You’re Engaged!
Now What?

I did say I was wrapping up my blog wedding series to focus on my wedding series on my channel but with my first wedding video of 2018 still a couple of weeks away, I thought I would write a little post for all of you who got engaged over the holidays.

First of all – congratulations!! It really is the best feeling to be newly engaged; there’s so much joy (and champagne – and cake!) floating around that it’s difficult not to be on a high. I’m pretty sure I just walked around in a happy daze for the first month so be sure to soak it all in!

Once the euphoria begins to dim (just a little ;)), you may want to get stuck straight into planning like I did. Being a fairly organised person, I thought planning would be a breeze. Whilst it hasn’t been a nightmare, it’s definitely been a learning curve! And now that I’m over half way through wedding planning, I thought I would share some of my planning and just general newly-engaged tips for any of you brides-to-be out there 🙂

First Things First

There are all kinds of lists out there telling you what you ‘must‘ do when you get engaged but I only found a few of them to be true. Here are my ‘must-dos’ 🙂

  1. Insure your ring. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be terrified about losing it. Insuring it will be helpful for this but be sure to shop around – I had no idea how pricey insurance can be for things like this!
  2. Set a wedding budget but don’t get too specific with the allocations yet. It’s good to estimate but chances are, you’ll be way off with at least a few of the areas.
  3. Get on the same page as your fiancé about the type of wedding and the style of venue you want. If possible, book to see some venues as soon as possible. It’s very difficult to plan anything without your venue and popular ones get booked up way in advance.

Next Steps – What To Prioritise

If you’re lucky enough to get your venue sorted promptly, then I would definitely suggest focusing on booking your photographer, videographer and band/ DJ next. It can be a challenge finding vendors you love within your budget so to add date limitations in there is never helpful!

After this, I would absolutely recommend booking in for some wedding dress appointments! Finding my dress took me so much longer than I thought it would so ease the pressure a bit by leaving plenty of time 🙂

The Planning Mistake I Made

Apart from booking in major vendors, I would recommend not buying anything else for the wedding in the beginning stages unless you have to. No matter how set you are in terms of what you envision for your big day, there is a big chance that things will change over the course of all your planning.

There were several non-essential things which I purchased just out of pure excitement that I’m now not going to end up using because they don’t fit with our plans anymore. Thankfully, these were all small ticket items but I’m not a fan of waste – if I could do it again, I would have been more strict with myself and saved everything to my ‘buy-it-later’ folder.

General Planning Observations

After a solid 8 months of planning, there are a few things that I now know to be true:

  • As much as you may think it’s impossible, you will get to point where you won’t be that into wedding planning. This was unthinkable to me when I first got engaged but truth be told, I really go through phases! Sometimes, all I want to do is talk all things wedding – other times, I’m just not that fussed and don’t do anything wedding related for weeks. My advice? Take advantage of the time that you’re super enthusiastic about it – you’ll be thankful for these productive bouts of time when you’re not so into planning!
  • No matter how expensive you think wedding services and items are, they will still exceed your expectations! Catering and furniture hire in particular came in at a lot more than we expected, so try to get quotes for these sooner rather than later so you can adjust your budget accordingly.
  • Delegate! I thought I could (and wanted!) to do it all. Turns out, planning a wedding is a huge task with a never ending list of moving parts. It took me a long time to get there but asking for help from loved ones really will help to keep you sane 🙂

And that’s it for this post! I hope you found it useful and congratulations to any newly engaged couples once again! There are definitely parts of wedding planning that are stressful but so much of it is wonderful too so try to remember to enjoy it; you’ll hopefully only do it once!

Photo: Jose Villa

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9 Comments

  1. 1.2.18
    Katy said:

    Can you be more specific about the things you regret buying or doing? For example, I’ve been wondering whether to pull the trigger on a ring box like the one in your insta story… but should I? Thanks!

    • 1.2.18
      amie1 said:

      Hi Katy! They were just decor items for the actual wedding and an invitation suite printable. I have a ring box myself and for me, that’s more of a forever piece (not planning on getting rid of my ring(s)!) so not something I think I’ll regret 🙂

  2. 1.2.18
    Lisa Autumn said:

    I will save this post for when the time comes.. so helpful!

    xx Lisa | lisaautumn.com

  3. 1.2.18
    Hayley said:

    Great advice Amie! I got married 2 weeks ago and totally agree about the phases of excitement vs dread at the thought of wedding talk! I mostly loved planning everything but there were periods of 3-4 weeks where I just didn’t do a thing but I think that’s good because it lets you reset and when you are back into it, your mind is clearer and your vision stronger 🙂
    The only other piece of advice I would add with regard to budgeting would be deposits!! Although these are mostly refundable (assuming nothing goes horribly wrong!) you still need to front these costs and they can certainly add up if you are planning on hiring a lot of things like we did! Overall though, it’s a great experience to plan and organise your own wedding and the day will always be remembered as one of the best I’ve had! ☺️ Best of luck for your wedding! xx

  4. 1.2.18
    Amanda said:

    This was so helpful! I got engaged in June and we have a while until our wedding (2019) and I keep putting things off because it’s such a long way out, but I’m glad to hear you go through bouts as well! I’m am literally so excited, but it can be exhausting talking and planning all the time! Wishing you the best in your planning and big day! xx

  5. 1.5.18
    Iva said:

    I understand it is a little bit far from the subject but seeing the beautiful photo of the ring made me comment. I have a little tip on the ring setting style I got from my friend who works as a gemologist. One should choose setting that has 6 pieces of gold/platinum thingy (sorry, English isn’t my first language) holding the diamond cause if you have 4 and one brakes the stone might fall out easily. I would never ever think of something like that but that was an interesting point of view. 🙂

  6. 1.7.18

    Loved your post Amie 🙂
    For planning freak like me, this post certainly adds up to a “Must Read” before wedding planning phase even begins!
    Thanks for sharing !!
    God bless you and Dan 🙂 Have a Fab Wedding!!
    Love from India 🙂

  7. 1.24.18
    Lo said:

    Can you please post on your website. I miss your posts 🙁

  8. 1.27.18
    Nas said:

    Hi Amie! Could you share with me the planner/diary you are using to get organised? I rmb watching it in one of your videos… Think you gave up your Louis Vuitton diary for it. Can’t seem to rmb which one it was… Thank you 🙂 love your vids. Enjoy putting you on in my background in the mornings while I potter about, getting ready for work!