The Wedding Post | You're Engaged... What Now?

What now indeed. I've not exactly waited around as people have told me, but I've never been one to do so. As soon as we got engaged I downloaded a planning app and got myself going on research. But what to do next was a huge question both me and my fiance had - and you will too - so I've popped together my top 5 things to do next...

1 | Tell Everyone

Firstly, you need to decide who you want to tell yourself and who you don't want to hear about it through somewhere else. We knew exactly who we wanted to tell and any mention of it on facebook or social media was strictly forbidden until we'd given the go ahead. We didn't want people to find out online before we'd had the chance to tell some of them. Thankfully it wasn't leaked so we were lucky - but finding a way to tell everyone in a few days is tricky. Thank god for phones is all I say!

2 | Discuss the When

The first question everyone asked was when we were getting married. Luckily we've talked about it a lot before so we knew the time of year we wanted so we had an answer. This also helped massively when it came to start looking at really planning (see point 4). If you're not sure when, don't worry - however it's good to get an idea soon unless you're not in a rush to walk down the aisle.

3 | Choose your Party

I was pretty lucky in the fact that I knew who I wanted my bridesmaids to be straight away, plus they knew which made life easier. It was a simple case of hinting and then having an "Official Ask the Bridesmaid" dinner. My fiance chose his brother to be his Best Man and took him for a drink to ask, he then asked my two brothers to be his ushers. Simple for us, but I know that's not necessarily the case. All I would say is this - remember you have to pay for the dresses....

4 | Find the Venue

This is why you need to know the when. Very quickly we started looking at venues and knowing whenabouts we wanted to get married really helped with this. If they weren't available, we didn't look. Easy. Do a lot of research - get wedding magazines, look at reviews online, google google google. I set up meetings with 6 places in one weekend and I fell in love with the fourth place we went to. Booked. Also - be aware that the place you may want may be booked for the next year. The place we're getting married had NO FREE SATURDAYS in 2016. Seriously. So we're getting married on a Friday. Just warning you...

5 | Have an Engagement Party

Think of it this way - the wedding is at least a year away, so celebrate this part now. It's SUCH an amazing feeling being engaged, it really is, and I bet everyone is so happy for you. We booked a little wine bar near us with tapas and celebrated with our immediate family, grandparents and wedding party and it was the nicest evening. The engagement itself is the most amazing experience in your life (if he did it right) - but celebrating it can make it last longer and longer. Take advantage of that before all the stress comes into play...

Now I've done all of this we're moving onto the details (eek!). The Save the Dates, photographics, florists, wedding fayres... you name it we need to look at it. Eek! Don't worry - I'll keep you all up to date!