Reading time: 10 minutes
In today's episode, I give you your wedding planning checklist in 10 easy steps. This episode is PACKED, so get your notebook ready, or save this post so you can come back to it later!
Have you ever sat down to do some wedding planning and thought, I have no idea what we should do first? Or worse, you have so many things to do, you spiral because you know you need to do everything but can’t decide which thing is important, so you end up not doing anything?
In today’s episode, I’m going to walk you through the 10 main steps you should take to plan your wedding from start to finish.
You’re going to get clarity on what you should do first and what can wait and feel so much better about what’s left on your plate.
Listen to the episode now
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Highlights for The Ultimate Wedding Planning Roadmap
I’m excited for today’s topic because, if you’ve been around a while, you know I’m really into organization and planning.
And whether you’re newly engaged (best wishes BTW) or you’ve been engaged for a while AND taking it easy but then you realized that your wedding is happening this year and you thought, “Oh crap, our wedding's this year. We better start planning!”
This episode is going to be great.
It’s going to get you organized and give you a clear picture of what to do in the coming months.
- Set a Budget [05:27]
- Guest List [06:49]
- Figure Out Your Style [08:3 0]
- Hire a Wedding Planner [10:21 ]
- Choose a Venue [13:03 ]
- Put Together a Rough Timeline of the Day [14:07]
- Pick Your Vendors [16:18]
- Talk Through your Ceremony [20:21]
- Send Out Invitations & Start Seating [21:54 ]
- Get Ready / Last Minute Preparations [25:24]
Links Mentioned in Episode
- Download my Free Wedding Guest List Template
- Time-Saving Wedding Planner Hacks for Busy Couples
- The #1 Tool You Need to Organize Your Wedding Checklist
- Creating and Managing a To-Do List on the Every Day I’m Bustlin’ Podcast
- Wedding budget bundle with a budget template and vendor payment chart
- 6 Steps to Your Perfect Wedding Venue
- How to Put Together a Smooth Wedding Day Timeline
- Get on the Waitlist for the Wedding Master Planner
If you prefer to read, here's the text . . .
Wedding Planning Checklist #1: Set a budget
I know. This is probably not one of the first things you WANT to do when you think of your wedding, but it’s important.
Whether you and your fiance are paying for it, splitting it with your parents, or they’re paying for it, it’s super important that you have a REALISTIC ballpark in mind for your budget. It will help you so much down the road when you’re trying to decide between venue A and Venue B or the types of centerpieces you want, etc.
If you need help putting together a budget, I have a wedding budget bundle with a budget template and vendor payment chart.
Wedding Planning Checklist #2: Guest List
Once you have your budget discussion, next you need to talk about your guest count.
No, you don’t need the whole list figured out right now, but you definitely need a realistic idea of how many people are coming. Some venues will feel cavernous if your guest count is too small, while others just won’t have enough space if you have 200 guests and they can only accommodate 150.
Download my FREE Wedding Guest List Template here.
Wedding Planning Checklist #3: Figure Out Your Style
This is one that most couples struggle with because there are just so many options out there.
One thing I like to do with my couples is to ask them some words they would use to describe their style. I give them a whole list and they check off what they think matches them. Some of the words I suggest are:
- Elegant
- Unique
- Quirky
- Refined
- Chic
- Boho
- Colorful
- Classic
- Outdoors
- Casual
- Relaxed
- Formal
Also, during what time of year do you want to get married? Do you want a spring wedding or a fall wedding? Maybe you love colder months and you want a winter wedding. Or maybe you both have specific work or school obligations that mean you can only get married during a certain time of the year because you won’t be studying for the bar or you’ll have finished your medical residency or you’re a CPA and you want to take all of May to recover from tax season.
Wedding Planning Checklist #4: Hire a Wedding Planner
I know. I have to say this because I am one, but I firmly believe that there’s a wedding planner for every couple, budget, and style.
It’s important to talk to them early in the process so that they can actually help you throughout your planning process as opposed to just at the very end or when you’re stressed out and dying.
Wedding planners are also masters at putting together budgets (step #1) and will be familiar with the venue vetting process, which is step #5.
Clients hire me for full-service wedding planning & design or wedding management. Full-service clients work with me throughout the whole wedding planning process and I guide them every step of the way. They never have to worry about what to do next or which vendor to work with because I’ve taken care of narrowing down the search based on the criteria they’ve given me.
My wedding management clients do a little more work as they’re leading the planning, but they’re utilizing my suite of tools throughout the process to make it easier. We have check-in calls to ensure they have what they need and don’t have questions or get stuck somewhere.
Then I take over 2 months prior to the wedding.
Wedding Planning Checklist #5: Choose a Venue
Only now do you want to think about your wedding venue?
Because you already discussed your budget, guest list, and style (and hired a planner, even if it’s just more for wedding management or month of), it’s going to make the venue search easier because you’ll be able to quickly cross some options off the list.
I’m not going to go too in-depth on how to choose a venue because that’s a whole other episode, but message me if you have specific questions.
I do go into it pretty extensively in my blog post 6 Steps to Your Perfect Wedding Venue and I also mention some other resources in my previous episode (Episode 10: I'm Engaged, Now what?!).
