Five Things to do After Getting Engaged
Congratulations, woot woot! Ahhh, I remember being newly engaged just last January 2022. It was such an exciting time, my mind was doing jumping jacks and jumping off the walls of excitement. Being in the wedding industry, I was eagered to start planning right away HAHA! But…of course, my now husband, was like ..no…let’s take it all in first and enjoy (he was honestly just needing a break after planning the proposal LOL)….and it helped so much! So, here are some tips from me, as a wedding photographer and former bride:
1. Celebrate and Enjoy Being Engaged!
Take a step back and ENJOY, just be in the moment. You probably want to tell the whole world the exciting news, but stop for a second and JUST BE…enjoy with your now ✨fiancé✨, close family and friends. I love my community on Instagram and all, but I decided not to post right away - I waited about two weeks. It totally makes a difference, trust me. No one except our family/friends who were at the proposal knew and it was the best thing ever! Once you feel like you’ve celebrated enough and took it all in together, yell out to world and tell everyone that you’re engaged to your best friend 💕.
2. Talk about your wedding vision
So many things to talk about with your fiancé! Emphasis on WITH YOUR FIANCÉ..no one else. Whether you guys are paying for your own wedding or family will be helping out, have the initial wedding conversation about your vision with each other only. Then, bring everything you talked about to your family.
Things to talk about:
Do you want to get married this year? next year?
Do you want to elope, have a small wedding, a big wedding?
What boundaries will you set with your friends and family?
Do you want to get married in your area or go off to another country?
What type of venue would you like?
What’s your dream wedding vision?
The list goes on and on, but this is a good start!
Both of our families are pretty chill and have always respected our decisions, but I know not everyone is like that..so definitely, set boundaries with friends and family from the beginning! I promise it will make your life easier 🙌🏼.
3. Talk about $ budget $ and guest list
I decided to put these two together in one because they go hand in hand. The size of your guest list will greatly affect how much you’re going to spend on your wedding. More people = more food/drinks, larger venue space, more chairs, more tables, more of literally everything! Start off by creating a spreadsheet of your budget and expenses, as well as a guest list. Don’t stretch yourself and go ahead and get 10 more jobs - understand and be okay with what your financial situation allows - prioritize from there 🙌🏼.
Your budget and guest list will also help you eliminate certain venue options. I suggest you have a budget and guest list somewhat set/in mind before visiting venues. For example, if your overall budget is 15k for 200 people and you want an all inclusive venue….think again, because …that’s just not going to work😭. We had 175 guests so these are a few things we did to make it work (we prioritized food and venue):
Found a venue that allowed for us to use our own vendors (they already had tables and chairs, so we didn't have to worry about rentals!)
Traditional wedding food is not our thing, so we did Uncle Julio’s …YUM!
Facebook market, wedding resale groups, and Buy Nothing groups, saved our life. We bought our centerpieces and some wedding decor from there.
FAKE FLOWERS. FAKE FLOWERS. I love real flowers, but FAKE FLOWERS is what we did for centerpieces. We also mixed in fake flowers with real ones for our ceremony arrangements. Bouquets and boutonnieres were made with real flowers only (my aunt did all of the florals).
Utensils: all were from Amazon
Drinks: no alcohol. Main drinks were Jarritos (they were glass, so we didn't need cups!)
For our dessert: Churros were our main dessert (we hired a churro truck), had a small cake, and mini conchas.
Decor and set up - our amazing friends and family set things up❤️
I’ll be making another blog post about all of my amazing vendors soon, so stay tuned!
4. Hire a wedding planner
If it’s within your budget to hire a wedding planner…do it. They will help you figure out your budget, guide you through literally everything, they’ll give you venue options and go on tours with you, they will make your life SO MUCH EASIER. They have different packages available, from partial planning, to full planning, and even day of coordination (which, they actually help you about 1-3 months prior to wedding day…not only the day of). They’ll take care of vendor communications, timeline, and course make sure that the day of your wedding everything flows smoothly!
5. Start touring venues
Make a spreadsheet with all the venues you visit and add in notes after each visit. Do your research about the venues you inquire with - check out their reviews. how long they take to get back to your inquiry, how their process works, etc. THESE THINGS MATTER! After you inquire, most will send you an investment guide with all of their pricing information and a link to schedule a tour. Go to your tour prepared:
Have a list of questions you want to ask
Get an actual # of how much it’d cost to have your wedding there, contract details, and additional fees
Explore your ceremony and reception options
Explore rain plan options
Take lots of photos to have for reference later
Take lots of notes and file anything they give you to reference to later
Now, with all of this in mind - have fun planing one of the most special days of your life❤️. This is the one day everyone you love will be in the same room celebrating you two!
