The First 2 Steps After Getting Engaged
Written by Callie
Cover photo by Jess Morales Photography
Congratulations, you’re engaged! I was too around this time last year! And despite working at a wedding venue I still had no idea where to start and maybe you don’t either. This post should help you get your feet wet and get the ball rolling on wedding planning (because sometimes it can be a little overwhelming).
I was completely surprised by Jason asking me to marry him. We had discussed it plenty of times and I knew we would be married someday, but he was still in graduate school and wanted to wait to get engaged until after he graduated. That was all fine and good. But then he didn’t wait. Deciding instead to ask seven months before his expected graduation date.
I honestly was not expecting it as you can tell by the "what on earth, really?" face.
It was the perfect proposal (story to come later if y’all are at all interested) at my favorite place in the world (The Cliffs of Moher) and completely unexpected. I didn’t even have a Pinterest board started yet. And of course, I said yes! This happened while we were traveling so we had a week left of happy engagement feels and Jason requested we don’t start planning anything until we got back to real life. And as soon as we got back to Texas, I was stressed.
After two weeks of traveling abroad with my family, we got off the plane and immediately drove for six hours to Corpus Christi for a beach trip with his family. The second we got in the door (at 9:30 pm after 14+ hours of planes and cars) we were bombarded with questions.
Whoa, pump the brakes people. All I’ve done since this kid asked is stare at my sparkly ring.
After chatting with his mom and aunts at the beach house we went to a bar to meet up with his siblings. Once again, a barrage of the same questions were thrown at us.
Even friends, as we told them, wanted every single detail the minute they knew we were engaged.
There are plenty of blogs about the steps to take after getting engaged and the order in which to do them, but these are the two simple tasks I like telling people to start with when they are ready to start planning their wedding:
GUEST COUNT
&
WEDDING DATE
These two components of a wedding seem to be the ones that are needed in order to start everything else.
Chances are the first vendor you're going to book is a venue. And speaking from my experience at the wedding venue they will need both a date and your guest count in order to point you to the right package for you and determine the pricing.
If I had to take a guess I'd assume that the next vendor you book is your photographer. And they need to know your wedding date to see if they're available. DJs will need to check their availability for your date. And bakers and caterers will need a guest count in order to create pricing estimates.
And so there you have it. The TWO THINGS to figure out first once you're engaged. The rest will just fall into place!