2 years

I would start with you budget. You cannot plan without a budget.

Hi Kaitlynn - congratulations on your engagement! What I would recommend doing now is a couple things: first, spend some time enjoying being engaged (without the stress of planning)!! Second, start looking up ideas. Ideas for dresses, venues, colors, etc. No need to officially book anything or buy anything now, but just start looking at ideas to get an idea of what's out there and what you like/don't like.


There is a checklist both on Wedding Wire and The Knot - once you input your wedding date, it'll give you a to-do list, organized by month, saying which tasks you should do at what time. I highly recommend using it! It will help keep you on track and so you don't forget anything. They also have budgeting tools to help track wedding spending.

A couple other pieces of advice: when it comes to booking vendors, I would look into booking those maybe starting at summer this year or by early 2022. COVID caused a bunch of people to postpone, so many people are looking into 2022/2023 dates. For your dress, I suggest waiting to buy that until you're about a year out, just to ensure that you don't change your mind on the style. A year ahead of time also gives enough time for the dress to ship to you with extra time leftover for alterations. For wedding party, I would wait to ask anyone until around a year out as well. Relationships can and do change, and once you ask someone to be in the wedding party, you can't really change your mind without ruining the friendship. There isn't anything wedding party needs to do this far in advance anyway, so there is no harm in waiting. Always feel free to post questions on these forums as well, everyone here is happy to help! Happy wedding planning!

View Quoted Comment I forgot to mention this as well! Paige brings up a great point. When you are ready to book vendors/venues, start with determining your budget and estimated guest count, and then look at venues in your budget that can hold at least that many people.

Congratulations! My Wedding is also in 2023. So far I have only booked my venue. I don't plan on putting any large chunks of money down until next year, otherwise I'm just following different photographers on instagram and looking at things just for fun. Since I love crafts I purchased a bunch of Sola wood flowers to start experimenting with to make my bouquet though I have no set plan to make my bouquet any time soon, its just fun!

I agree with others to wait do things until this summer or early next year depending on your anticipated wedding date. I only booked my venue early because they were completely out of saturday fall wedding dates in 2022.

Congrats on your engagement!

Echoing above comments plan your budget and just start browsing around and getting ideas!

Don't stress yet, no need! Have fun! Happy planning!

you can add me on insta if you want apringle114 I have a lot of dog pics

You have plenty of time but the more you find now and pay on it or for it the more relief you'll have when it gets closer. Little by little so you can enjoy planning your wedding and your wedding day.

View Quoted Comment Thank you!! I followed you, doggie is precious! ☺️

1. Relax and enjoy being engaged. I got married at your age, and I regret not taking the time to just have fun being "fiancée." You'll never be a fiancée again in your life, so take it in and love it for a few weeks.

2. Glimpse inspiration. I wouldn't say go crazy, but just skim Pinterest for things you like. You have a lot of time to decide on this, and it's the fun part, so just browse.

3. Budget. Discuss this with your FS so you are on the same page. You also might want to do a quick Google search of "average cost of wedding in [your area]." This number does not mean you have to spend that much! It just may help give you a more realistic picture and avoid the sticker shock of talking to vendors. I have seen couples who initially thought they would easily pull a wedding off for $5k - they were floored to find out that the average photographer around here costs $2k, because the average wedding in our area is $40k. (So as not to scare you, I have seen many beautiful weddings pulled off for fractions of that average. It can be done! But knowledge is power.)

4. Discuss priorities. Going hand-in-hand with budget, figuring out what you each think is most important will help to shape your budget. Do you both think great food makes or breaks a wedding? Or maybe you think fabulous photography is an absolute must, and he thinks a great DJ is #1. Talk it out. The easiest way to reduce budget is to figure out what you think is important and what isn't, so you know where to splurge and where to skimp (or skip).

Yup, ditto on the budget. Think about what you want to have on your wedding day.

Congratulations! Settle on a budget with your future spouse.

Definitely start with a budget, start looking at venues, some should start looking at dates in 2023 by now especially with covid going on. Maybe look into bridal boxes for yourself.

Congrats... and best wishes!!!

Congrats!

While everyone above has great advice, I'm going to give something different.

"Perfect" does not exist.

"Perfect" is something commercials and social media sells you to get you to buy more things, stress out, and feel like you aren't doing anything right.

Things go wrong, things get silly, your ideas and wants and needs change.

Aim for "fun" or "delightful" or anything other than the pressure of "perfect".

I say this, because DH and I threw out the word "perfect" ... and had a fabulous day that was ... pretty much perfect. We expected something to go sideways, or to not be the way we envisioned, or simply to just be human and weird... and yes, some of those things did happen, sometimes before the wedding. But because we didn't expect perfection, we didn't have that stress.

Enjoy being engaged! Set a budget, and if in any debt now... work your way out of it before adding wedding finances in .

My IG is ginganinja907 and can find me on FB by searching Megan Michelle, my main photo is myself and 3 kids - I'm a 30-something boring mom of 3, but I used to be cool

I had a two year engagement.


First off try not to stress you have so much more time than brides usually have. You have first pick of just about everything. Second is that you need to understand its not going to go exactly the way you planned. But even when things seem to be going wrong just remember that on the day of none of that will matter and that it will still be a beautiful perfect day.
My tip on what to do right now is to start by setting a budget, then research vendors and venues so you can hire the perfect one's for your. Then I'd say about a year and maybe a couple of months before depending on the venue/vendors and how popular they are put deposits down on them so you don't lose them. Make sure you have a contract with anyone you give money to. And that for whatever reason you can get a full refund. You can start on pintrest making pins of decor and things you might want at your wedding.

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much!!

I agree with the others! Looking and touring venues now could be fun for you both and will take some pressure off you when needing to book closer to the date. I recommend this because a lot of brides are actually pushing their weddings to 2023 and I have noticed that dates go very quickly. At my venue I booked dates for 2023 are already being booked. So if you love a place don't hesitate. That is why it a good idea to get your budget and venue first. My wedding is 2022 and dates have been flying!

You can come up with a rough draft guest list to get an idea of how many people you would want, research venues and color schemes. Also come up with a budget and a savings plan.

View Quoted Comment You're welcome😊