Newly engaged? Feeling a little flustered about how to start wedding planning? Don’t worry, we’re going to walk you through, step by step.
Wedding planning can be stressful at times, especially at the start of your journey. While many couples hire professionals to help manage their wedding plans, there are just as many others who choose to handle the majority of the responsibilities themselves. Maybe you’re on a tight budget, or perhaps you love all the DIY possibilities available to you — in any case, it can be a lot, but it is possible to plan the wedding of your dreams on your own. Today we’re going to help you in your planning adventure, and give you a step by step guide on how to plan your wedding from the start.
This step by step guide on how to plan a wedding is intended to keep you organised and on track, whether you’re at the start of planning a destination wedding for 500, or an intimate celebration for 50 at your local restaurant. But, keep in mind that every wedding is unique. While this guide will cover the most important, big picture aspects of early wedding planning, it may not correlate with your own celebrations. And that’s fine! Just adjust and adapt where needed, and you’ll be on your way to the big day of your dreams.
- How to Plan a Wedding Step by Step
Crush those wedding planning jitters, and start thinking positively with our step by step plan.
- Celebrate & Enjoy Your Engagement
We feel this doesn’t get included in step by step wedding plan guides enough. Being engaged is great. It’s the best feeling, and hopefully, for you, fairly unique! Therefore, it should be cherished. Don’t rush to plan some extravagant party, or organise a whole group of friends for a get-together. There’s plenty of time for that further down the line.
For now, just soak in the moment. Chat about wedding plans with your partner, chat about the future, chat about how fun your big day will be! You could even keep it secret for a while, and hold that private excitement brewing for just a little longer.
- Set a Budget
Daydreaming done, it’s time to start planning your wedding. And you have to begin with your wedding budget. It may not be the most enjoyable part of the process, but it’s one that must be completed first because it affects every other supplier decision you make. Going forward you should only be looking at venues, suppliers, and outfits that fit within your budget. Otherwise, you might risk getting your heart broken.
- What’s Your Theme? Start Getting Inspired
For us, this is the best part of wedding planning, and beats pouring over spreadsheets step by step any day! This should be a group task, and not necessarily something pre-decided, or completed quickly. It needs to be a shared process, in whatever form that may take. But together you should both feel like you’ve contributed to the final look of the celebration.
It’s a good idea to start your research with wedding colours, as that will often lead you onto other décor ideas. Pinterest and Instagram are obviously the best place to go for the latest wedding trends. However, it’s also good not to concern yourselves too much with what’s en vogue right now. Pick things that resonate with you, and don’t concern yourself with passing fads.
- Create a Guest List
Putting together a guest list is often a very unpopular task, loathed by couples who just want to invite everyone! Scrutinizing over the invitations of individual loved ones is never fun.
At this stage, you don’t have to have a final guest list sorted, but, coming up with an estimated headcount early on is important when thinking about how to plan a wedding step by step. You’ll get a real understanding of that when you start to see the price per head from certain suppliers.
- What are Your Must-haves?
It’s essential to discuss what the most important aspects of your wedding are. Maybe a location or a particular wedding date? A specific wedding photographer or live band? Prioritize, and agree on those details together, and always be willing to make concessions for your partner, and the budget.
- Will You Be My Bridesmaid?
Choosing bridesmaids, groomsladies, groomsmen, bridesmen etc, early, is always a good idea. Because then your crew is already assembled, and emotionally invested from the very start.
- Be Organised
If the most exciting thing about wedding planning for you, is creating shared Google Docs – feel free to skip this part. For those of you not so organised, now’s the time to get in shape, numbers wise. Create checklists, spreadsheets, Word docs – anything that’ll help you both gather your thoughts on the budget, and schedule, all in one place.
There are some great wedding planning apps out there now which should really help you keep everything on track, step by step.
- When’s the Big Day?
You won’t have officially ‘set the date’ until you book your wedding venue. However, before you begin looking at venues, we recommend selecting a few potential wedding dates, if possible. Of course, if you do have one date in mind that you must marry on, then keep to that. But otherwise, think of the season, the day of the week, and the calendars of your nearest and dearest before nailing a date in the diary.
Don’t walk into any appointment with a wedding venue without some potential dates in mind, as they may well be booked for the dates you eventually decide. And that’s pretty upsetting.
- Where’s the Big Day?
Alongside the budget, choosing the wedding venue is also one of the most important stages in the step by step plan. As it will also affect every other supplier you book.
Armed with your budget, guest count and some ideal dates in mind, visit a select few venues that you’ve carefully researched. Venues that you’ve been recommended, seen good reviews of, or that fit your theme. Unless very necessary, don’t ever book your wedding venue without seeing it in person, or taking a virtual tour. As the only real way to get a feel for a space is to see it for yourself.
- Create a Wedding Website
In 2022 and beyond, the best way of keeping all your guests up to date with your ever-evolving big day plans, is with a wedding website. These days there are so many options out there, and they’re usually free to use, with only some parts hidden behind a paywall. But they are so worth it.
With a good wedding website, you’ll easily, and instantly be able to update guests, share pictures and gather information from your whole party. Food choices, for example, can be selected via your site, and then effortlessly forwarded to your caterer, or venue. Taking out the need to wait for their responses via the wedding invite.
We hope we have inspired the start to your wedding planning, and maybe even got you back on track with our step by step plan! It would be a pleasure to guide you further, and introduce you to our lovely wedding venue in Kildare. The Abbey is only an hour away from Dublin, and has a 18th century chapel on-site, a stunning ballroom, multiple events spaces and 38 contemporary style rooms.Please feel free to have a browse of our wedding venue online, and if you like what you see, you’re welcome to get in touch via our contact page to book a viewing. And while you wait for your visit, you can find out a bit more about us via our online brochure.