Congratulations on your engagement! We are so happy for you. Being engaged is one of the best feelings ever, and planning a wedding is such an exciting time in your life! It can also be really scary and overwhelming. Now that you’re engaged, I’m sure you have so many questions.

Where do I even start?

How do I know where to find information about all of this?

How do I plan a wedding?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you. We are so excited to take this journey with you!

First of all, remember to enjoy it!

Being engaged is so much fun, and planning a wedding together is a once in a lifetime experience. Take some time to just let yourself be happy and excited. Celebrate as often as you can.

If your proposal was more private, consider hosting an engagement party to share all the details with your closest friends and family. Having people around you to share the excitement is such a great way to start off the planning process!

Speaking of friends and family, they are your biggest resource when wedding planning! Don’t forget to ask them for their advice or use them to bounce ideas off of. If you are unsure where to start, ask them what they envision when they think of your wedding. Sometimes it can be helpful to hear what other people think you might like to get ideas flowing!

Start the preliminary wedding planning

At the beginning, there’s a lot of questions to answer. Take some time to talk it over together and think about all of the basic questions first. Here are some of the first things to think about when planning your wedding!

• What time of year do we want to get married? What will the weather be like?
• How many people do we want at our wedding? Start a guest list!
• What is the budget for our wedding and is anyone willing to contribute?
• Where do we want to get married? Should we travel or stay local?
• Are there any vendors that we already know we want?
• Do we want bridesmaids/groomsman, and who will they be?

Once you start answering some of the more basic questions, things get easier. Getting a vague understanding of your day can help with the overwhelm. You don’t need to worry about the details yet. Right now, just worry about the easy stuff!

Next post we will talk more about organization, but you can consider getting a wedding planning book or downloading an app if it is easier for you! The Knot and Wedding Wire are the two most common, but there are tons out there. More on that next post!

Look for inspiration to find what you like

Pinterest is great for inspiration! This is what we used most when we were planning our own wedding. Create a board for your wedding and you can both add to it! There are endless ideas out there to take a look at. Another website to check out is Coolors. You can create a color palette and save it to get a better ideas of what colors you want to work with for your wedding! You can even upload photos that you like and choose colors from that!

Instagram is also a great resource! Search for vendors in your area or weddings with similar styles. Almost any vendor is going to have an Instagram account that you can look at. You can search for “Wedding Planner Lakeland, FL” or even just “Wedding Florida” and you should get a ton of options to sort through!

Looking at other weddings in the area is also a good idea! You can do a quick google search to find blog posts from local photographers or venues. We keep all of our past weddings posted on our wedding blog for other couples to take inspiration from! If you find a post or blog that has something you like, don’t hesitate to reach out to the owner of that post. People love sharing information, and usually would be more than happy to help!

Please enjoy some photos and video of our first steps when we planned our wedding during the pandemic! We had no idea what we were doing. There are so many things I would tell us if we could travel back in time, but I am happy to be able to share them with you. Check out our next post to see more about keeping everything organized for your wedding!