Planning a wedding : Part 1 - Theme/ Budget/ Style

Ok your engaged, congratulations! Now lets get down to the fun stuff? After the excitment of the engagement settles down, you are boombarded with so many choices and themes and styles for your wedding. Where do you start! eeekkkkk....

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Ok step one: Decide your wedding date, not only is this what friends and family will be asking to know but it will also have a major influence on the location and theme of your wedding. A winter or summer wedding? romantic spring? inside of outside?

Once you have decided that and told everyone the next thing to consider BEFORE lookign at anything wedding (dresses, recpetions, etc) is your budget for the wedding. How much can you spend on the wedding or would like to. Many bridal magazines have a checklist at the back of them with a budget break down guide so you can figure out how much your dream wedding is really going to cost.

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To break your budget down correctly, sit down with your fiance and go through each thing on the wedding booking list and rank how important each wedding item is to each. For instance if your not so keen on having a traditional expensive wedding cake then put that down the bottom, why not make iced cupcakes in pretty lace style cup cases or even a chocolate fountain instead, these are much cheaper and different and fun.

Ok so once you've come to your budget and how that is going to spread, its time decide what you want your wedding to be. Do you want a large wedding with hundreds of guest and a big party, or a romantic intimate wedding with only family and friends (this is what we did! not only do you save money but at least your only inviting people who REALLY want to see you get married, and not just there for the free food and drink!)

The most important part is deciding on the theme of your wedding, AND DECIDE EARLY! The quicker you decide on this the easier and stress free its going to be in finding all the items to fit that theme. What i did when i was planning my wedding was make some 'wedding inspiration boards' out of cut outs from my wedding magazines i loved. I hade a few themes in mind so i did a few, stood back and looked at which one really jumped out at me. This way you also have a wedding theme thats coherant and flows with simular colors and textures and patterns.

Here are a few inspiration board examples i have found on google.

http://www.withthisfavor.com/

http://www.withthisfavor.com/

http://www.circle.stylemepretty.com/