Wedding Planning Checklist #6: Put Together Your Wedding Day Timeline
Now that you know when you’re going to be, it’s time to start putting together a timeline for your wedding day. It doesn’t have to be complete yet as you’re just getting started, but it helps to start plugging in the main events, like your ceremony and reception start times. You might also have a firm end time from the venue.
For more on putting together your wedding day timeline, see my post How to Put Together a Smooth Wedding Day Timeline.
I like doing this early in the process because your conversation with your prospective photographer will likely go something like this:
Photographer: How many hours do you need my services?
You: I don’t know.
Photographer: Okay. What time is the ceremony? How far is it from the venue? And what time is your reception? And when does it end?
If you put together a rough timeline like I suggest, you'll already have the answers!
I also like breaking up the day into smaller timelines:
- Getting Ready
- Ceremony
- Reception
For now, you can just have a general start and end time for each. Once you start working through your other plans, you’ll be able to fill in the missing pieces.
Wedding Planning Checklist #7: Book Your Vendors
Now that you have your wedding venue and an idea of your timeline, you can work your way down your list of vendors and start hiring them. Some of these orders will depend on which ones are your priority.
Some pick a caterer first if the venue doesn’t provide it or have an exclusive relationship with one. Also, if you don’t have a planner, your venue will probably have a list of recommended professionals that they can provide. Sometimes this list is a list of vendors that have worked a lot in the venue and they love, but sometimes it’s a list of vendors that only pay to be on the list, so make sure you know what kind of list it is.
Usually, you’ll pick your vendors in this order:
- Photographer / videographer
- Band / DJ
- Caterer
- Hair / Makeup
- Florist / Decor
- Rentals (tent, china, glassware, linens, etc.)
- Transportation
- Cake Baker / Desserts
- Stationer – if you want your stationer to design your save-the-date, you’ll want to hire them earlier in the process as you generally send STD’s 6 months prior to your wedding date.
Wedding Planning Checklist #8: Talk Through your Ceremony
At some point, you should also talk about your ceremony. You’d be surprised how many people leave this to the very last minute.
That’s the whole reason we’re getting married, right? And if you’re getting married at a church, you’ll also need to confirm the ceremony venue at the same time as your wedding venue to make sure your time works with what they have available. If you’re getting married at the reception venue, you’ll still need to choose a wedding officiant.
You could hire a professional wedding officiant or have a friend or family member officiate. The positives of having a professional do it is they’ll guide you through the process and be able to tailor the ceremony to you. They’ll also be good public speakers that are used to addressing a group.
However, if you have a friend or family member do it, they will have sentimental significance that might be more important for you.
Wedding Planning Checklist #9 Send Out Invitations & Start Seating
Next, you’ll need to send out your invitations, which usually go out 6-8 weeks before the wedding. This assumes you’ve already sent out save-the-dates (around 6 months in advance). If you haven’t sent save-the-dates (even digital ones), send your invitations closer to 10-12 weeks out, or if you have guests that are traveling from a great distance.
Once your invitations are out, you can start thinking about seating. Seating refers to assigning guests to the tables where they’ll be eating dinner.
This would also be the step you assign them to a specific seat or chair if you want certain people to sit next to one another. Assigning guests to specific seats requires place cards that are set at each seat. If you’re just assigning people to a table and not a seat, you’ll only need escort cards.
Escort cards escort (or direct) guests to their table.
Generally, couples do escort cards for everyone and place cards at a few tables, but it’s up to you.
You can use a spreadsheet to assign seats, but I highly recommend a free website called Social Tables to help you assign your seating. I used it when I was planning 1,000 person galas and it’s just so much easier. My couples don’t have any issues with it. The other option is All Seated, but I always had issues with their website being slow so I stopped using it.
Wedding Planning Checklist#10: Last Minute Preparations
By now you’re getting close to your wedding date. Yaaay!
You’re in the home stretch, which is so exciting but can be scary for some.
Now’s the time to take stock of everything you’ve done and figure out what you have left to do.
Maybe you have some projects you wanted to do for the wedding. Decide if they’re worth it or choose just 1 or 2 to do really well.
You should also make a list of what’s left and prioritize what you still want to get done. You can decide to either do it, delegate it to someone else, or delete it.
This is when you also want to be finalizing your timeline with your venue and vendors, as well as putting together a list of all your decor items so your planner (or whoever’s setting them up) knows where they’re going and if they need to be returned to you or put in the garbage.
At this point, you should also make sure you have a wedding day point of contact that’s NOT you or your partner. It’s also helpful if this person is NOT in the wedding party. You want someone that likes to take charge, is organized, doesn’t cripple under pressure, and can make quick decisions.
Someone that’s indecisive or inexperienced at giving direction is not a good fit.
A Summary of The Ultimate Wedding Planning Roadmap
And that’s my planning timeline in a nutshell. To recap, here are all the steps again.
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- Set a budget
- Discuss your guest list
- Choose a wedding style
- Hire or Talk to Wedding Planners
- Choose your Venue
- Put together your day-of timeline
- Pick Your Vendors
- Talk Through Your Ceremony
- Send Out Invitations & Start Seating
- Get Ready / Last Minute Preparations
I tried to keep this episode simple, but each step could really be its own episode or even multiple episodes. But I hope it was helpful for you and helped you start to think about your wedding planning to-do list.
If you want more help, I HIGHLY urge you to check out those links I mentioned today.
As always, if you have questions about your planning, feel free to DM me on IG at @verveeventco. I respond to every one!
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