Congratulations on your engagement! Right now, you may have hundreds of ideas swirling in your head about what you want for your wedding, and if you’re like most newly engaged couples, that can be a little bit scary! This is a very important task, after all. Your wedding is very important to you, and you may not know where to start. We have the very first steps that you need to take to set your wedding-planning foundation under you, so that you can then jump into the fun tasks of choosing floral décor and picking the items for your menu.

1. Decide on a wedding season. Not a wedding date just yet, but the season and year you’re considering. This way, you know how much time you’ll have to plan this wedding, and which types of celebrations will be considered.

2. Decide on your level of formality. Do you want a formal, traditional wedding with all of your friends and family in attendance because that’s always been your dream? Or do you know right now that you want to plan a destination wedding with just a few friends and family, because you want to avoid the stress and expense of a giant hometown wedding?

3. Create your Priority List. What’s most important to you, and therefore will receive the largest percentage of your wedding budget? It might be your reception catering, or the flowers, a designer gown. Make a list of what you both decide on as your top 5 priorities, as well as the bottom five items that won’t get as much budget devoted to them, places where parents can insert their own wishes without it interfering in your most wished-for wedding day ideas.

4. Decide on your wedding-planning team. How much will parents be involved? Will they contribute all or part of the money for the wedding? Do you want to share every part of the plans with them, or just invite them to the caterer tasting event so that the two of you can be free to plan the entire wedding your way? Now is when you decide what your parents’ parameters will be, so that you can tell them at the first meeting that you appreciate their offer to pay for the entire wedding, but you’d like to foot most of the bill yourselves. You welcome their input, and you won’t fight them if they’d like to pay for the honeymoon. Creating a parents’ plan up front means less stress later.

5. Work up a realistic budget. Find out what parents will contribute, see what you can contribute without getting too far in debt, and then make your plans from there. It’s only going to frustrate you if you start booking sites and vendors without a ballpark figure of the money you’ll have available to you. So while the B-word (budget) isn’t much fun for anyone, it’s an essential tool to keep you – and everyone around you – in control of your resources and your expectations. You don’t want to have money fights with your fiancé later down the road, and you don’t want to clash with parents. Having a budget is one of the best first steps you can take.

With these foundations set, you can then move into the next important phase of your wedding plans: choosing your locations first, and then interviewing and hiring your wedding experts who will help you make all of the design and style decisions for your big day. And check out my book What’s Your Bridal Style? to take quizzes and find the keywords you’ll use to explain your wished-for style to your wedding vendors. They want to know what you have in mind!

More Assistance for the Newly Engaged:

Ask Us a Question. Have some questions for the author of this article?  Submit a question to Sharon Naylor in her forum and she'll be happy to help tackle some wedding-planning issues with you.  You can submit a question by clicking here.

Free Wedding Planner. You can also download our free wedding planner which will help you organize and plan for wedding day bliss.  Download the planner by clicking here.

The Pash Wedding Forums.  Introduce yourself to our community of brides for ideas and inspiration.  Click here to join our wedding forums.