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Jersey Wedding Planning – So you’ve been engaged a month….

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Jersey Channel Islands Wedding Planning

So, did you get engaged on Valentine’s Day? If so, many, many congratulations. Have fun with your wedding planning.

What an exciting time you have ahead.

Can you believe you have actually been engaged for a whole month? Hmm – goes quickly, doesn’t it.

Well, now that you have just about come down from the ceiling, told all your family, wowed all your friends, showed off the ring (oh please – we’re sure you have) perhaps you are starting to think about planning the big day. Yes, we know you’ve probably been planning since you were 8 years old, but we’re talking about the firm decision making stuff as opposed to the whimsical daydreams.

When we talk to couples at the very beginning of their wedding planning, we have a handful of helpful suggestions both on the ‘go for it’ side and indeed the ‘just think before you..’ side of things, so we thought we’d share a few ‘kick off your planning’ ideas here…

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Handfasting at a Humanist Ceremony

What is the overall picture in your head?

..and even more importantly, are both of you visualising the same sort of day? There are some really fundamental decisions which need to be made jointly, right from the outset, including:

  • Religious or Civil Ceremony?
  • Interested in outdoors? Think about a Humanist ceremony.
  • When?
  • How big?
  • How much?
No, we’re not trying to be spoil sports, but until these really key questions are answered and agreed by you both, it is pretty much impossible to get going.
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Lovely clients taking a moment together

Who will be involved in the planning?

When you’ve answered at least the first three above, think through exactly who you would like involved in your wedding planning. This may sound strange, but people have lots of preconceived ideas about the extent to which they will be a part of a child, friend or sibling’s wedding planning and you need a team around you who you trust.
This may include a professional wedding planner or not, but either way you need someone who will be overall manager of ‘project wedding’: someone strong enough to ensure all stays on track and other contributors do their bit.
If, as is often the case these days, you have a number of family members making financial contributions, we would urge you to allocate each contribution to something specific. This way ideally each contributor will do some work on the element they are paying for and enjoy doing so. If all contributions are ‘thrown in a pot’ you can find yourself with the whole team expecting a say in each and every decision which can be awkward, frustrating and most of all takes far longer than it needs to.
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The girls and the boys

Cat Eye Photography

Set your budget

Working together to set, and as best you can stick to, a wedding budget is an excellent way to begin your life together.

Start with your overall figure and, we suggest, keep 8-10% of it as contingency (which usually means dress and shoes!).

Divide the rest into a small number of headings (Ceremony, Venue, Food and Drink, Attire, Photography, Flowers, Entertainment, Cake, Other for starters) and allocate a proportion to each. As you get going in your planning and become more confident in your understanding of what each element is likely to cost, these figures can be moved around. However without a starting point, it is well, difficult to start.

As you book elements, perhaps add an ‘Actual’ column, allowing you to see the difference between what you anticipated and the actual cost.

Jersey Channel Islands Wedding Planning - ternevents

Vera Wang and Jimmy Choos – gorgeous

Antonio Sanzari

Read the Small Print

Before you sign anything, with any venue or supplier, make sure you get a number of quotes to compare, and read the fine print.

By doing this, and asking absolutely every question which arises from doing so, you are far more likely to get what you want and not miss important terms and conditions, such as the minimum number you must pay for at a venue, the time amplified music must be turned off or the number of hours your suppliers will be attending on the day.

We have a lot of lovely couples ask us, of our own services ‘can I just check that..’, ‘sorry if this sounds silly, but..’

Remember, the only silly question is the one you didn’t ask. Good wedding suppliers should be enthusiastic about your wedding and never backward in coming forward to answer your concerns and queries.

 

We hope this helps you kick off ‘Project Wedding’ and we wish you happy planning!

Are you in need of some Jersey Wedding Planning? Get in touch today!