you love, that means something to you both, but definitely somewhere everyone can be comfy in for a day. We looked at a few, some quite far away, adn decided on one right on our doorstep that is the perfect size. Get some quotes for wedding packages, see who's charging what, to help you make your decision. Then once you know where, SET THE DATE and get your deposit paid. This was the biggest hurdle, making sure all the most important people could manage that day, mums and dads, etc.

Then sit back and relax for a bit 'cos that's one huge part done.

I don't think it's possible to set a budget first. I have never organised anything like this before, so had no idea what the cost might be and what was realistic. A look on Bride magazine told me a wedding costs £24k. Yikes. You'll need to tweak your budget as you go but given you're posting on mse, I'm guessing you want it to be affordable. How much can you and OH afford to save before the big day? Will anyone be helping you? I would also say, steer well clear of wedding fairs and wedding planners, unless you have a limitless budget. Waste of money, imho.

Best of luck.

LadyAutumnFox

Congratulations, I am much in the same boat, newly engaged.

I'm considering an outdoor wedding in September, I wanted to keep the cost down but everything is just as expensive or difficult to find a smaller price.

Luckily I had bridesmaids who are married or were going to get married and know quite a lot.

Generally speaking don't use the word "Wedding" in your search as it hikes up the price. I have also downloaded some budget spreadsheets from online wedding sites. This is super helpful so you can guestimate what costs are and what costs actually are.