Prioritizing Family

Prioritizing with Family

Congratulations on your new engagement! Prioritizing family as a new bride-to-be can be stressful since you have a lot of decisions to make in the near future. Welcome to the exciting, fast-paced, chaotic, and busy world of wedding planning. Time is of the essence when it comes to planning a wedding and as cliché as it sounds, the early bird truly gets the worm.

First thing is first. You must decide what kind of wedding you and your significant other want. Is prioritizing family something you both agree is important? Do you have kids from previous marriages? The best way to gauge this is not only a discussion with your fiancé, but it is also helpful to include either set of parents – that is if they are involved or you want them to be involved. Determining the type of wedding you desire will play into everything else for your big day. Is a Sunday afternoon backyard BBQ or a Saturday evening country club wedding more the style you imagine?

Eating pulled pork sandwiches with red and white checkered table clothes lining picnic tables and Chinese lanterns glowing above your or golf course views in a giant ballroom illuminated by canned lights in your wedding color palette. So many choices…so little time.

As you can see, there is a pretty vast difference between the two soirees mentioned above. A backyard BBQ could quite easily cost less than $5,000 while a country club wedding may as well have another zero added to the earlier figure. Perhaps as much as $50,000. Aside from budget, which is a topic for another day, there are four major decisions that must fall to the top of your priority list. These four are the most crucial aspects to discuss at your family meeting include the following:

– Ceremony location

– Reception location (this may be the same location as above)

– Photographer

– Music

To secure these four, possibly two areas/vendors, you need to have a date in mind. Will you have your event during high wedding season (i.e. May through October) or off-season (i.e. New Year’s Eve bash)? These are all things to consider and should be some of the first decisions made. Prioritizing family in all these decisions can be easy if both sides of the family are willing to do whatever it takes for you both to have a great wedding day. If not, just remember that this both of your days and you can do things that make you comfortable, not the other way around.