After
all the excitement of getting engaged had calmed down, we realised we had some
important decisions to make. I was well prepared, I’d picked up one of nearly
every wedding magazine available in WHSmiths and they all agreed on where to
start. We had to set our budget, agree on our priorities and decide how much of
the budget we were willing to allocate to each part of the day. When it came
down to making a list of everything the budget needed to cover, the list just
seemed to keep growing! There was the photographer, florist, music, rings,
outfits for ourselves and the wedding party, and lots of little things you
don’t even consider until they’re taking a chunk out of the budget for the big
day.
And
of course there was only a slim chance we were going to agree on what our
priorities were. I think for anyone, the venue will always come pretty highly
on that list. It’s the place your entire day will be set in, so it’s always
important it’s somewhere you love. I might be wrong, but I’m assuming for most
couples the venue is where a large chunk of the budget tends to go, unless
you’re lucky enough to a have friends or family with somewhere beautiful to
hold the reception!
So once we’d quite quickly and easily agreed that the venue was important to us both, the rest then had to be prioritised. When we started out with planning, my fiancé really didn’t realise just how much had to be considered and factored into the budget. As I listed things he sat there saying “Oh I wouldn’t have even thought of that” at almost every other item I wrote down.
For me, the photographer was hugely important. I’m the sort of person who will take photos of everything on a day out or holiday, through fear of forgetting any little details. One of my favourite things to do is look back through my photo albums, so a good photographer was probably my top priority after the venue.
My
fiancé had slightly different views. He was keen on a chocolate fountain, a DJ
with expensive, flashy lighting and set up, and hiring a projector for our own
PowerPoint presentation. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear he likes his
gadgets! On the one hand, the fact that we agreed we would rather have a DJ
rather than a band was great. On the other hand, a flashy set up and strobe
lighting effects were not something I was fussed about. In the end we agreed
that while we both felt it was important that the DJ was good, the way their
set up looked was not crucial. Thankfully
for me, he did agree that it was important to have beautiful photos to remember
the day by in the years to come, and so the photographer took top priority.
Something
he had strong opinions on which really surprised me was the flowers. It wasn’t
the type of flower that he knew he wanted at our wedding, but the style of the
arrangements. I wasn’t expecting the flowers to be one of the things he already
had ideas about so early on but he wanted tall martini vase arrangements for
the centrepieces. Of course they need more flowers to fill them than smaller
vases, so we agreed to keep a good portion of the budget aside for the flowers.
In the end we didn’t struggle too much with prioritising,
and it probably could have been much more of a headache than we found it. So
tell me, which aspects are/were most important to you? How easily did you and
your fiancé find it to agree on them?
The Future Mrs Love xx
