Couples can often feel overwhelmed when it comes to planning their nuptials, according to hospitality experts and wedding planners. But they shouldn’t feel afraid to seek out tips and advice.
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Your partner has popped the big question — now you are engaged. And with that answer and commitment comes hundreds of other questions and commitments to make your upcoming wedding day one to remember.
Couples can often feel overwhelmed when it comes to planning their nuptials, according to hospitality experts and wedding planners. But they shouldn’t feel afraid to seek out tips and advice.
“The wedding planning process is incredibly overwhelming, so a lot of times if you don’t have someone who is helping you from step one, you don’t even know what you don’t know,” said Megan Bloomer, venue owner and show producer for Lexington Wedding Expos.
Most important tips for planning a wedding
For Bloomer, the two biggest tips to get started planning your wedding are picking a venue, and hiring a wedding planner.
“I do think the venue is important, or choosing a wedding coordinator,” she said. “It can be one or the other but your venue locks in your date and who you are going to book with and whether they have that date available — then you have all your other vendors.”
Bloomer said it can be hard to book a caterer and other vendors if you don’t have a set date or venue secured.
“Everything else is dependent on that,” she said.
Even if she wasn’t in the industry, Lexington, Kentucky wedding coordinator Danielle Rice says having a point-person for your big day can be crucial to the execution.
Without a wedding planner, Rice says she has seen aunts, mothers and friends become the organizer which takes away from them enjoying the special day, and making split-second decisions.
“I would say you need to have a point person because you and your family need to enjoy that day,” Rice said. “You have spent a lot of time and money planning and the last thing you want to do is box up stuff before trying to leave for the honeymoon.”
Wedding planners can also help direct the vendors a couple selects including photographers, florists, a DJ, caterers, makeup artists, and stylists. On average, couples hire 14 vendors for their wedding day, according to the 2019 WeddingWire Newlywed Report.
Determine ‘what is important to you’ for wedding day
Having a good, quality vendor team on your special day is another piece of advice from Rice. She said vendor selection is one of her most asked questions from brides she works with.
From bartenders to balloon arches, the attention is in the details, and the right vendor can help make your day more memorable for the bride, groom and guests.
“The better vendors you have, especially vendors you have worked with before, the better it is going to be,” Rice said.
Selection of vendors is something Bloomer hopes to ease stress in doing with hosting wedding expos, to give brides and couples various and innovative options. At her recent expo in late July, Bloomer included more local and small business vendors.
“We specifically wanted to get smaller vendors, not necessarily the first ten results on a Google search,” Bloomer said. “I love those businesses too, but those businesses are coming up on the search results because they are big, they are popular, and what that means is they often don’t have a ton of availability.”
With vendor selection being a priority for Rice, attending wedding expos help a couple determine what is important to them, and keep up with the constantly changing wedding industry trends.
Bloomer said coming to one central spot to shop and getting ideas and inspiration, really sets couples on a path for being able to execute their vision a lot cleaner, and a lot faster — and hopefully help couples save money.
Securing your budget: How to save money on your wedding
Before selecting vendors, planners Rice and Bloomer said the couple needs to have an honest discussion of what their budget is, and what are important aspects they want their day to include. Budgets vary depending on the couple, they said.
Bloomer suggests picking the top three things you want your special day to include — and calculate where you can save money in other areas.
“For some people that is the photos because that is what they are going to have forever. For some that is the bar, because they want to party and they want people to have fun,” Bloomer said. “Pick the top three things, spend your money there, and don’t spend money on the things that aren’t important to you.
“Just get you, your partner and your wedding planner to figure out what is important to you and everything else can fall by the wayside.”
When and if extra funds are available, planning experts say that is when decisions can be made to put money in other places.
For Brian Hagy of ABC 4 Rent marquee light rentals, said he finds couples wanting to book closer to the big day after all the larger purchases have been made.
“Some people are more last minute than others,” Hagy said. “What we have found in the short time we have been doing it is the venue is kind of a big deal — the dress, the clothing, the caterer — people will have a budget for a lot of things and that is very important and then we find they have left over money and we can add something extra.”
