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Congratulations on your engagement. What a wonderful time in your life and I am so happy to help you. One of the first things I would do is sit down with your parents and get them to give you a budget for how much they plan on helping you with the wedding. You will need a budget, whether from your parents, his parents, your family or even if you are paying for the wedding yourself. Next would be to determine what colors you would like to use in your theme of the wedding. Popular themes right now are black and white weddings with an accent color, Chocolate and celedon green or pink are extremely popular also. What is your favorite color? What have you always dreamed your wedding would be like? You can choose any color your heart desires as this is your wedding! Next would be to decide how many attendants you are going to have and start looking for your dress and then their dresses. Your fiancee can start looking for tuxedos with you to make decisions on those after you decide on your colors.
The most organized and happy Brides are the ones that have a checklist and a guide to go by. These can be found on line at www.theknot.com or www.betterhomesandgardens.com in their bridal section. I have found some wonderful books at Barnes & Nobles or Borders Book Stores that give me plenty of room to write and even attach pictures and color swatches. These are my favorite as everything is in a book that either zips up and keeps everything inside or has a place to store all of the pictures and samples in a folder. They are not that expensive and will answer so many of your questions and give you lots of guidance in choosing everything. The book will keep you on track by telling you what you should be doing each month before the wedding.
You will need to talk to florists, photographers and cake decorators as they seem to fill dates very quickly if they are well liked. Then you will want to consider a place or venue for the ceremony and reception. Depending on where you live, there are magazines in your local book stores with many ideas and pictures that show you places to get married in your local area. These come in very handy and gives you a starting point. You can check them out on line before calling for an appointment and know if they are right for you by reading all about them in the magazine and going on line.
There are many, many places on line to order your invitations, napkins, match book covers with your names, toasting glasses, garters, ring bearer pillows, flower girl baskets, gift for your bridesmaids and groomsmen, etc. Since there are so many out there, I would just type into your browser, Wedding Invitations and you will see hundreds of places to go to on line. One of my favorites is on EBay and they are called Favor Frenzy.
You will need to set up appointments with all of the vendors that you would like to talk to and set aside several days to go from vendor to vendor. You can weed out many vendors by emailing them first and getting an idea of what they offer and if they are within your budget.
If you have it in your budget, hire a Wedding Consultant, that will walk you through every single step of your planning, make your appointments for you, go with you to see the vendors, and even help you pick out your dress and your bridesmaid dresses as well as the tuxedos. Wedding Consultants are a fantastic stress reliever because they do almost everything for you - you just have to stay in touch and show up for the appointments they set up. You can find these wedding consultants on www.theknot.com in your city and state, as well as www.Craigslist.com in your city and state as well as looking in the yellow pages in your area. Talk to friends that have recently gotten married and ask for their advice on which wedding consultant to use as well as florists, photographers, cake decorators etc. A Bride who just went through all of this will be very helpful to you.
By being organized and having everything in one place and always having it handy, you can plan a beautiful and stress free wedding day by just taking it one day at a time. If you start to get overwhelmed, take a few days off and don't even think about the wedding for those few days and give your brain a rest.
I hope this advice has been helpful to you. I have worked with Brides for 25 years and I have seen it all and these are the best answers I can give you since I have experienced it from both sides. If you need more information, please feel free to contact me. If you are happy with my answer, please click the green accept button so that I get paid for my answer. Please leave feedback for me as I will do the same for you.
Best of Luck and remember to stay as calm and organized as possible and you will have a beautiful wedding that you will remember for the rest of your life! Renee
Wedding C&onsultant
I have been a Bridal Consultant, and a Wedding Planner. I own a flower & cake decorating shop