Maybe your holiday season brought a new shiny ring into your life or maybe cupid’s arrow came with a proposal this year! After all, the most popular times to become engaged all fall between December and February! If that’s you… first of all… Congratulations Friend!! 🎉 What a sweet and exciting season of life you have just entered into!

We love this time of year because this is the time of year we find ourselves making new bride to be friends! We love sitting down for coffee with our couples and hearing their stories and seeing the excitement of their new season in life. One thing we’ve come to realize from these first meetings and heard time and time again from newly engaged friends is… they are so excited to be engaged and start the wedding planning process but they have no idea where to start! If this is you, know you are not alone! The task of planning a wedding can be daunting and feeling overwhelmed over how to begin planning for the wedding day is quite common among newly engaged couples.

So today on the blog we wanted to share with you some of the top tips we have for getting started with your wedding plans!

 

•  Honestly our first tip of advice… may come as a surprise… it’s not to rush out and buy a wedding checklist or to start booking your vendors… but we want to encourage you to savor the moment!! Take some time to just enjoy the joy of being engaged! Whether you go out and have a quiet dinner for two or have an engagement party and celebrate with family and friends take a moment to soak it all in! The engagement season goes by all too quickly, no matter if it’s just a few months or a full year, so don’t forget to take some time to just enjoy the moment!

 

• Think it Out – Talk it Out! Share your dreams, your visions and wishes with your fiance. Make sure you each share what you envision for your special day. Do you want to keep things intimate and low key or do you want a day filled with all your friends and family followed by dancing the night away! Or maybe you want to be married in the same church as your parents, or would you rather jet set off to an exotic location for an epic ceremony location and follow it up with a dinner party. No matter what you dream or envision make sure you talk it out together, from locations to themes, to guests lists. Who knows you might just each bring an idea to the table that makes you both see your wedding day in a whole new light!

 

• Set a Wedding Budget! Okay so talking budgets is never fun, right?! But before you rush out the door and start booking venues, and paying deposits you need to sit down with your fiance and set a dollar amount that you are both comfortable with. If family members are contributing financially or covering a specific area of the wedding day, you’ll also need to have a conversation with them about their contribution. While deciding your wedding day budget discuss and allocate wedding day funds based on priorities… ask yourself what is most important to you on your wedding day.

 

•  Now that you’ve had a moment to celebrate, you’ve talked it out and set a budget in place, it’s time to go tour some venues! While this can be fun we also know it can be overwhelming! So when you go to tour, go with an open mind… visit the one that’s at the top of your list or the one with the look you love most but don’t be afraid to throw in a venue wild card. You never know you might just be pleasantly surprised when you arrive! We recommend before you visit any venues to sit down and make a list of any questions you might have. Things like what’s their rain plan, how many guests can they accommodate, who are their recommended service providers, etc. Some of the answers to these questions might affect your venue decision at the end of the day.

•  Set the Date! You’ve got your budget set, you have a vision in mind and you’ve done the venue tour and found the dream location… now it’s time to set your timeline and lock in your wedding date! Yay! Once you’ve got your wedding date and venue locked in you can now start securing your other wedding day vendors. Photographers, Florists, Hair and Make-Up, Catering, DJs, Bands, etc.

 

•  Engagement Pictures! Obviously, this one is our favorite! With a budget in place, a date set and a venue booked. It’s time to find your wedding photographer. When looking for your wedding photographer you need to look for a photographer within your budget who not only has a body of work that you love but also you feel comfortable around! You’ll be spending a lot of time with your photographer on your wedding day, so you need to make sure that your comfortable around them and will get along well with them. After our couples have had a chance to look over our photography investment options and are ready to move forward in the booking process we love to set up a time to meet them for coffee or a Skype call, it’s a great way for us all to get to know each other face to face. Doing an engagement session with your wedding photographer is another opportunity to get to know them, all while becoming comfortable in front of their camera.  Working with your photographer prior to the wedding day also helps them know the best poses and posing cues that work for you! Here at Capture Thirteen, one of the choices we offer with our full wedding day investments is a complimentary engagement session, so you’ve got no excuse to not take advantage of it! 😉

From here, you’ll have the big items checked off your list and it will soon be time to go dress shopping with your girls, wedding registries and bridal showers! If you weren’t quite sure where to begin we hope our top tips help make for a smooth transition from becoming engaged to full-on wedding planning!

 

Capture Thirteen Photography is based out of the Northeast Georgia area between Braselton and Gainesville, Georgia. We serve the North Georgia area and beyond! We’re currently booking 2020 weddings, for more information on our wedding day investments or to check your wedding date please fill out and submit out our wedding day questionnaire! Or email us at capturephotography13@gmail.com

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