Newly engaged and clueless!

[misssjw]

Hi all

So - my partner popped the question and I have no idea where to begin with wedding planning. My parents have both never been married, my close friends are all not married and I don't know where to start. I haven't been to a wedding for years so I don't even know what to expect really. I'm so excited but all of the information online is overwhelming.

Can anyone recommend any good apps or ways to begin to organise things? To avoid drip feeding, I know I only want a small wedding (around 30 guests) and we are thinking of the Lake District as our location as we have some amazing memories there. Neither of us are religious.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Congratulations! Exciting times!

We started planning earlier this year. I would say have a rough idea of date and budget first. If you only want 30 people you need to find out ( verbally is fine) if they will probably be free. Not so important if you are doing it next year obviously. We could only do school holidays sand October half term was the only date most people hadn't booked stuff up for.

Venue is key. Popular places book years in advance especially for Saturday's. Spend the first few weeks finding that. You can send invites out then without " save the dates"

Budget is so important. An empty venue is great but you'll need factor in chairs, decorations, catering etc. So know what you can spend.

Wedding dresses are an odd one. Dress shops bang on about needing months to order, do alterations etc. However there are soooo many dresses out there. Look on StillWhite for second hand dresses. You can get just about anything for a third of the price. I would go wedding dress shopping just to try some on though.

Good luck with it all and check out the wedding threads on here. so helpful.

Decide on a budget. Then research venues in your chosen area. Go to see a few and suss out what kind of packages they offer. This will be your starting point as you will probably want to theme everything around your venue in terms of decorations and your dress. Venues also often take care of catering so that can cross that off your list too. My venue also made sure we booked the registrar and paid fees etc. on time. I also recommend going to wedding fairs - that's how I found my florist, cake lady and venue dressers. Congratulations by the way!

If you have plenty of free time, get on Google and shortlist loads and loads of venues that can do a wedding of your size (ie some we looked at have a min number if guests c 80). Then go and view loads. It'll really help to focus your ideas.

I use bridebook app.

Hitched.co.uk is really good.
It’s a minefield it really is. We have just booked are venue and registrar for April 2020 😀🎉

I found wedding fairs overwhelming, so be prepared! They were also good for talking you into loads of unnecessary (expensive) stuff. I'd actually recommend having a search for the words 'help wedding ' on mumsnet to see what people panic about because over the years 99% of the advice seems to be: ceremony, keep guests comfortable, fed and watered, have some nice entertainment (What nice constitutes depends on who you are!) And try not to worry.

Pinterest is also good for ideas.

And don't worry about all the 'rules'. The no 1 thing is that you have a legally binding ceremony with your fiance... everything else can be as little or as much and in any fashion or order that suits you both.

Congratulations!

Have a think about who you know who can do aspects eg flowers cake. It makes it cheaper and more personal. We had ours at a hotel for an all in price and kept it relaxed. It was a great day. My dress was the first one I tried on and it was on the sale rack!

Thank you everyone for your really helpful tips and congratulations. I'll download the app mentioned and have a look on hitched.

Another thing to ask that I forgot, are there any hidden costs that you didn't really expect? Aside from the obvious like venue hire, food, wedding dress, photographer, etc.

Thanks again

I hadn't thought about the cost of the registrar. Also gifts for the wedding party. Consider insurance too - an extra cost but worth it imo.

I often refer back to this: www.onefabday.com/uk/wedding-checklist/

I’m 21 months engaged with 3 to go until the wedding (3 months today in fact!) Enjoy it - it goes soooo fast!

Stay away from bridal magazines like the plague - they will only complicate your lives! There are various free wedding planner spreadsheets that we found handy. Oxfam bridal shops are great. We ended up doing the whole thing at a hotel which was licensed for weddings - saved a lot of hassle with transport for us and guests.

If you keep it simple the costs are not too bad. We did glass jar favours which my sister engraved with our names and the dates. We ordered mini choc bars from eBay which were personalised on the wrappers and they were not expensive.

I don’t feel we missed out on anything and we all had a fab day. Oh and wedding party gifts were silver bracelets for the females with a disk with their initial on, again from eBay. For the men it was initialled cufflinks which were from a website. My thing would be make it personal.

I cannot recommend the website A Practical Wedding enough - based in the US but with such helpful information about planning the day!