Where do you even start to plan?!

[Sportbilly]

I am planning to get married next Summer and really do not even know where to start with it all.

We want a very small family affair with a max of 40 guests, and in reality more likely to be circa 30 guests.

Half the family is in Poland and half in England so a wedding either in the Uk, Poland or abroad would do.

Our budget is small (ideally 6k but would go up to 10k), however, we do not need all the bells and whistles.

Where do you even start? Can you get packages for such a small number of guests?

There are so many websites if you google it that it is hard to pinpoint.

Anybody have any experience of a similar size wedding, and if so, what did you do and how did it pan out.

Would love a castle wedding but think our budget and size of wedding would make that a no go.

I'm no expert but I think the normal advice is to sort out venue and date first, and everything else falls in around that. So I think in your case the first thing you need to do is decide which country/area/city the wedding will be in, obviously there are pros and cons, I imagine you would get more for your money in Poland or elsewhere in Europe but it will be harder to organise if you aren't in the area/don't speak the language and you would perhaps be well advised to employ a local wedding planner in that case as it will probably save you money and stress using someone with local contacts and who knows the score about how things work in that area... You could have a lovely time visiting lots of nice holiday spots in Europe in the meantime scoping out possible locations before making your mind up though

Once you have decided roughly where the wedding will be, I think you then need to decide if you want ceremony and reception in the same place or 2 different venues (in some European countries you won't have a choice about this as you have to get married in a church or registry office equivalent). If you want it all in the same place (which is normally the most convenient if not the cheapest option) this will naturally narrow down your choices as you will need to use a registered venue, go to the appropriate local authority's website for a list, then make a shortlist and go out and visit some. Once you have the venue you can set a date bearing in mind you will need to book a registrar to marry you as well as the venue. If you want to keep things separate, same applies, choose your registry office/church, get the date from there, then look for restaurants/pubs/hotels/halls that can host the reception on that day.

Once venue is confirmed, in order of priority I'd sort catering, drinks, accommodation for you/guests, photography, entertainment/music, transport, decorations/flowers, outfits for you, DH-to-be and bridal party/best man/groomsmen, favours/seating plan/bumpf... You almost certainly can get a package even for a small number of guests at a hotel/castle or place that does a lot of weddings, but then again the fact you have fewer guests probably means you have a bit more flexibility, I often think that you get better quality and/or lower cost if you are able to shop around caterers, florists or whatever, rather than being forced to use the ones linked to the venue or included in the package. But ultimately I suppose it depends how much time you want to put in, it's really down to you and don't get sucked in to feeling like you need to organise the 'perfect' event to keep others happy, so long as your guests get to see you married, are fed and watered and have somewhere to sit down after, they will be perfectly happy and probably won't even notice what colour the buttonholes are or whether the bridesmaids sashes match or the million and one other things brides stress about. If you want all that for you of course that's fine

Congratulations and good luck

What a great reply, thank you for lots of solid advice.

Start with the bug things first as they book up fast, end with the small things like invitations and favours.
So, first thing is venue...enjoy Xx

Big not bug

I am using a great app called Bridebook

If you want an online planner, I'd really recommend www.myscotlandwedding.co.uk/
I was shown it at a wedding fayre and it's really well designed! I'm fairly sure you could use it wherever you live, it's just that all the adverts that support it are for businesses in Scotland.

We did date, venue, colour scheme and theme, save the dates, catering, florist, photography, cars, invitations, my dress, DJ, pick decorations, bridesmaids dresses for adults, suits, bridesmaids dresses for kids. Less than three months to go and it's decorations to make, my son's suit and shoes as he keeps growing, and final meetings with suppliers over the next couple of weeks. My dress is with the dressmaker for alterations

I thought the same. It was hard to chose venues without rough numbers, which you wouldn’t know until you’d picked a venue and a date which you couldn’t do until you knew who was coming... and round again.

You’ve already got a rough size in mind and a rough month. So pick a location and find a venue. Once you have that you can sort the reception and then send out the invites. If it’s abroad then a years notice is good. People book summer holidays early.

I think the venue/ reception helps decide the theme and colour scheme. We had an informal wedding in the South of France so didn’t need flowers ( fabulous backdrop) and blue seemed the right choice. That wouldn’t be the case if we’d had a U.K. wedding in a barn in October.

Date and venue first.
Photographer next.
Then band if you want one, but for a small wedding perhaps not necessary.
Book your celebrant early too and find out what documents you need.

Then you can plan the other stuff that doesn't require as much advance notice.