Many couples have thought about what they want their wedding to be like. Maybe you’d love to get married at the beach or an urban setting or you’d love to have a food truck and live entertainment. The great thing about weddings today is couples are stepping away from the cookie-cutter wedding and creating an event that reflects them.
Since you are looking to create a wedding that reflects you as a couple, it is important that you talk with each other about what you’d like at your wedding prior to doing anything else. We know you’re excited to get planning. However, skipping this discussion can cause unnecessary disagreements later in the wedding planning process. If you take the time to create and discuss your wedding wish list prior, all wedding decisions will be much easier since you’ll already have your wedding vision set. Here are some questions you should answer to create your wedding wish list.
Style of Wedding
One of the first things to think about when creating your wedding wish list is the style of wedding you’d like to have. The style of your wedding is important because it helps to narrow down things like your venue and attire. If you’ve always dreamed of having an urban-style wedding then it makes it easy to narrow down your venue search to only those types of venues. This is especially helpful in our area as there are over 400 wedding venues in Central Florida.
Determining your wedding style is also helpful for putting your wedding design together. If you are have a rustic style wedding, renting French country chairs may work better than ghost chairs. Knowing the style of your wedding allows you to narrow down options quickly, which makes the decision making process less overwhelming.
Wedding Setting
Each wedding venue that you go to will have different options for where they hold wedding ceremonies and receptions on the property. For some wedding venues, there may only be an outdoor option or vice versa. If you have pre-determined that you only want to have your wedding festivities indoors, then a venue that is only outdoors may not work for you. Only the flip side of that, if you have your heart set on an outdoor wedding and the venue is all indoors, then you can cross that venue off as an option.
Just a little tip on having all or a part of your wedding outdoors:
One of the questions you will want to ask your wedding venue is for their weather backup plan. This means, where would they hold your outdoor wedding if it rains. If the venue doesn’t have an indoor option, consider reserving a tent in case the weather doesn’t cooperate on your wedding day.
Size of Your Wedding
Another important point to determine prior to wedding planning is the size of wedding that you would like. Some couples envision a large wedding with all their family and friends included, while others would prefer eloping with only a few loved ones in attendance. The choice is up to you!
Coming to an agreement on wedding size will help with your wedding venue search as well. All wedding venues have a max capacity. You’ll want to make sure that that capacity matches the number of guests that you are looking to invite to your wedding.
Time of Year and Location
When couples select their wedding date, they do so for many reasons. Many times that date has significance for them as a couple. If you have a specific date that you’d like to have your wedding on, like your first date anniversary, booking your venue and vendors early is important, especially if it is a date in wedding season.
What is wedding season?
Wedding season is the time of year that is most popular to have weddings. For Central Florida, that would be pretty much anytime that isn’t the summer months of June, July, and August. However, the month of October through April tend to be the most popular. If you are planning during this time, the sooner you book the better to make sure you get the venue and vendors that you would like.
Along with the time of year that you are looking to have your wedding, the location is just as important. If you are looking at having a destination wedding, there are other things that come into planning a wedding that is not in the location you are. This will sometimes mean that your guest list will be as smaller since not as many of your guests may be willing to travel to the location you are planning to get married.
Top Priorities
As you and your future spouse create your wedding wish list, write down your top three priorities for your wedding. These are those things that are most important to you when it comes to your wedding. This could be an amazing wedding dress or an incredible venue or even a guacamole bar. This is your chance to tell each other what want most at your wedding.
As you’ve been doing your wedding research, we’re sure you’ve seen wedding budget breakdowns. These tell you how much you should be spending on each category of your wedding. The problem with these breakdowns is they don’t take into account the priorities of couples for their wedding day. By that we mean maybe you aren’t a big fan of flowers and therefore aren’t going to include that many in your wedding celebration. However, a great DJ and all the extras that come with it are the most important to you. If your flowers were less of a priority to you than your wedding DJ then you would probably take the money that was allotted in those wedding budget breakdowns and put it over to your wedding DJ budget.
All this to say that those wedding budget guides are just a guide, not a rulebook. When you set your top three priorities it makes it much easier to make decisions with how you spend your wedding budget. If you know that your future spouse’s heart is set on a guacamole bar then when you sit down with your caterer that’s going to be worked into the menu. There won’t need to be a discussion about it because it has already been determined.
In short, creating your top three priorities for each of you helps to make those wedding budget decisions easier. You already have an idea where the money is going to go. Also, it helps to make sure that each of you has the wedding that you envision.
Explain Your Dream Wedding
The final thing that you’re going to want to do when you are creating your wedding wish list is to describe what your dream wedding day would be like. Give as much detail as possible. Start from the beginning of the day from where you’re getting ready and who is with you to the end of the wedding day. Don’t forget all the details in between. After you’ve written this down, share with each other your answers. This is something fun to do on a date night go out to dinner and talk about how you envision your wedding to be.
After you’ve talked about how you each and vision your wedding to be start combining your priorities. Discuss things that maybe you don’t initially want the same and see where you can come up with a happy medium.
By going through this process, we promise wedding planning will be less stressful and a lot more fun. It is important to note that this isn’t necessarily something that will be done in one day. Give yourself time to come up with a wedding wish list that you can each agree on and reflects you as a couple.