Hey you newly engaged ladies!! We know the holidays are a HUGELY popular time to get engaged, so we’re popping in with a bit of helpful advice for you all today! Today, we want to share a few little tips with you ladies that we KNOW a lot of you will benefit from this time of year! It’s officially engagement season, and I don’t know about you guys, but I feel like every single day I check Facebook or Instagram and I see another friend got engaged! It’s the most FUN time of year because so many people we know and love are entering that special season of life, and I remember exactly how it feels.
Of course, you are over the moon excited and can’t stop staring at the brand new bling on your left hand. You practically have to keep pinching yourself to be sure this is actually real! But then, there’s that nagging feeling like you should be DOING something already. Planning a wedding seems so daunting at first… everyone has a million suggestions for you, everyone wants to tell you what they regretted about planning their wedding, and there are a ton of versions of planners and to do lists all over Pinterest. (If you ARE looking for an amazing physical wedding planner, this one was mine, and it is the one I recommend to ALL our brides! It focuses so much on the importance of planning for a successful and thriving marriage, and it emphasizes that as much as it does planning the actual wedding. I would 100% recommend it!)
I want to break through the emotions and the overwhelm you might already be starting to feel, and give you newly engaged girls the 3 first steps to take after getting engaged! Here we go!
Table of Contents
1. Celebrate!
I’m serious! You will so regret it if you don’t take the time to soak. up. this season of being engaged to the love of your life! Take ring selfies, submit your proposal to How He Asked, tell all your friends and family, buy all the “fiancé” stuff you can find on Etsy and even plan an engagement party to celebrate! Don’t jump straight into the to do lists… be sure to take advantage of this sweet season of life!
2. Pick a Date
There is not much planning you can legitimately do without having a date set in stone! This is a great first step towards deciding on your vendors, venues and more. When picking your date, first consider any dates that are meaningful to you and your fiancé or even your family, as well as where you live and the way your location will impact temperatures at different times throughout the year! For example, if you live in the South, July may not be the ideal month for an outdoor ceremony at 3:00pm! Or, if you live in the Midwest, a February wedding might not be ideal if you had your heart set on a strapless dress!
Once you pick a date, run it by your family and close friends. For example, when Luke and I picked our date, we asked my grandparents for their blessing to have our wedding that day… it was their 50th wedding anniversary! Then, we ran the date by our family and the people we knew for SURE we wanted to be there. Once we got the go ahead from everyone, we were ready to begin planning!
3. Select Time-Sensitive Vendors
That leads us to the third thing to do! Start choosing your most time-sensitive vendors. It’s important to know that certain types of vendors book really far in advance. This is ESPECIALLY true for your venue and your wedding photographer. Most venues and wedding photographers will only book a limited amounts of weddings per weekend, if not only one per weekend. Wedding photographers can realistically only book one wedding per day, so their availability is especially limited! Choose your venue first to confirm that they are available on the date you have chosen, then immediately start searching for your wedding photographer! All your other vendors are typically much more flexible on dates, but these are the main time sensitive ones to select.
BONUS:
Once you have selected your venues and photographers, you can rest easy and take the next steps a little slower! A lot of brides feel a million times better when they have picked a date to go dress shopping, so that would be a great next step. Make it an event… bring whoever you’d like, plan lunch in between shopping, and enjoy it! Then, brainstorm fun ways to ask your bridesmaids to be in your wedding! There are so many sweet and unique ways out there now to ask your bridesmaids to be a part of your day, from notecards to little gift boxes and more.
More than anything, our encouragement to you newly engaged girls is to enjoy this season. It will fly by, no matter if you’re engaged for six to twelve months. Don’t let the stress get in the way of your relationship with your family or your fiancé, remember that your new marriage is a million percent more important and beautiful than your wedding, and have fun planning a wedding that reflects the love you have for each other and the relationship you’ve grown! We can’t wait to see how your wedding will come together!
Share this post with a newly engaged friend to help them get started on their wedding planning! Also, we’d love for you to comment below and let us know what the FIRST and MOST HELPFUL things you did after getting engaged!
Xoxo!
Caitlin & Luke
