Preparing for a wedding day is as pleasant and exciting experience. There are two important areas that need to be decided before moving on with everything else. First of all make your budget and second, the planning timeline: typically a year or so in advance. These two constituents will guide you through making important decisions while getting ready for the wedding day. The location of the wedding is quite significant. Will it be a bride’s or a groom’s home town or couple’s current area of residence? Start thinking about friends and relatives that will be traveling from afar and help planning for their accommodations. Some couples celebrate their wedding in more than one location, to ensure both sides get a chance to participate in their daughter or son’s life event. Once the location is decided upon, you can pick the actual date. Oftentimes the date is driven by the availability of the place where you will be hosting the event. The more spectacular of a place, like San Francisco’s Carnelian Room, or South Bay’s Villa Montalvo, the further in advance it has to be booked. But be realistic, the more spectacular of a place, the further away from the budget it may get. Finding a place where you can celebrate both ceremony and the reception is ideal. However, it is not always the case, so having the ceremony and the reception to be not too far from each other or arranging for limo or other type of transportation between the two locations may be of a value to your guests. Picking the place also closely ties to how many people you plan to invite. This is often driven by the budget, and don’t forget that your fiancée will be inviting about half of the guests. Start the guest list with close friends and relatives and expand as feasible.  

The next big step is to delve into the logistics of the actual ceremony and reception. Not surprisingly, various details of the wedding day will remain in memory for years to come and will also be captured in photographs and video. Therefore it is worthwhile to choose a theme for the wedding day. The theme will reflect itself in the design of the invitations, ceremony and reception hall decorations, flour bouquets, bride’s and bride’s maids dresses, flower girls, and the overall atmosphere that you will be creating for this special occasion. And don’t forget that everyone expects great food, entertainment, and finally great pictures that you’ll share with your guests afterwards.  

On the wedding day, the bride’s ritual includes a hair do, make up, dressing – all of which is usually photographed and shot on the video. The wedding dress should be ordered well in advance and well fitted. A wedding coordinator may be of help if you prefer to spend a bit more and delegate the actual arrangements for the wedding. With all of the services that you’ll be ordering for the wedding day, ensure that you can rely on this person to deliver high quality.  

Back to the wedding day - a separate photo shoot is typically scheduled after the ceremony, before the reception. This is an important part of the wedding and should be scheduled with plenty of time to allow for capturing exquisite portraits and memorable scenes. Bear in mind that outdoor light is often most beautiful shortly before sunset, so your photographer will be certain to try to capture some images of you then.  As we already discussed, carefully picking a wedding photographer is an essential step in the preparation process.  

Aside from the wedding day, the bride and the groom will need to decide on the honeymoon and make the travel arrangements well in advance. Throughout the planning process, share your thoughts and ideas with each other and the planning journey will be a success!