What’s the first thing you thought about - your wedding dress, the venue? How long did the whole planning process take?
What decisions did the bride make, and which ones did the groom make? How much did you involve your friends in the decision making process, and if you did, with which parts?
Where did you find all the things you need - magazines, online?
Tags: decision making process, decisions, magazines, venue, wedding dress
Although we have postponed our wedding until next year, we are still planning it, so this is what we did.
1. Date and Budget
2. Venue
3. Guest list
4. Catering
5. Best Man and Bridesmaid
6. Dresses and suits etc
7. Flowers
8. Transport
The date was mutually agreed between the two of us, as was the guest list and budget.
My groom to be decided on food, transport, best man and what they will be wearing. He also chose the rings.
I have chosen my dress and the cake and done most of the research about venues, we have not yet decided on a venue yet as we changed the date and our original choice is not available for our new date. I also thought about bridesmaids, but decided not to have any. I’ve also chosen the flowers.
Our final choice of venue will be a joint decision.
I have not involved any friends in making any decisions. I have consulted my mum for a second opinion on my dress though!!
I found help on line mostly, but I did look at one magazine and got some ideas from there. It took us around 4 months to get everything organised before we post poned (so my b/f can finish his exams at work before we marry)
We told our parents and they started planning. We OK everything.
The first thing you have to do is pick the date, and the first person to contact is whomever will be marrying you. We contacted the priest, because that date was most important to book first, and we had to have premarital counselling. Next was booking the venue, because we had a ballpark idea of number of guests, and the catering. Guest lists were next, along with deciding on attendants. In most cases, you need 8 months or a year, depending on where you live, because of the venue mostly. Bride and groom made decisions together, unless it was stuff like wedding favours and decorating, which he really didn’t care about. Friends were not involved at all in decision making or planning at all - mostly got advice from family members.
My husband had lots of great ideas for our wedding and wanted to be very involved in the planning so I let him take the reigns; especially since we got married in his church. He also made our wedding cake since he is a pastry chef with over 15 years experience. We went to book stores and bought wedding planner books - but for us, we got engaged 3 months after meeting so we really took our time planning the wedding down to the very last detail. We got engaged in 2003 and married in 2005 - what was great is we never felt rushed and everything came together perfectly.
Sign up for My Knot on http://www.theknot.com. I don’t think I’d be able to do my wedding without it. It gives you a month-by-month check list of what you should be doing and thinking about. It’s kept me very organized and very sane. On top of the checklist, there are pages and pages of online advice (from how to address invites to how to unask a best man), style ideas, and even a store for favors and that stuff. Congrats!
The dress & the place came up pretty quickly. I was pretty set on my place, then I found a dress before offically booking my location. I was worried about getting it altered & such. The whole planning, during the past 4 months (getting married this March) took only about 6 weeks. I found everything I wanted very quickly. I’ve made most of the decisions, the groom threw in his opinions & supports in there from time to time as well though. As far as finding things I did look online for the most part, but even that I didn’t do alot, most played out in my head. The only thing I bought a magazine for was for the cake. I couldn’t find a cake online, but I managed to find a UK magazine just for pictures of wedding cakes.
We chose the date first…that was a joint decision. I picked my dress. He will be picking out his tux. We originally planned to have the wedding in my parents home (they’re building it now), but due to construction hold-ups we’re using the house that my fiance and I are renting…I didn’t want an in church wedding and he wanted something small and indoors. We handmade the invitations as a team and designed the programs. I picked out the cake (all he said was that he wanted a traditional white cake- no cupcakes, no doughnuts). We both had input for the other food. I picked out all the flowers and decorations. We picked out the color to paint the living room together. He figured out how to manage the limited parking. I purchased a few books from Books A Million’s bridal section and a few issues of Martha Stewart’s magazine. We will have been engaged for a year the month of our wedding, but we didn’t start planning until August for April.
First thing is make a budget, u can do this on the web site
The Knot, this is a great starting point.
I guess first thing I thought about is best man and maid of honor!
First was finding the venue. That helped steer us towards our date. Next was the music, flowers, bridesmaids/groomsman attire. I actually made every decision on my own (except setting the date), but that’s just me. I had a definite idea of what I wanted, so it made all the decisions very easy. I found browsing magazines gave me lots of ideas and inspiration to choose from, and also things I was sure I did not want too. The whole process started last year around this time, the wedding is in July. You can do it in much shorter time, I just like to plan, plan, and plan again!
We went together to several places and decided on the venue, then we found an officiant (book him/her early, as they book well in advance). Book the photographer, caterer, band/dj, early on as well for the same reason.
Who makes which decisions is entirely up to the couple. Usually it’s the bride who makes most of them, as most men don’t want to have much to do with it, but I see that’s not necessarily the case here.
I got most of our things online-between ebay, Exclusivelyweddings.com, and from "finder sites" for the officiant and bakery. They have those sites for photographers and caterers too. It takes a lot of legwork out of the equation.
We’ve got five months to go. I started the planning when we first were engaged with 19 months to go to the big day (most people felt that was far too soon but I don’t regret it) We’re still finalizing the details, like the chat with the caterer about the menu, the final visit with the Reverend, making the favors and such.
My fiance isn’t into the planning, but he did want to be consulted before any final decisions were made.
Congratulations.
I’m a Marketing Manager so I plan events regularly, so maybe it’s not fair that I answer this… but I was proposed to at the end of April of 2006 and had our wedding planned (reception place booked, photographer booked, dress picked out, etc) by the middle of June. 6 weeks….
My first thought was about the reception (generally the most expensive). However, I handled all planning the same way — TONS of internet research!! When I found 3 options that were ones I not only liked but were in my budget, I got my fiancee involved. Where we agreed, we booked. No thinking it over, no "let’s sleep on it" nothing. Just move forward.
The thing that took the longest? I had my dress made… took 6 weeks.