- SWEETLY PAIRED - COLORADO WEDDING PLANNER -
  • ABOUT US
  • HOW IT WORKS
  • OUR WORK
    • Styled Shoots
    • Real Weddings >
      • Indian Wedding Planner Mexico
  • SERVICES
    • Full Wedding Planning
    • Wedding Coordination & Management
    • Intimate Weddings
    • Destination Weddings
  • CONNECT
  • Blog
  • Wedding Travel Agency - Room Blocks and more!

A Wedding planning Guide - Planning Steps by a Colorado Wedding planner

3/22/2017

0 Comments

 

In The Beginning - First Three Steps to Wedding Planning

colorado wedding planner, vail wedding planner, denver wedding planner, steps to wedding planning
You got engaged! Congrats! You have posted your gorgeous engagement ring all over Facebook and Instagram, all of your friends have gushed about your new sparkles, and your mom has cried. Now what? Wedding planning can be stressful and difficult. This guide will help you with the best ways to navigate the world of weddings and make sure you make fewer mistakes that can be costly and cause undue stress. 

Step 1 - Figure out the financial contributors. Are you paying for the wedding? Are parents helping? How about your fiancee's parents? Are they doing just the rehearsal dinner, or will they help with the wedding as well? 
Step 2 - What do you have to spend? Get an idea of what you have in the way of funds so you can decide all the things! 
Step 3 - Get a beginning guest list going. You'll have different columns for guests - We'll explain in more detail in this section. 

 Click below to continue reading and get more detail! 
​
Step 1 - Figuring out who can contribute, and how much. 

Maybe your mom has been saving for your wedding like she did for college, maybe you're paying for the wedding yourself. You will need to sit down with your family and see who is assisting, as this will give you the info you need to budget for the event. Traditionally, the bride's family paid for the wedding, the groom's family paid for the rehearsal dinner. Well, what about your same sex weddings? That throws a wrench in the patriarchy system! What do two ladies do with those dowries? I often advise my clients to treat the wedding as a 2-3 day event and pool the budget so the entire experience is balanced. For instance, if the family handling the rehearsal dinner is able to contribute more to the day, but your budget for the wedding day is tight, my recommendation is to spread those funds out so that the guest experience is evenly matched for the rehearsal dinner as well as the wedding (and sometimes the brunch or get-together the next day). Keep a spreadsheet of funds so you know where all the money is and you can track expenses. Your wedding planner should be able to help with that! 

Step 2 - Figure out what you have to spend. This is so very important to do very early. You will need to know what type of wedding you can afford. Can you afford to spend $10,000 on each guest and have a luxury experience? Are you spending $100 on each guest and having a relatively simple celebration? Here is where you are deciding what the guest experience will be. The US average is $27,000 for a 100 person wedding, and Colorado, where Sweetly Paired is based the average is nearer to $35,000. A mountain wedding here in Colorado is more like $44,000 on average, and the Caribbean destination wedding is often $35,000 to $50,000 depending on what the couple is paying for for their guests. An event that is quite nice, not too over the top, but not skimpy either is typically $400-600 per guest. By thinking of the budget in those terms, per guest rather than the entire event, it allows you to think more about guest experience, and it will get you thinking about the event in a different way. It makes it a little less overwhelming. 

Step 3 - Work on the guest list. You may think all of your family and old friends from kindergarten on have just GOT to come to your wedding. Well, they don't. You should think about your guest list in a few ways. First - sit down with your fiancee and write down everyone you can think of. Then start a spreadsheet with 3 columns. Put the must-haves in column 'A'. This is the A List. Check your numbers and balance them against your budget. What are you spending per guest? Is it too low? Is it very comfortable? If so, lets talk about column 'B'. Your B list is a list of guests who would be nice to have at the wedding, if the budget and your vision allow for it. Just remind yourself that as you're inviting the guests, you have to think of the ration of guests to overall wedding budget. If you get people from the 'A' list that decline your wedding invitation, you can start to choose people off of your 'B' list to fill in the spots. The 'C' list is the third column, and they are the guests who you can invite only as you get through the 'B' list and realize your numbers allow for them to be there. 

Hope this helped, and look forward to the next post about the next steps! 
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Lilli Black is a wedding coordinator, planner and designer in Denver Colorado. She works in Denver, as well as all over Colorado. She has been in the wedding industry for many years, and has planned more than 1000 weddings in Colorado. 

    Archives

    June 2025
    March 2022
    March 2020
    February 2020
    February 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    November 2014

    Categories

    All
    Adults Only Wedding
    Advice
    Artwork Network Wedding
    Aspen Wedding
    Beaver Creek Wedding Planner
    Belize Wedding Planner
    Black Tie Wedding
    Blush Weddings
    Boulder Wedding
    Bouquet Of The Day
    Boutonnieres
    Breckenridge Wedding
    Bridal Bouquet
    Bright Weddings
    Budgeting
    Build A Wedding Venue
    Cake Flowers
    Colorado Golf Club
    Colorado Wedding Photographers
    Colorado Wedding Planner
    Colorado Wedding Venues
    Crested Butte Wedding
    Crooked Willow Farms
    Day Of Coordination
    Denver Botanic Gardens
    Denver Museum Of Nature And Science
    Denver Wedding
    Denver Wedding Cakes
    Denver Wedding Planner
    Denver Westin
    Dessert Bars
    Destination Wedding
    Destionation Wedding Belize
    Donovan Pavilion
    Elopement
    Engagement
    Estes Park
    Fall Flowers
    Fall Wedding
    Financial Tips
    Flower Crowns
    Gold Wedding
    Grant Humphries
    Highlands Ranch Mansion
    Lakewood Country Club
    LGBT
    Loveland Pass Elopement
    Luxury Wedding Planner
    Marsala
    Mexico Wedding Planner
    Mistakes
    Momzilla
    Mountain Wedding
    New Wedding Venues
    Piney River Ranch
    Place Cards
    Place Settings
    Private Ranch Wedding
    Proposal
    Pumpkins
    Rustic Wedding
    Sapphire Point
    Seawell Ballroom Wedding
    Spruce Mountain Ranch
    Stanley Hotel
    Stationery & Invitations
    Summer Wedding
    Tablescapes
    Vail Wedding
    Vail Wedding Planner
    Vendor Spotlight
    Wedding Budget
    Wedding Cake
    Wedding Coordination
    Wedding Favors
    Wedding Photographer
    Wedding Planner
    Wedding Tips
    Wedding Video
    Why Hire A Wedding Planner
    Windy Point Elopement
    Winter Wedding

    RSS Feed

BLOG
SEND US A MESSAGE!

www.sweetlypaired.com
303.995.2867
[email protected]
Picture
​Some of our favorites:
Florist for daily flowers - Zalea
Wedding and Event Planner - Sweetly Paired
Travel Agent - Luxtinatons
Wedding Florist - Zalea
Wedding Draping, Lighting, and Arches - Have A Seat
Officiants - Wedlock Officiants
  • ABOUT US
  • HOW IT WORKS
  • OUR WORK
    • Styled Shoots
    • Real Weddings >
      • Indian Wedding Planner Mexico
  • SERVICES
    • Full Wedding Planning
    • Wedding Coordination & Management
    • Intimate Weddings
    • Destination Weddings
  • CONNECT
  • Blog
  • Wedding Travel Agency - Room Blocks and more!
We're here to chat with you! ×

Connecting

You: ::content::
::agent_name:: ::content::
::content::
::content::