Newly engaged

Congratulations!! The best piece of advice I can give you is sit down now with just your fiance and the two of you think about what you'd want in a wedding:

- is it big or small?

- where is it? (could be a specific venue, a town, a type of place like gardens or town hall)

- what's the overall vibe? (formal, boho, etc.)

- who's in your wedding party? (and how big is this, remember, you're funding their outfits etc. and a larger wedding party could mean making cuts elsewhere so know how important this is to you)

- who's likely to make the cut on your A list guest list? (and if that's a big list are all those people more important than your dream venue or sticking to your budget? if the answer is possibly not, make a small as possible and no more than 50 person A* list of absolute no brainer people and their SOs that you'd be devastated not to be there and then try to avoid anyone not on that list getting any preconceived expectations about being invited until you've figured your capacity and budget)

Decide on those crucial things based on what YOU want without ANYONE else's input. Your biggest costs are likely to be the venue and the number of guests, so it might be that you choose 100 guests over dream venue, or that dream venue wins but that means it's 50 guests. You don't have to know the exact details, but make this rough decision ALONE (well in a pair haha, by alone I mean just you and fiance) as it helps to know what you're prioritising so you can manage expectations from overeager friends and family from the off. Remember it's easier to add than take away!

Even with the best will in the world, wedding planning can bring out an ugly side of people and you could find yourself feeling pressured into agreeing to something you don't really want. It might feel tempting to agree to something without really thinking too much about it, but remember that everything has a cost and those costs add up fast, and the butterfly effect one little obligation can have on the rest of your day can sometimes be huge. Learn to say: "thanks for your input, we'll think about it whether or not that's something we want for our day" before agreeing to anything. I know we don't like to think like this, and I hope your planning process is nothing but smooth sailing, but it seems near impossible to avoid some form of drama or disagreement with someone...

I've found it helped so much that me and FH had already decided on our venue, probable guestlist, and wedding party before we spoke to anyone else about our day. It helps you remember what's important to you, and any arguments down the road on how much to bend to someone's will are always easier to resolve when we can remind ourselves that what we originally decided was something we know we (and only we) wanted. It's a guiding North Star that'll lead to a day that's truly yours (to put it cheesily!). You might have people with great ideas, and that's wonderful, but it really helps to remember that this is YOUR day, you are the only two people who's opinion really matters here.

Good luck! This forum is wonderful and so supportively helpful so use it as much as you need

Congratulations! Please just take a moment to enjoy being engaged before you start stressing about the wedding day.

When you have enjoyed that time, it's just about getting organised. I found that really makes all the stress non-existent.

And the first thing on that organised list will be a rough guest list. Once you've got numbers you can then start looking at venues (no point looking at a venue that can only take 80 if your min. numbers are 150). Once the venue and the date is sorted you will feel like you have achieved loads! Oh and remember that you generally need to allow 8-9 months lead time for your dress.

Good luck.

Hey Emma,

I'm Hannah the Community Manager here at Hitched. Firstly- congratulations on your engagement!

I want to preface this by saying please don't feel overwhelmed and put too much pressure on yourself! Planning a wedding can be quite the task but that's why we are here to help! We have tons of advice on our articles, social media and generally on your profile as you are able to navigate budgets, guest lists etc.

If you are stuck on where to start, please take a look here: What Your First Month of Wedding Planning Looks Like in 2022 as we have plenty of tips!

We are also planning to hopefully launch some YouTube content on Wedding Planning 101- I just filmed my first video on the first steps of planning so do keep an eye out!

In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all, please reply to this thread or feel free to message me privately and I'd be happy to help

Hannah x

View quoted message Thank you so much everyone. Booking my venue and date tomorrow and then just going to enjoy the process and plan as much as I can to decrease the stress levels. I want to enjoy it. I'm only going to get married once.