With the Holidays being prime time for couples to get engaged, couples will be planning their weddings over the few months. This is the 3rd part in our series of planning your wedding from the professionals. We not only want to educate our bride and grooms on the importance of photography and video but also the importance of hiring other professional vendors to help make your wedding day go smoothly. Today we have someone whose job is to make sure your wedding day goes perfectly — Ashley from Birmingham’s most popular Wedding Planning company, I Do, I Do! Wedding Planning.
Dont forget to check out the other parts in this series – 4 Tips for Planning Your Honeymoon & Planning Hair & Makeup For Your Wedding Day.
Hello AL Weddings readers!
My name is Ashley Stork, and I am the owner of I Do I Do! Wedding Planning. First, I want to say thanks to Alex for having me guest blog today. Today I wanted to share with you a few things about what us wedding planners do (no it is not like it is on TV) and what some of the first steps you should take after getting engaged.
Wedding planners have a complex job that is hard to put to pen and paper. We do so many things for our clients. At I Do I Do! Wedding Planning, we are a combination of design and logistics. We make sure our clients are set up well in terms of details as well as the look of their reception. When designing, logistics are involved such as will there be enough room for people to move? Can guest get comfortably out of their seat? Do we have enough room on the dance floor? Is the buffet easy to get to and move around? I have a systematic approach I use with our brides to ensure they are on the right planning track. Our brides get custom checklists, vendor payment schedules, budgets, vision boards, and more from us in their planning process. Your wedding planner will be your best advocate, friend, referee, planner, designer and more. If you are interested in learning more about our services, hop over to our website and shoot me a message! I would love to meet you!
If you are newly engaged, you are probably walking around like a deer in headlights—am I right? It is exciting, fun and totally overwhelming because you got engaged five minutes ago and people are already asking you what your wedding date is. You know its true 🙂 Here are my top 4 things to do when you first get engaged:
- Set a budget. For the love of Pete, set a budget. I know this isn’t a fun conversation but whether one set of parents are paying, both, or you and your fiancé, you need to know how much you are going to spend. It makes it very difficult to make your guest list, refer you to vendors or know the direction you are going in without a budget.
- Make a guest list. My best suggestion would be for you and your fiancé to start a list and both of your parents to start their list. Once your budget is made, you can determine how many guests you can actually invite and edit your list from there.
- Hire professionals. Your best friend’s mom’s aunt who sometimes does flowers might do a great job but what if something goes wrong–will she be equipped to handle it the way a professional would? All vendors we refer have a business license and liability insurance. You can still do some DIY things if you are looking to cut costs or enjoy being crafty but make sure your hire professionals with signed contracts.
- Enjoy being engaged. Remember wedding planning is marriage planning. A wedding day is one day in your long married life. Don’t loose sight of that. Continue to date each other, and talk about something other then the big day 🙂
That’s all for today my friends. Thanks for stopping by the blog and be sure to come friend, follow and like us on facebook, instagram, pinterest and twitter!
xo
-Ashley
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