Just got engaged? Here’s what you need to plan

First of all, congratulations on your engagement! Now you can bask in that newly-engaged glow while you start to think about your big day.

But where to start? When you Google “planning a wedding” it can seem a bit of a minefield, with countless blogs on invites, favours and other things that, in reality, are quite far down the line for you. What you need is to think about the basics and then everything else will fall into place.

Name the date

Really, this is the first thing you should do before you even think about anything else. Sit down with your fiancé and decide when you should get married. You might want the summer of this year, or you may need a year or two to save up, that’s the sort of thing you need to thrash out between you.

You should also take into consideration things such as the likely weather, how much time you (and your guests) may need off work, other friends and family who may be getting married and so on, as all of this will have an impact.

Once you’ve set a date between the two of you, pick a couple of contingency dates too, just in case you fall in love with a venue that’s not available on your chosen date.

Pick a venue

Now you know when you want to get married, it’s time to choose where. Again, before you start looking through brochures and visiting places, sit down with your finance and decide what’s important to you both.

Do you want a religious ceremony or a civic one? If civic, do you want everything at one venue, or do you want to travel from the registry office to the reception as you would with a religious ceremony?

Once you’ve decided on this, things become a bit easier. If you’re having a religious ceremony, you probably already know where you want that (same goes for a civic ceremony at a registry office) so you just need to look for reception venues. If you want everything at the one venue, this narrows down your search a bit and will help you look.

The internet can really help you find venues, but nothing beats actually visiting them. So, when you have a shortlist of places you like the look of, arrange to go visit and get visualising how your big day will look. You’ll just know when you’ve found the right place.

Start making lists

Once you have your venue, everything else just falls into place. You’ll have been told what is and isn’t included in the price so you can start making lists of everything you need. This could include transport, catering, wedding table linen hire, entertainment and a variety of other things, but once you have your list, you can start working your way through everything and get everything set up.

If you need help with linen hire for your wedding, you can contact Simply Linens no matter where you are in the UK and we can help make your day magical.