The Wedding Files #4 - Vendors

Those people that you will rely on to make your wedding come together - those are vendors. How many and which vendors you'll have will depend on the style of your wedding and how much you're doing on your own.

The following are some of the most common vendors, but there can be others. An asterisk denotes a vendor that I did not have to work with:

• Church
• Reception Hall
• Caterer*
• Florist
• DJ
• Musician/Band
• Photographer
• Videographer*
• Dress maker
• Decorator
• Wedding Planner*

The two most important things to consider in the vendor selection process are:

1. Give yourself as much time for the selection process so that you can shop around as much as possible.
2. Know what you want!

They're all going to be nice because they all want your money. They're all going to want to meet you face to face to try to win your business and tell you why they are the best. You'll have to look beyond all that. While there are always things/options that you may not have considered, you'll know the most important details of what you're looking for and you'll have to stand your ground on them.

To make it easier to choose, make sure that you are comparing apples to apples when asking for estimates. For example, have each caterer quote on the same number of courses, same serving and bar style, and leave out any differences as a 'bonus'. You can apply this to all of your other vendors. It may be a bit more up front work for you but it'll make the decision-making process much easier.

The biggest learning from the vendor process for me was how much I needed to spoon feed vendors versus them providing me with info. I guess I may be the only one that feels this way, but I highly doubt that.

For example, the florists all wanted to see picture examples of what I was looking for. This was totally fine; I knew the colours I was looking for and sent them a few different options. Of course, the first quote I received from each was based exactly on the images I showed. No use of imagination or recommendations of high/low cost options. I mean, you could have a least asked if I was open to suggestions before doing the quote. So of course I sent it back. At that point, only a couple were not annoying to deal with because I'm not going to sit here and tell you "replace flower A with flower B, give me size X instead of size Y..." etc. You have my budget and my ideas - work with it.

Don't get me wrong - the florists were not the only offenders. Pretty much everyone asked for my vision and then utilized none of their own imagination until I pushed them to. That's why it's so important to know what you want!

I think that's all the 'wisdom' I can impart on this topic ladies. Just don't let yourself get pushed around by bully vendors & you will be fine!

Happy Planning!

Wedding Files #3 - Guest List + Budget = Venue

The two things that will define your wedding planning are your budget and your guest list, which will lead to your biggest decision of all - the venue. Naturally, though not always the case, the longer your guest list, the bigger the budget you will need. You absolutely cannot seriously seek out a venue without knowing how many people you need it to accommodate. Nor can you evaluate an estimate without knowing how much money you have to work with.

Guest List
Start writing down  the names of everyone you want at your wedding. Get lists from both sets of parents too. Then break it down into 4 columns:

Must Attend || Nice to Have || Only if We Must || Probably Can't Make It

The 'Must-Attends' are obvious. The 'Nice to Haves' might be friends that you aren't crazy close with but would really enjoy to have at your wedding. The 'Only if We Musts' are usually family friends that you really don't have room for but your parents are mortified of offending. It really depends on who's funding this wedding so happy battling there! And unfortunately, there will always be some 'Probably Can't Make Its' from out of town but it's always great & courteous to extend an invite anyway. You might get a pleasant surprise :)

Once you comb through all columns and figure out the number of people you will definitely be inviting, reduce it by 20-30%. There will always be invite declines for various reasons, unless everyone you invite is immediate family. Keep both numbers - total & reduced - in mind when you're budgeting and scoping out venues.

Budget
You do not, I repeat, you DO NOT want to be wedding poor once this is all said and done. Near the beginning of our engagement, an already-engaged acquaintance asked us what we thought was a reasonable amount to take out as a loan to pay for a wedding. The correct answer is ZERO DOLLARS! No loans. No re-mortgaging. No spending all of your savings. It's a one-day party, people! Which is why I was totally OK with no wedding at all, but was over-ruled by my mother and then-fiance.

That being said, you want it to be amazing and unique. All of those things can be done within whatever budget you have. And parents will always help here and there, even if they can't pay for all of it. Be realistic with how much you have saved up, and can save between now and the wedding day. From all the budget 'tips' I read, we ended up loosely using the following breakdown:

• 45-50% Reception
• 10-12% Photography/Videography
• 10-12% Entertainment/Music
• 8-10% Attire (His & Hers)
• 8-10% Flowers & Decor
• 5-10% Misc [invites, gifts, transportation]

Anything remaining can go towards an emergency/surprises slush fund. Depending on how important certain things are to you, you can play with the numbers to balance them to your liking. So you may not be able to get that $10K dress from Kleinfeld's but I bet you can get a similar one elsewhere for a fraction of the cost!

