Whats next?

Catering, then other important vendors. For us the three most important vendors were venue, catering, photographer, but you may have slightly different priorities. In general, I'd recommend venue(s), catering, photographer/videographer, entertainment (band/DJ), florist, officiant, stylists, cake baker, etc but it kind of depends on what is really important to you. If you MUST have your regular stylist do your hair, but you don't care much about what sort of flowers you have or where they come from, then I'd book your stylist first.

The order I did it in:
Venue
CateringPhotographerDjFlowersCakeHair & makeup

Only because our wedding is planned on a "holiday" weekend, we found our baker, photographer and officiant after our venue. They were in just days of each other.

I should mention our venue does catering and that was how we picked it.

Officiant first since we couldn’t get married without that. Then flowers, photography, hair and makeup, catering, cake, rentals, dj.

Thanks everyone! Our venue provides in house catering so thankfully, we can cross that off. So many different timelines on the internet and I was getting overwhelmed! I definitely agree about photographer since that may be our next largest expense.

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I like this idea! We are planning a domestic destination so an officiant is very important to us, especially considering we will be in a different state and want to make sure everything is taken care of legally. Thanks!

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Thanks. My venue also has catering so it's looking like photographer, officiant and DJ.

We did photographer and DJ within a month after booking our venue (in-house catering, as well). My FFIL will be officiating, so we didn't need to book an officiant, but I would definitely recommend booking that soon, too!

We waited while after that to book anything else because we have such a drawn-out timeline, but next were florist, HMUA, and stationary. Looking at videography options now.

The next for me was my photographer. I’d put caterer high as well, if you’re using one. I’m not though, family members will provide.

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Thanks! Great tips. We are still a while out but its important that we lock in what we can now in order to stretch our budget as far as we can. Its looking like officiant/ photographer/ DJ.

Since your venue offers in house catering, I would book for photographer/videographer and DJ next. Flowers were also very important to me so I would book a florist if you plan on using real flowers as well. Will your venue be providing the cake as well? Our venue provided in-house catering and had a contract with a local bakery so we paid one price for the food, drinks and cake.

Hi Nathalie, Definitely your photographer.
With my very best wishes,
Audrey

Photography! It was our next biggest expense, so we sort of went in that order.

We booked the caterer next, then DJ, and then photographer :-)

I think the next thing i booked was photobooth dj person

Since our venue includes in house catering we didn’t have to worry about that, so the next vendors we booked were our event designer/florist and a media company that does photography, videography, DJ, and photo booth. We basically wanted to book all the major expenses first.

We did venue (includes catering), dress, then, I believe my fiancé narrowed down the dj to one and we set up a meeting. During that, I think we booked the photographer. Then we chose the officiant after meeting with a couple. Then it was the florist after meeting with 2. Lastly hair/makeup. Keep in mind that we did this all in two months. Started mid January and finished like the 3rd of March or so snd then the world stopped. I’m a doer. Set a task, get it done and out if the way. Had I known, I wouldn’t have started planning. Wedding had been set for Aug 29th before we postponed.

For me it was photographer

Thanks everyone! I think our photographer will be the next big expense so we will look to plan one next. Many of you said officiant and DJ. Those are both high on our list as well.

Hi,

Our Venue is mostly inclusive with catering and pastry chef for our cake. So the remaining vendor bookings were the photographer, the DJ, the florist which was minimal as I was happy with the fresh floral centerpieces provided by the Venue and the terrace for the ceremony has beautiful floral landscaping. I just needed my bouquet, BMs, boutonnieres, and mother's corsages. Last was my H/MUA.