First Things First
...How to get Started with your Wedding Planning
So you've made the commitment and you're getting married. Now what? Basically you are now the Chief Coordinator for the largest most upscale party you will ever host. Unfortunately, you have likely never hosted a large upscale party before! So your Preliminary Tasks are to:
1) Educate yourself, and
2) Get and stay organized.
As you are working on these tasks you will also need to make these Initial Wedding Decisions:
1) Establish your wedding date, style, size, and location,
2) Establish your wedding budget, and
3) Establish your wedding timeline.
Educate Yourself
If you are like most of us girls, you have been educating yourself about your wedding for a couple of decades. But now you really need to focus! You will need to learn about weddings in general and about weddings in the California Central Coast in particular.
To learn about weddings in general, visit Barnes and Noble when you have a couple of hours to spare. If possible, get a table and chair and start looking through their bride magazines. Pick out a couple of your favorites to buy and take home. Also look through their large wedding planning books. Find the books that seem most realistic to you and narrow down your choices to a few finalists. Look through them in a little more detail to pick your favorite one or two. Take them home and read them cover to cover with a yellow highlighter (invisible on copies) and post it notes in hand. Feel free to write in the margins. Also get a legal pad and make notes about the more important points that you want to revisit later. You now have the foundation of your education.
Next try a couple of Google searches for wedding related topics. Visit some of the sites that pop up and bookmark your favorites. Start a bookmark directory with subdirectories especially for your wedding. You will want to visit some of these sites again and again. Talk to your recently married friends about what you have learned. Ask them about reality versus what the books have to say. Your friends will be one of your best resources, especially when it comes to weddings in this region.
Finally, visit a few Wedding Fairs. Plan to arrive early and stay late as Wedding Fairs are a terrific place to connect with the local wedding professionals. Don't be shy…talk with as many of these pros as you can. They have helped other brides to host hundreds of weddings, so they have lots of knowledge to pass on to you. Bring that legal pad along to take notes. Also, get business cards for all wedding pros in which you are interested. Make notes on the back of each business card so you can remember what impressed you about each company. Once you are back home, file these notes and cards in the appropriate section of your wedding notebook (we'll get to this in a minute).
Get Organized
The best way to sanely plan your wedding is to get, and stay, organized. The best way to do this is to buy a 3-ring binder that is at least 2 inches thick, preferably 3 inches thick. Buy index page dividers with the little tabs that you can label for the various categories on which you will be working. Also buy clear plastic pockets to slip brochures, flyers, business cards into. Create divider tabs for the ceremony site, reception site, photographer, videographer, caterer, florist/decorator, coordinator, invitations, gown/tux, DJ/musicians, officiant, cake, and so on. At the front of each section, keep a copy of your contract related to this category. At the front of the binder, keep a summary sheet of contact names and numbers of all of your contracted wedding professionals and a calendar where you will enter your 'milestone' dates. This binder will become your wedding bible.
Go to the "Planning Worksheets" section at CentralCoastBride.com and print out a copy of each of the worksheets. As you gather information and make decisions, complete the worksheets and file them in your binder. Or you can download these worksheets to your computer and complete them electronically prior to printing and filing in your binder. One worksheet you will want to visit again and again is the Budget Worksheet. Enter your planned wedding budget numbers and this Excel worksheet will calculate subtotals by category (See Establish Wedding Budget below for additional information on this worksheet).
Establish Your Wedding Date, Style, and Location
Date. You likely have a good idea about when you want to hold your wedding. Many weddings are held from Spring through Fall, with the peak wedding season being Summer months. If you plan to have a garden wedding, be sure to select a month when rain is unlikely. In the Central Coast of California, this is generally May through October. Winter weddings can be another great reason for family and friends to get together over the Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year's holidays (although some families do not want to travel on these holidays, so be sure to take this into consideration). Most weddings are held on Saturdays, although Friday evening and Sunday afternoon weddings are also great options, plus some services are offered at a discount on these days.
Once you and your Groom have selected a few potential dates, check with the Chamber of Commerce and other community calendar information sources for any conflicting local festivals or other events. While your out of town guests will appreciate having this entertainment available, they may have trouble finding hotel rooms if the area fills with tourists.
Style. With a few dates in hand, you can now think about the style of your wedding. Your wedding style will be influenced by you and your Groom's personalities and personal styles. Formality: Your style may be formal, casual, or somewhere in-between. Tradition: You may want a traditional wedding, a contemporary wedding, a themed wedding, or some blend of these ends of the spectrum. Size: You may want an intimate wedding with 50 friends and family, or your large families may require that you have a large wedding of 400 guests.
Location. If you and your Groom are very particular about the date you have selected for your wedding, it is important to get your wedding and reception locations reserved as early as possible. These sites typically book a year or more in advance. See our other articles for more on selecting your Wedding Location.
Establish Your Wedding Budget
Traditionally, the Bride's family paid for the wedding and reception while the Groom's family paid for the rehearsal dinner and the honeymoon. However, like most elements of today's wedding, tradition no longer rules. Often it is those in the best financial position who pick up the tab. For second marriages, many couples pay for all of the expenses themselves with little to no input from parents. This is also often true with many career minded couples who marry later in life. So consider your particular situation and discuss options with your Groom and then with your respective families.
Determine the total amount you wish to spend on your wedding. Then determine the amount to allot to each of the elements of the wedding. There are no absolute rules for this division since each bride is unique in her feelings about which parts of the wedding are more important to her. However, the 'traditional' percentages are presented on our website. (although our website is designed for use by Central California Brides, some of the information contained there is applicable regardless of where you plan to marry. You are welcome to use our wedding planning worksheets at CentralCoastBride.com). Once you determine your percentages, download the Budget Worksheet from our website. Enter your planned wedding budget numbers and this Excel worksheet will calculate subtotals by category. Later, as you contract with your various wedding professionals and have hard numbers for each of your wedding categories, enter these 'actual' numbers. The worksheet will then calculate the difference between your planned cost and your actual cost. If you are under budget, then you can add the difference to another wedding category. If you are over budget, you'll have to revisit other categories to identify places where you can cut back to stay on budget.
Establish Your Wedding Timeline
It is fairly easy to set up your timeline. In the calendar in the front of your 3-ring binder, post your wedding milestone dates starting with your wedding date, then work backwards from that date to today. See the example timeline on our website. This timeline will help you to identify milestones that are appropriate for you. As each wedding decision is made, be sure to update your calendar.
You are now on your way to planning your wedding. Feel free to use our wedding planning articles and worksheets regardless of where you will be holding your wedding. We wish you a wonderful walk through your new life together!
By: Carolayne Holley
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