We aren’t wedding planners, but we are engagement planners. We have helped couples plan their rings, their proposals, their wedding bands and even their honeymoons. We have been invited to weddings, showers, baby naming’s and have customers that come back for push gifts, anniversary gifts and just I still love you gifts. While we aren’t experts, we do consider ourselves knowledgeable in the study of the engaged couple and want to make your lives easier by offering things that we have picked up on from our couples as you make your own trips towards the aisle.
11 Things to do Right After Your Engagement
- Call Your Family and Friends. Chances are your parents know and are waiting for the call, so call your family first then call your close friends and share the good news. Don’t go posting a picture of your ring before you tell anyone, it can cause hurt feelings, and that’s not a good way to break the news before asking those same friends to be in your wedding!
- Get a Manicure. It sounds silly, but everyone is going to be checking out the bling, so make sure your nails look nice. A French manicure won’t take away from the beauty of your ring those first few weeks, after that you can go natural or blue until the day of the wedding, but for those first few weeks of engagement go pretty and plain!
- Enjoy the moment. You are diving into a lifetime commitment with a man that you love as well as a very stressful busy time, so before you start to get into the logistics of planning the big day, take a few weeks to enjoy the engagement and how incredibly romantic being engaged is.
- Start Dreaming. Remember that hope chest you had? Pull it out and start to brainstorm about the type of wedding you want. Think about the dress, the venue, and the flowers. Join Pinterest and look at different wedding boards and buy a few magazines, and if you are really creative, put together your own inspiration board.
- Set a Budget. This really could be called ‘setting a limit’, because you need to think about how many guests you want and how much you want to spend, and each depend on the other. You need both to decide the venue, the flowers, the food and a million other details, which you can’t decide until you know how much you want to spend and how many people you are inviting.
- Set a Date. Once your limits are in place, sit down with your family and all of your calendars, blackberries, iPhones, iPads and Day Timers (does anyone use those anymore?) and find a date that works for EVERYONE. No, this might not seem like an easy task, but better for all of you to start on the same page and the right foot! Also, ask your engaged friends when their dates are so you don’t run into conflict with them as well!
- Hire a Pro. Let me preface number seven with not everyone needs or wants a wedding planner and not everyone has a wedding planner, but if you are going to use a wedding planner, hire one after you set a budget, but before you get the venue. Part of the reason to hire someone before the venue is that they might have a fab idea you didn’t think of and they might be able to save you some money on the venue you want.
- Location, Location, Location. The truth is, you are marrying the love of your life, and all that really matters is that there are three of you there that day; you, him and someone ordained to get the job done. But, let’s say you want to have more people there, then it is time to think about the where, when and how of the situation. This goes back to the date, which depends on whether it can be indoors or outdoors, the amount of your budget, which could be an intimate surrounding, or large hotel and the amount of people, which could be your backyard or a big hall!
- Stay Organized. Microsoft Excel will be your friend. To keep your list of guests organized to the vendors that you are using, this handy tool can make you a spreadsheet of monstrous proportions and will even help keep even the most disorganized organized.
- Book Your Vendors. Some of the good ones get snapped up months and years in advance, so start to look for good photographers and videographers quickly and go ahead and book them once you know your date. Also, if you are going to have a DJ or a band, it’s a good idea to start to look early and put down deposits. Although it’s not impossible to wait until virtually the last minute to do most of these things, the sooner you do them and get them out of the way the more you can also enjoy your engagement.
Don’t Forget the Wedding Bands. And, I am not talking about the kind that plays music, but the kind that you wear on your hands. Remember if you are going to be getting them made, they take some time to make, so it’s best to get those done early!
This list will get you started on the path from your engagement to your marriage, and don’t forget to spend quality time with each other during all of the planning, because in the end, the wedding is just one day and the marriage is the rest of your life!