Once you've got these factors down, you can start searching for a venue! There will be other venue-specific factors that will play into your choice but those will be unique to your needs, preferences and options.It's not a bad idea to look at reviews and pictures but looking at the real deal is your best bet.

One last tip - don't set your heart on a single date (unless there's a very special reason for it) and look at date ranges within a month or time period to maximize your choices.

Now go on, start your guest list & budget. You'll only change them like, 43 times between now and the wedding... ;)

The Wedding Files #2 - Getting Organized

Hello brides! I'm working hard to pump out a bunch of my wedding drafts from when I was resting my arm so thanks for being patient!

Today I want to talk about getting yourself organized so that you can actually really start planning out your big day!

There are many, many moving parts to planning a wedding so before you start, figure out how you're going to keep it all straight.

There are great online resources - of course, nearly everything is online these days! - which all have tips, ideas, trackers and wedding site templates. It's pretty much your free, one-stop resource shop.

We chose Wedding Wire because it has the most Canadian vendors. There were so many factors to consider and I really just needed to pick one and move on. At the end of the day, we only used to build our wedding site as well as track the RSVPs and guest list. That's not because it wasn't useful otherwise - they do have tons of tools - but I'm a plan-on-paper kinda gal.

For those who want something more tangible, you can pick up books or binders like this one from the Knot.

I received the binder from my MOH and it had a really good variety of different wedding tools - tips, ideas, trackers, templates. The best part was that it allowed me to save all of my receipts, contracts, brochures, business cares, samples, etc in one place.

But the holy grail of all of my planning was this customized notebook that I received for my birthday from my hubby shortly after our engagement:

The bottom reads #teamdcdk :)

This is where I kept all of my to do lists, reminders, vendor meeting notes and brainstorming. Plus like 42 versions of our guest list. Seriously, that was painful but I'll leave it for another post...

In the last couple of months when we were getting right into the thick of the knitty gritty, we created a wedding bulletin board with key headings to track important to-do's.

I loved it and even call it the 'Wedding Status' meeting which hubby absolutely hated HAHA I think that made me enjoy it even more LOL But it totally worked! I feel like having a quick visual reference easily accessible to both made a huge difference in not forgetting the small details.

At the end of the day, you can create your own spreadsheets, notebooks, trackers and anything else that will help you stay on top of all of the wedding craziness. It's really whatever works best for you so don't let anyone or anything try to convince you to use tools that just aren't right for you.

Curious to know what tools you guys have used, or plan to use, and why. Also, hit me up with any questions!

The Wedding Files #1 - The Big Question

Not the, "Will you marry me?" question; the other big question.  We'll get to that.

There's a serious misconception about feelings when it comes to getting engaged and planning a wedding. You're expected to be thrilled & excited and anything less is regarded as just plain weird. I'm here to tell you that it's more than ok not to feel this way. In fact, being shocked, scared, doubtful, angry and stressed are far more likely what you'll experience once you get engaged. Along with the happy and exciting moments of course!

I most certainly felt all of the above for the twenty months we were engaged. Yes, twenty whole months. I wrote two posts about wedding planning after we got engaged, and was then MIA for eight months. It's a lot of work but it's worth it in the end. Trust me - I didn't believe it myself until the day was over but it is. You'll see!

That's why I'm starting wedding series - in the hopes that at least some of you will find my experiences beneficial. While nobody's wedding journey is the same, I found it very useful to pick and choose different people's advice and suggestions as I saw fit. I also ignored a lot of the advice because well, sometimes it's just not good advice!

So welcome to...

There are definitely some key things to do before you jump into planning but the most important one is to answer the 'big question' first:

Do you want to have a wedding?

I know how that sounds but seriously - is this what you want? You've more than likely talked to your partner about it before, but if you haven't, now is the time. Who cares what everyone else expects - your fiancé, your family, his/her family, social norms - you need to know what you want! It's not necessarily a black and white yes/no to the wedding, but what you envision for yourself and where you're willing to make compromises.

I hate to break it to you but it's about the marriage, not the wedding so how you two go about this wedding business will be a good indication of how you two handle 'big things' together. So before the next post I need you to go figure out what you want! 

Happy Planning!