Are you starting to feel like being newly engaged is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster? We hear you and we hear it a lot from our clients too.

Feelings can flicker from pure joy and excitement, to disbelief, through to pure terror at the thought of planning a wedding – all within a few seconds. It is an exhilarating time that’s for sure, and once you announce it to your nearest and dearest – there’s absolutely no going back!

Being newly engaged is a precious moment in life, so before you do reach for the phone to deliver those announcements, take a moment to step back. Revel in the experience with your other half, enjoy the here and now, relive the moment over and over so it’s firmly fixed in your memory. Trust me, this moment will soon pass. To be replaced with question after question about what you plan on doing for your big day.

So once you have come back down to earth, it’s time to get down to business. There are hundreds of guides across the internet about how to plan a wedding, some offer really great advice, some will be totally irrelevant to you. So how do you know what YOU need to do first.

Well as you’re here in our little corner of the internet reading our advice, we have a fairly good idea that you are a smart, sophisticated, clued-up kind of person (we like you already!). So here’s our proposed action plan just for you:

Draft up a Wedding Guest List

Knowing the size of your guest list is crucial to the planning process. Without it you won’t know which venue’s to consider or where to concentrate your budget. A wedding for 250 will have a very significant impact on how you plan your wedding than if you only have 100.

So start drafting that list right away and be selective, there’s no right or wrong way to do this, just go with your heart and how you truly feel about who you want to celebrate with.

“Write without fear, edit without mercy”.

Nearly all couples will experience the dreaded family-factor when it comes to who to invite. Well-meaning parents and close relatives will feel they have a say over your guest list, particularly if contributing financially. Have a game-plan from the outset as to how you will jointly, handle this – remember you’re a team now.

You can always have a secondary list of people to invite once the first round of invitations have gone out and any declines are counted up. No-one needs to know, and everyone does it so don’t feel bad.

Create Your Budget

Frank discussions are necessary from the outset, with both your partner and any parents/family who may be contributing. It is essential to know what your top-end figure is, so you can assess what kind of wedding is possible, with the budget you have. Also factor in a contingency for the unforeseen of around 5-10%.

It’s easier said than done, but we always advise our clients to not let money become a bone of contention when planning your wedding. Nobody likes to talk about money and it can bring up so many things for everyone involved, remember everyone has their own money story, so try to remove the emotion attached to those discussions.

Seek Out Your Dream Wedding Venue or Location

So now you know the two crucial factors: guest-count and budget – you can conduct a more considered venue search. This is where it gets interesting, and more often than not, a hell of a lot more confusing too.

You may know exactly where in the world you wish to wed, so you fire off a few enquiries with venue’s that look like they fit the bill. Wading through those responses to pick out the key info you require – or worse chasing up a million emails when you don’t get a timely response – can feel like a full time job in itself. Trust me, we’ve been there and know that the venue search can be one of the most frustrating experiences rather than the most joyful. And it should be all of the latter, none of the former.

Seeking help from a professional, who knows the market inside and out, can save you a lot of tension – more on that below.

The key with picking the right location for you is to sit back and visualise it before you start the search. We truly believe in visualisation as a powerful mental technique: using the imagination to make dreams and goals come true – but that’s a whole other post for another day.

As you visualise your wedding, think about the location, what does it look like, what vibe do you get from it, where in the world feels right deep down in your heart? Then write out what you saw, this will help you devise the key criteria you desire most from your venue. Pick a maximum of three non-negotiables and draft up a ‘nice-to-have’ list too, remember it’s better to be flexible and open than to limit yourself too much with a strict and excessive criteria list.

Hire a Wedding Planner

If you already feel time-starved and know you’ll go insane with one more thing piled onto your epic to-do list – then hiring a wedding planner from the get-go is for you. An experienced planner will help you cut to the important parts, saving you hours spent researching ‘what to do and in what order’ so you can get on with ticking off an actual action plan.

These are the three key steps for the newly engaged (four if you include hiring a wedding planner) and will set the foundation for every other aspect of your planning. From there you will have a much clearer picture of your celebration, and can get stuck into all the fun elements like dress shopping, choosing decor and flowers, picking a catering partner and seeking out entertainment. These are all the delicious details that allow you to weave your own story in so it feels truly authentic.

We’ve supported many couples through this process over the years, working in collaboration with them to orchestrate the creative direction according to their ultimate vision. Recommending, hiring & managing the right people, products, services and spaces that will bring their vision to life. And then rigorously managing the entire planning process.

Our couples tell us time and again how we take the stress out of wedding planning, instead their journeys have been immensely enjoyable experiences. They had faith in us to deliver those big plans, and trusted that all those intimate details would turn out just right.

Want more like this? read our advice on:

• How to plan a wedding
• How to get the wedding wow-factor
• Tips on determining your wedding ceremony style
• How to avoid theming your wedding day
• How to choose wedding colours 
• Our expert tips on marquee wedding styling