Wedding Planning - the beginning

I read a statistic recently, that over 40% of couples get engaged in the months of Dec, Jan, and Feb. There are even a few articles floating around on places like The Knot and Wedding Wire that back this up. Tis' the season for wedding planning! It makes me really glad that my FIANCE (awwww) proposed when he did!

Within two weeks we had the venue, officiant, photographer, and DJ booked! It really helped that I had sneaked a peek at a few venues before hand. Shh!

We looked at three venues a week after our engagement and it worked out that all three had open appointments within a few hours of each other - we knocked them out in one afternoon. I had a two page list of questions for the venues, but at the first meeting I really only went through about a third of the questions.

Some questions are need to know and a "wrong" answer could make or break the decision to have the wedding at a particular venue - How many people can you accommodate? What is the price per person? How many hours do you include in your packages? Other questions are good to know, which help in the planning process but can be worked around - Where are power outlets for the DJ? How much time is allowed for set up? What time can we enter the bridal suite to get ready? I stick with the need to know questions for the most part, and only get into good to know stuff once I decide I really like the place.

Before we even went, I had the venues ranked in order of preference, but by the end of the day there was only one left on my list due to one big deciding factor - the view! One of the venues had a large, covered, outdoor patio that would have been perfect for the lawn games we'd like to have set up for the guests. The problem was that the view included a children's playground, a football/soccer field with metal bleachers, and a large orange rotating radio tower. The other rejected venue had a lovely private patio, but their room minimum was 120 (firm) and at the time our guest list was only 90.

The country club we picked, even in the middle of winter, has beautiful landscaping, upgraded chairs at no extra cost, a patio with cafe tables/chairs, and lighted gardens with a gazebo. They keep it decorated and landscaped for the current season, which means we won't have to worry about extra ceremony flowers by the lake. It was more expensive per person, but to combat that we decided to have a Friday evening ceremony and reception.

The venue gave us a "recommended vendors" list that had various officiants, photographers, and DJs on it. I went to a few websites for each to review their services and pricing. After picking out a couple and emailing back and forth we picked one of each to meet with in person. We went with a female officiant that is also a teacher, as well as a photographer and DJ that share office space, work together often, and offer a discount for booking together.

It feels so good to have the big items picked out and booked (contract signed, deposit made) so quickly!

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