How to organize your wedding from A to Z with complete peace of mind? Well, it starts with the essential step of the wedding budget. A necessary step, not always very pleasant, but inevitable to know what you can afford and to determine your priorities (unless you have an unlimited budget!) Before you can start anything, you must determine
who pays what and then give a line of conduct to your marriage with barriers not to be exceeded. When I say “who pays what” it is if, future bride and groom, you are lucky enough to be helped by your parents for example… Especially in this case, determining your budget in advance is essential so that everyone knows what to stick to.
What is a priority? What is not? How to allocate funds accordingly?
Start now a small “wedding special account” with a detailed spreadsheet: what expenses? What contributions? This will help you track your spending and easily adjust the numbers along the way.
Develop the wedding guest list
Once the budget has been determined, you will then be able to work on the wedding guest list (but not before!) a major step in the wedding planning.
Indeed, we would really like to be able to invite everyone! But don’t forget that the more you “open up” the field of possibilities, the faster the guest list will grow. For example, if you finally decide to invite distant cousins, it is difficult to select only one or two, to the detriment of the others…. So your list can quickly grow from 150 people to 175 in a snap!
When deciding on your number of people, consider your budget (how much can you afford?) and your venue (how many people can it accommodate?).
Some first determine the number of guests and choose their reception venue accordingly, while others do the reverse. Once again, it’s all about priorities…
From there, determine how exactly you will craft the list. If mom and dad contribute, you have to try to take their opinion at least into consideration (we will come back to this crucial point in another article). But taking everyone into consideration – your parents, your partner’s parents, even you as a couple – is not easy…
This is why some prefer to determine the wedding list before choosing the place of reception to allow themselves some latitude as to the final number of guests.
Don’t forget to count everyone, the parents, the children…and possibly the animals hehehe! (joke)
Determine your wedding date
When to get married? What time of year? Unless you have a very precise idea of the future date of your wedding, start by selecting at least the season: Spring Wedding? Summer wedding? Or Fall Wedding? Be aware that September weddings offer more availability in terms of reception venues…but in Spring the climate is a priori milder…while the month of June is still the least popular month for the future bride and groom because the sky is clear and the school holidays have not yet started (but the prices are more expensive!).
Think about both the civil ceremony and the religious/secular ceremony (some brides and grooms prefer to organize this over several days)
Select the wedding reception location
OK, now you know who you are marrying and when :)…. But now the real question is where? No wedding retroplanning without choosing the place of reception!
And I can tell you one thing: choosing your reception venue is one of the most important decisions you will have to make when planning your wedding. Indeed, the place conditions almost everything else. Without forgetting the place of the wine of honor of marriage to which it is also necessary to think.
There is also a good chance that this is the step that will require the most flexibility and questioning, because the places you are going to select will certainly not all be available on the date of your choice. You will also have to think of “Plan B” places just in case, which takes a lot of time to visit! That’s why some start visiting their wedding venue, long before the wedding retroplanning year!
Finally, choosing a location that matches your number of guests, your style and your budget takes more time than it seems… And if you have any doubts, also and above all trust your instincts.
Finally, don’t forget to choose the reception venue for the day after the wedding (brunch, etc.) and follow my little advice to make the right choice of reception hall.