Wedding planning at first can seem like an overwhelming process — with so many details to take care of and options to choose from, where does one begin?
Well we have the answer, Yep,you guessed it! The internet has become the most popular source of information for ideas, advice,helpful tools and suggestions
So let’s get started…
- Along with becoming newly engaged,comes a flurry of excitement , enthusiasm and unnecessary stress along with the ever so popular question, now what? Well, help is on the way! Before you get too far ahead of yourself thinking about food, booze, and music let’s first consider the three most important things, a wedding date and securing a ceremony and reception venue. This where our always reliable Google comes to the rescue once again! Type in your destination area ending with wedding venues. So many choices what’s a girl to do?!
Yikes, now what?! - Seek out a local wedding planner. Oh Google.. we need you again. Type in your destination area ending with wedding planners . Helpful hint. Just because a wedding planner’s listing appears on the 1st page search it does not mean they are the most popular or better then others in the area. This is what shows up organically and it’s how Google gives all peeps equal opportunity to promote their business. When seeking out a Wedding Planner, skip all the pretty pictures and fluff and look for experience and credibility. Certainly when you seek out a specialist in any field, medical, fitness, education ,wouldn’t you rather hire someone with numerous years of experience, local resources ,excellent reviews, and whose style and personality that matches yours?
- I can’t afford a Wedding Planner
My advice.. Start with the “ Needs” for your wedding day in order of preference. Ceremony and Reception sites, Photographer, Catering , Bar, Ceremony and Reception Music, Floral / Decor, Cake and Sweet Treats.Do your homework when seeking out vendors that you are not familiar with. Referrals should be a must as well as a good open line of communication. Did they promptly return or email or phone call or did they just send you to their website? We truly believe in the motto” You only get one chance to make a first impression.
Getting Started
Particularly in the early stages, it’s hard to know where to start. Luckily, many sites provide planning resources from the onset. The precursor to any wedding, of course, is getting engaged, and that solely depends on the grooms inspiration for his proposal. The knot offers a wonderful post 50 Most Romantic ways to propose .
Once you’ve gotten engaged, it’s time to start planning the big day. Because planning a wedding is such a big task, One Wed figures you need all the help you can get. The site enables couples to seek out friends and family to share tips and offer advice. The Wedding Checklist feature provides a customized task list that can be edited, delegated, and, of course, checked off once completed. By sharing the planning workload with friends and family, you can free yourself to spend more time actually enjoying your wedding.
Weddings, though, don’t generally come free, so you’ll need a way to keep on top of how much everything you’re planning costs and how it fits into your budget. Get Ever Snap , the creator of a number of Facebook wedding planning tools, has that offers an itemized breakdown based on one’s overall wedding budget and number of guests. The budget covers all categories, including the reception, photo/video, fashion, music, flowers and decoration, rings, transport and hotel, ceremony, and stationary.
Finding Vendors
The wedding industry is vast, and selecting quality vendors can be difficult, especially when you’re trying to stick to your budget. Large sites like The Knot, and Wedding Wire offer local directories based on region, as well as discussion forums, enabling couples to get advice and reviews about vendors in their area.
Because weddings are one-time affairs, most wedding vendors don’t get a lot of repeat business, so it’s not likely that you’ll have personal experience with many of the vendors you’ll end up working with. Local directories can help you find everything from a venue to a caterer to a photographer and by relying on the reviews of others; you can help assure that you’ll be working with vendors that will make sure you wedding goes off without a hitch.
Invitations and Wedding Websites
Keeping guests informed and involved is often a challenge. Paper invitations, save the date cards, and directions to the reception are both expensive and often misplaced. Luckily, there are a variety of online tools that can be easily located and synchronized with email and calendars, as well as cut costs, save paper, and engage guests.
While you may not be able to completely do away with paper invitations (since it is doubtful that all of your guests will be tech savvy enough to rely solely on electronic invites), creating a wedding web site is essential. Your wedding web site will be able to provide guests with vital information about the wedding schedule, location, travel arrangements (such as nearby hotels and restaurants), background about you and your fiancé, and links to your registry. There are a large number of options for creating your web site, including eWedding, and MyWedding.com.
Another option is Zank You, which provides wedding websites with multimedia capability, so that guests can not only post comments, but upload songs and videos in the guest book. Zink You also provides couples with the ability to poll guests on their wedding websites so you can involve guests in wedding planning decisions (such as whether to go
Wherever you choose to create and host your wedding site, you can augment your site with the Bridal Guide Save the Date Widget, which allows your guests to add your wedding information to their calendars with one click.
Sharing the Big Day
Even after the wedding is over, your guests will still want to hear from you. Send a thank you tweet once you’re back from your honeymoon, and upload pictures onto Face book and Flickr. Use sites like this Moment or Panraven to create multimedia storybooks of your big day, and even consider creating a hard bound photo book of your wedding as a keepsake for close relatives (like your parents or grandparents) at Blurb or Lulu.
You can also take advantage of your wedding web site after the big event and encourage your guests to keep in touch and share any pictures or video they may have shot during the wedding. Create an invitation-only group on Flickr and invite guests to share photos, or create a special wedding hash tag on Twitter and ask guests to tweet their memories of the wedding. By keeping connected with guests on social media sites you can share with them other milestones in your new life
Happy Beginnings,
Mike
