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First Things First
...How to get Started
So you've made the commitment and you're getting married. Now what?
Basically you are now the Chief Coordinator for the largest most
upscale party you will ever host. Unfortunately, you have likely
never hosted a large upscale party before! So your Preliminary Tasks
are to:
1) Educate yourself, and
2) Get and stay organized.
As you are working on these tasks you will also need to make these
Initial Wedding Decisions:
1) Establish your wedding date, style,
size, and location,
2) Establish your wedding budget, and
3) Establish your wedding timeline.
Educate Yourself
If you are like most of us girls, you have been educating yourself
about your wedding for a couple of decades. But now you really need
to focus! You will need to learn about weddings in general and about
weddings in the California Central Coast in particular.
To learn about weddings in general, visit
Barnes and Noble when you have a couple of hours to spare.
If possible, get a table and chair and start looking through their
bride magazines. Pick out a couple of your favorites to buy and
take home. Also look through their large wedding planning books.
Find the books that seem most realistic to you and narrow down your
choices to a few finalists. Look through them in a little more detail
to pick your favorite one or two. Take them home and read them cover
to cover with a yellow highlighter (invisible on copies) and post
it notes in hand. Feel free to write in the margins. Also get a
legal pad and make notes about the more important points that you
want to revisit later. You now have the foundation of your education.
Next try a couple of Google searches for
wedding related topics. Visit some of the sites that
pop up and bookmark your favorites. Start a bookmark directory with
subdirectories especially for your wedding. You will want to visit
some of these sites again and again. Talk to your recently married
friends about what you have learned. Ask them about reality versus
what the books have to say. Your friends will be one of your best
resources, especially when it comes to weddings in this region.
Finally, visit a few Wedding Fairs. Plan
to arrive early and stay late as Wedding Fairs are a terrific place
to connect with the local wedding professionals. Don't be shy…talk
with as many of these pros as you can. They have helped other brides
to host hundreds of weddings, so they have lots of knowledge to
pass on to you. Bring that legal pad along to take notes. Also,
get business cards for all wedding pros in which you are interested.
Make notes on the back of each business card so you can remember
what impressed you about each company. Once you are back home, file
these notes and cards in the appropriate section of your wedding
notebook (we'll get to this in a minute).
Get Organized
The best way to sanely plan your wedding is to get, and stay, organized.
The best way to do this is to buy a 3-ring binder that is at least
2 inches thick, preferably 3 inches thick. Buy index page dividers
with the little tabs that you can label for the various categories
on which you will be working. Also buy clear plastic pockets to
slip brochures, flyers, business cards into. Create divider tabs
for the ceremony site, reception site, photographer, videographer,
caterer, florist/decorator, coordinator, invitations, gown/tux,
DJ/musicians, officiant, cake, and so on. At the front of each section,
keep a copy of your contract related to this category. At the front
of the binder, keep a summary sheet of contact names and numbers
of all of your contracted wedding professionals and a calendar where
you will enter your 'milestone' dates. This binder will become your
wedding bible.
Go to the "Planning Worksheets" section at www.CentralCoastBride.com
and print out a copy of each of the worksheets. As you gather information
and make decisions, complete the worksheets and file them in your
binder. Or you can download these worksheets to your computer and
complete them electronically prior to printing and filing in your
binder. One worksheet you will want to visit again and again is
the Budget Worksheet. Enter your planned wedding budget numbers
and this Excel worksheet will calculate subtotals by category (See
Establish Wedding Budget below for additional information on this
worksheet).
Go to the Wedding Pros section at www.Central-CoastBride.com to
quickly access all of our advertisers. For instance, if you are
looking for a photographer, click on wedding pros, then click on
photographers and up pops a table with our photographers listed.
Click on their name to view their specialties on their ad. If their
style seems to suit you, click on the hyperlink to their website
or send them an email with one click of the mouse.
Keep this hard copy of Central Coast Bride magazine in the front
pocket of your binder or in your purse. It will be an invaluable
resource for you in identifying and contacting the best local wedding
professionals. Additionally, the Advertiser Index located in the
back of the book doubles as a handy phone book since it has all
of our advertisers listed alphabetically with their phone numbers
and web site addresses handily posted.
Establish Your Wedding
Date, Style, and Location
Date. You likely have a good idea about when you want to hold your
wedding. Many weddings are held from Spring through Fall, with the
peak wedding season being Summer months. If you plan to have a garden
wedding, be sure to select a month when rain is unlikely. This is
generally May through October in this area. Winter weddings can
be another great reason for family and friends to get together over
the Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year's holidays (although some
families do not want to travel on these holidays, so be sure to
take this into consideration). Most weddings are held on Saturdays,
although Friday evening and Sunday afternoon weddings are also great
options, plus some services are offered at a discount on these days.
Once you and your Groom have selected a few potential dates, check
with the Chamber of Commerce and other community calendar information
sources for any conflicting local festivals or other events. While
your out of town guests will appreciate having this entertainment
available, they may have trouble finding hotel rooms if the area
fills with tourists.
Style. With a few dates in
hand, you can now think about the style of your wedding. Your wedding
style will be influenced by you and your Groom's personalities and
personal styles. Formality: Your style may be formal, casual, or
somewhere in-between. Tradition: You may want a traditional wedding,
a contemporary wedding, a themed wedding, or some blend of these
ends of the spectrum. Size: You may want an intimate wedding with
50 friends and family, or your large families may require that you
have a large wedding of 400 guests.
Location. If you and your Groom
are very particular about the date you have selected for your wedding,
it is important to get your wedding and reception locations reserved
as early as possible. These sites typically book up to a year in
advance. See more on selecting your wedding and reception sites
on page 12.
Establish Your Wedding
Budget
Traditionally, the Bride's family paid for the wedding and reception
while the Groom's family paid for the rehearsal dinner and the honeymoon.
However, like most elements of today's wedding, tradition no longer
rules. Often it is those in the best financial position who pick
up the tab. For second marriages, many couples pay for all of the
expenses themselves with little to no input from parents. This is
also often true with many career minded couples who marry later
in life. So consider your particular situation and discuss options
with your Groom and then with your respective families.
Determine the total amount you wish to spend on your wedding. Then
determine the amount to allot to each of the elements of the wedding.
There are no absolute rules for this division since each bride is
unique in her feelings about which parts of the wedding are more
important to her. However, the 'traditional' percentages are presented
on our website. Once you determine your percentages, download the
Budget Worksheet from ww.CentralCoast-Bride.com. Enter your planned
wedding budget numbers and this Excel worksheet will calculate subtotals
by category. Later, as you contract with your various wedding professionals
and have hard numbers for each of your wedding categories, enter
these 'actual' numbers. The worksheet will then calculate the difference
between your planned cost and your actual cost. If you are under
budget, then you can add the difference to another wedding category.
If you are over budget, you'll have to revisit other categories
to identify places where you can cut back to stay on budget.
Establish Your Wedding
Timeline
It is fairly easy to set up your timeline. In the calendar in the
front of your 3-ring binder, post your wedding milestone dates starting
with your wedding date, then work backwards from that date to today.
See the example timeline on page 81 or on our website. This timeline
will help you to identify milestones that are appropriate for you.
As each wedding decision is made, be sure to update your calendar.
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