It's all fun and games until you and your fiancé sit down to start wedding planning.

Okay that was a bit dramatic but honestly, not too much of a stretch. You will find yourself riding the high of being engaged to your boo but the second you sit down to start wedding planning everything starts to slow down and shiz gets real.

When we first sat down to start putting together our dream wedding, we noticed something IMMEDIATELY. We had different ideas on where we wanted to start. Our priorities couldn't have been more different which led to some really funny moments and also some that were, well, the opposite!

For some context, Matt is a finance guy. Big into numbers. Big into logistics. I - Steph - am the visionary and the creative (duh) of our relationship - which is honestly why we balance out so stinking well! The things each of us wanted to start with were obviously HUGE and in our opinion SHOULD BE at the top of your wedding planning list, but they were literally on the opposite ends of the spectrum.

When it came down to it, these are what mattered the most to each of us when we started planning our wedding.

THE GROOM'S WEDDING PRIORITIES

- Setting a budget: In Matt's own words, "To confidently set our wedding date, we needed to be sure that we could save enough in the amount of time we were giving ourselves!" Setting our budget at the very start of wedding planning has been a true lifesaver. We were sure to take in account what our amazing families would be contributing to help us decide on a number that we need to set aside each month to have our dream day. It's so nice to be able to look back and adjust our spending based on the amount we set at the veryyy beginning to make sure things aren't getting out of control!

- Nailing down the guest list: MJ's take is that, "This has a big impact on the budget. From food cost to alcohol costs to sending mail, it all impacts budget for sure but we also wanted our guest list to include all of the impactful people in our lives." Our guest list at first was SCARY. We had so many people on that first draft but as MJ mentioned, we had a budget to keep in mind and we simply could not have had 250 people at our wedding. It just wasn't feasible. We have a wholeeee post coming about narrowing down the guest list but in short - start with your nonnegotiables and go from there. Once you start seeing numbers climb, it gets real real. It was really hard for us to narrow down the list, and it will be for you two but doing this as early as possible is MAJOR.

THE BRIDE'S PRIORITIES

- Finding our dream venue: Arguably the most important part of the wedding day for me was finding a venue that screamed us but also fit the budget AND made the most sense for the kind day we wanted to have. Thankfully Matt and I have very similar taste when it comes to design and knew that we wanted something more modern but still with some charm and we are so blessed that we found our venue when we did cause she is booking up QUICK. A post is coming up very soon about how to choose your perfect venue!

- Choosing our photographer: Now you guys HAD to see this one coming, right? Choosing a photographer to capture our special day was quite literally the first thing that came to mind when it came to wedding planning. This shiz was HARD y'all. I have so many incredibly talented photographer friends so narrowing down our photographer was actually pretty difficult. We wanted someone who was 100000% committed to us on our big day but also someone that we knew we'd vibe with on the big day.

SOMETHING WE ACTUALLY AGREED ON..

- Our Wedding Date: This was the FIRST thing we did. We got engaged and it felt like a day later we said, "Okay, so when are we doing this thing?" I honestly thought that we would have a hard time nailing down a specific day but this actually just fell into place so perfectly. We both knew a winter wedding was the goal but we weren't sure if we wanted to do it in 2021 or early 2022! When we started nailing down potential dates and confirming the availability with our venue, and the venue with our budget - we were stuck on one date that already holds so much weight to us. January 28 - the day we started dating! Not only is this an easy one to remember that already means a lot to us BUT the 28th falls on a Friday in 2022 which means our venue was even more so in budget. It was honestly perfect timing!

So crazy to think that we started this planning process was almost half a year ago?!?! There goes 6 out of 14 months of our engagement! It picks up fast and it can get stressful BUT it is so incredible and so so fun. We can't wait to eventually share all of the nitty-gritty details about our wedding day - vendors, timeline, horror stories - we'll bare it all in the HITCHED series!

Until next time!

xx, Steph