In December of 2019 my boyfriend of six years finally got down on one knee. It’s a moment many women dream of, and I could not believe what was happening in that moment. As he knelt before me, I was shouting “what is happening right now?” because I was soooo surprised. It was a romantic moment, a romantic evening and a day I know I will never forget.

But ladies, once you have that ring on your finger, it’s time to start planning. And if you’re like me, you likely want a really nice wedding but have no idea where to start, how to start, when to start, and are just trusting it’ll all turn out.

I’m not much of a planner. And I have never planned an event. So wedding planning is totally out of my know how. So I’m not the typical bride at all. Lucky for me, my finace wants to be very involved in the planning of our wedding. So where do you start when you don’t know where to start? Here’s how I’m tackling wedding planning!

The Date

There is no use doing anything until you have a date set. I am not having a church wedding, so I’m lucky in that I didn’t have to coordinate the date with both the church and my venue. So I essentially chose the venue with my husband to be and gave them a few dates we had in mind. One date was not yet booked so we booked the venue and it was that easy. To be honest, the hardest part about this was finding the right venue. It had to be within our budget, and it had to fit the vision we have for our wedding. Many of the venues that fit our vision were way out of our price range. Some locations that were budget friendly did not fit our vision in other ways, or had added costs attached at the end of the day like linen and chair rentals. The venue we found has gorgeous outdoor grounds (we are getting married outdoors), fabulous menu options, and the price was reasonable given what came with the package we chose. We got lucky!

The Dress

The next thing I did was go wedding dress shopping. Wedding dresses can take time to order, time for alternation is needed, so I did not want to wait too long on this. After I asked my BFF to be my maid of honour, we went dress shopping. I had an idea of what I wanted luckily, and I tried on several dresses in that style and in other styles too. There was one dress that stood out…and eventually I said yes to the dress! Wedding dress shopping can be a stressful experience for many brides I think. The dresses can be crazy pricey, but every bride wants her perfect dress. And some brides have very specific preferences and wants for their big day. Couple that with the cost of these dresses, and finding the dress can be the cause of many tears. I was lucky in that my mom wanted to pay for my dress, and that I knew the look I wanted, but had no specific criteria the dress had to meet. I also was very decisive, once I found a dress I was in love with, I didn’t keep shopping around.

The Big Stuff

Now that I have the venue booked, my dress bought, it’s time to tackle the big stuff. To me, that is the photographer and videographer, the minister, the flowers and cake. We have booked a photographer, and that was tricky to do. During this part of the planning process, we’ve learned that we need to prioritize what is most important to us as a couple to have for our wedding. We have been discussing and looking at the cost of these services even as we were looking around for a venue. And the prices for anything wedding are steep. I’m pretty traditional, so I do want fresh flowers and a wedding cake. But when we sat down and really thought about it, we realized spending a little more on pictures was more important to us than having tons of flowers or the too pretty to eat cake. So we decided to dish out some dough for a wedding photographer who is award winning, experienced and has the most awesome photos we’ve seen for weddings–and we’ve looked.

There’s still so much more to do! I need to find someone to marry us or all of this is for nothing, and we do have to decide what to kind of flowers we want. We have a better idea of what we’d like for our wedding cake but that also needs to be done. Dress shopping with my bridesmaids is coming up, but haven’t decided anything about invitations yet! Plus, there’s still all the little stuff which I’ll go more into in my next post.

Are you planning a wedding? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section.. And be sure to follow the blog to stay up to date.