You’re Engaged - Now What?
Did your SO just pop the question? Congratulations - you’re now a fiancé! Being engaged is one of the most wonderful and exciting times of your life, but I know how overwhelming it can be. Who should you tell first? When do you start planning? Should you have an engagement party or a photo shoot? While most of our couples contact us before making most of the bigger decisions outlined below, I know there are plenty of you who will be navigating this journey by yourselves. The average engagement will last between a year and a year and a half, below we cover the immediate major tasks that every couple should aim to tick off their list within the first couple of weeks.
Announce Your Engagement
The very first step to take when you get engaged is to share the news! Some couples prefer to wait a few days and others want to tell everyone as soon as possible. Before you are ready to share your ring selfie on Instagram, there are a few people who should be brought in on the happy news; your parents, siblings, BFFs, and close family and friends. Once you’ve told the most important people in your lives, you can go ahead with the social media announcement - don’t forget to get a manicure first!
Celebrate
Before jumping into planning your wedding, make sure you take some time to properly celebrate your engagement. Perhaps you’ll want to organise a larger engagement party, or go solo with your girlfriends on a night out, or even organise an engagement-moon to have some one-on-one time - whatever your plans may be, have a celebratory drink with your partner and nearest and dearest and really revel in the moment.
Get Organised
You’re getting married - where do you start? The three big questions to answer straight away that will determine a lot of your coming decisions are: Where? When? and How Many?
Where do you see yourselves getting married? Do you want to have a destination wedding? Perhaps you already have the perfect location in mind or need to do some more research for inspiration.
When do you want to get married? I would always suggest to have a few date options, whether these would be specific weekends over a course of time, or perhaps deciding on an ideal month when you’d like to get married. This will ensure that you’ll have more availability at your favourite venues before making a final decision.
How many guests do you want to invite? This question is also dictated by your overall budget (we’ll get to that shortly), but before jumping ahead, draw up a guest list with your SO to see where you land on numbers.
Decide on Your Budget
While this may sound easy, it can be a trickier subject to navigate than expected. Have an open conversation with your partner on how much money you both would like to invest in this day, and find out whether your families would like to contribute. Hosting a wedding abroad is a major investment so it’s important to get through this step before starting any further detailed planning to avoid stress. Keep in mind that your first budget might need to be revised once you have a clear vision of your big day, but knowing which budget range you are comfortable in is essential.
Hire Vendors & Venues
Once you have an idea of a date, a location, how many guests you want to invite, and your wedding budget, it’s time to start contacting venues and vendors. If you want to hire a planner (that’s us!), make sure you do some research online and ask for recommendations from friends and family. Wedding planners will be able to send you proposals from venues and vendors, as well as communicate with all parties involved on your behalf, taking away all of the stress and time consuming correspondence from your end. If you prefer to plan and organise your nuptials yourself, make sure you do your due diligence when interviewing vendors to ensure you feel comfortable that they can carry out your vision in a trustworthy and timely manner.
Communicate With Your Guests
You’ve found your dream venue, the date is available and you’ve put a deposit down for your big day - the final step before you will start the more detailed planning is letting your guests know there will be a wedding. Traditionally, you should only need two items sent to guests; a Save the Date and a formal invitation - however, when it comes to destination events, guests usually require a little bit more information when it comes to travel and accommodation. We would suggest to send a Save the Date as soon as you have a date and venue in place, which would point to a very simple website including information on hotels and the location where you’ll be getting married. A formal invitation will then follow once you have more details on your celebrations, if you are doing pre-and-post events, timings and dress code.
And Finally
If you’ve gone through all of the above steps, you’re in a pretty good place, and what follows next will be the more creative and fun elements of the wedding planning process; choosing florals, decor, entertainment, food etc. Be sure to take time to yourself to relax and breathe during this time, planning a wedding is stressful, whether you have a someone helping you or if you’re doing everything by yourself. Keep in mind the true meaning of the day, and try to focus on the details that really matter. If you’re one of our brides, you’ll have all of our helpful tools at your fingertips to help you keep a checklist of everything that needs to get done and the deadlines.
Most importantly - enjoy this time, we’re so excited for you - happy planning!
