Where do I start??

Budget, first and foremost. Then you can start looking for a reception venue, dress, photographer etc...

Decide what is most important to you and allocate your funds appropriately.

Oh, and congratulations and welcome to hitched!

Congratulations and welcome aboard!

What date are you getting married?

Welcome and congratulations!

I agree with the above, budget is definitely the first thing to look at. I guess there's a few different ways to tackle this. You can set a budget and try to get everything you want within that limit or you can work out what you want, how much it'll cost, how long it will take you to save that (if you're paying for it yourself) and then set your date accordingly.

Above all, have fun and don't sweat the small stuff.

Congratulations :-)

I would recommend starting with when you would like to get married, a rough idea of year and month.

Then look at the budget - how much is it realistic to have saved / available by your ideal date.

Then work out the maximum guest list so that you have a rough idea of numbers. Its no good looking for venues etc before you have an idea of your max numbers as lots of places have min/max numbers that they cater for.

Getting a good photographer is important in my opinion and the good ones are booked well in advance, so I would put that high on the list of first things to tackle. It was the thing I booked second only to my venue.

Finally, remember that if you are ordering the dress then it's never too early to start looking :-)

Above all of that try to enjoy every moment of the planning! It will take over your world until the big day so enjoy every moment, worry about pleasing yourself rather than worrying what each guest will think.

Budget and then guest list.

Then you know what kind of reception venue is achievable. From there think about the style of venue you want etc & book one.

Next, look at photographers and things like what where the good ones get booked up.

Then the dress!!!!!

As everyone has said - set your budget first. There are some really good tools on this site. The Hitched budget planner is pretty good, you put in your total budget and it breaks it down into all the individual things. You can also customise it, for example we didn't want a videographer so we took that out and re-allocated the budget.

I also found Wedding Magazine very helpful and they have a checklist in order of importance.

Good luck and congratulations

Thank you for your reply. Very helpful advice and now I know where to start.
I think I will be on here a lot to help keep me calm and organised!

We have booked the Church for the 14th May 2016. We did want to get married next year but my sister has informed us she is pregnant so would love for my niece/nephew to be part of the special day so going to wait a year.

thank you all for your replies. I love this forum already, feel so welcomed by you all x

Congrats! Now let the fun begin! :-)

Like others have said, set your budget, decide what are the most important thing to you are, such as venue, dress, reception etc, this will then help set out where you shall spend larger amounts of the budget. Don't forget to check out wedding photographers and find one that matches your style, once you have the date set then make sure you get your photographer booked up quickly so you get the one you want.

Magazine are great to ideas and inspiration, plus you can rip things out to make a book of likes, or there is pinterest! Tons on there!