Where do I start?

I'm getting married in 2004, it seems so far away to me but I know I have to get the ball rolling!! Where do I start ladies??

Re: Where do I start?

pick your church, if you will be getting married in one and/or your reception site

Re: Where do I start?

Reception Hall (and Church if needed) should be your first vendor booked. Lucky you, its all ahead of you!!! Have a ton of fun! If you give us an idea of what you are looking for, we will give you more recommendations then you could ever want hehehe.

Re: Where do I start?

Set your budget. If you don't have a rough estimate in mind your costs can really spiral out of control (although even with a set budget my costs are spiraling out of control anyway!). Then if you are planning on getting married in a church or temple, contact the appropriate person to confirm your date and set up a meeting with the priest or rabbi. If you plan to get married at your reception hall, then you have to start visiting different places to book your reception. Many places have their prices set for 2004 already so you can starting planning how much you have to save. What I did next was DJ, and now I'm working on photography.

Re: Where do I start?

Try to book your reception hall soon, because you can save money. We ended up getting 2003 prices for a 2004 wedding.
This is also true for photo,video, etc.-most of these places raise their prices in January.

Good Luck!

Re: Where do I start?

I would definitely start by putting together a rough head count. You don't want to fall in love with a reception site that is either too big or too small.

Good Luck!!! Enjoy the planning!!!

Re: Where do I start?

I am also a 2004 bride. We have done all the major vendors because we were able to get the 2002-2003 prices for all of them. If you book earlier you save money instead of booking later on. Here is the order that we did things (so far):
- Decided on a budget
- Decided on how many guests we wanted
- Decided on the date
- Booked the reception site (did that before the church because I knew that I was not going to have a problem with getting the church for any day that I wanted)
- Booked the church
- Booked the videographer
- Booked the photographer
- Booked DJ
I have also purchased my unity candle and stand, gifts for our parents, ordered a part of the gift for our BM and GM, purchases part of the gift for my MOH and BMs. I am going to start looking at dresses in March or April of 2003. So as you can see it is never to early to start. If you have any questions or need some help, just send me a forum e-mail.

Sorry this post was so long.

Re: Where do I start?

I am aJune 04 Bride.
THe first thing I did was book my church, then the reception hall. We did this even before we were officially engagged. We have so much already paid its a great feeling to know that we wont be struggling for $.
I also have the band, Photographer, and video booked.
I also ordered my dress.
I know I am ahead of schedule...all we hav to do for the next year is save.
I am going to register and look for the girls dresses after the holidays.

Re: Where do I start?

Hall and church. We booked over 2 years in advance and let me tell you time has been flying by.

We are now 8 months away from our wedding and time is going even faster.

Good luck and enjoy your engagement.

Re: Where do I start?

We are also looking for fall 2004!!!

So far we have set a preliminary budget (still working on that for the extras, but we set a budget for reception hall), we have looked around at a ton of reception halls, and narrowed our search down to one favorite! Most of the places we looked were not too concerned about fall 2004 booking up right away, but I would definitely start with that!!!

After the holidays we are going to get the reception site booked, (which also does ceremony for us) look for an officiant and start interviewing our other vendors.

The most important thing to get started I think is your budget and your prelim guest list. Some places have minimums, and some have max's so you want to make sure you don't fall in love with a place and find out it is too small (we did that!!! )

Re: Where do I start?

Hi,
We just set our date last night - April 24, 2004. We knew we were looking at April or May of 2004 - but until last night we didn't have our date picked. We have a few places in mind (my family wants us to use their club - but we have not decided whether we will do this yet - now that we have a date we will get a price quote from them and then see where we want to go from there), we will use my church Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City. We have started looking at some photographers - thanks to some suggestions from people here.
Congrats and good luck - keep up all updated on your choices

Re: Where do I start?

I am also a 2004 bride and it seems so far far away. We have booked the hall and the church so far. Right now, we are looking at a band. I know everyone says to book early to save money, however, I am a little weary of this, considering I want to make sure 100% of my vendors, rather than rushing to book someone bc of $$. That is just me though. I will probably wait to book limos, flowers, and photography/videography. Good luck in your planning. This board is great and will give you a lot of help in regards to your planning.