Congratulations! It’s a new year, and in addition to being excited about all the goals you’ve set and are looking forward to crushing this year, you’re probably still on cloud-nine from the fact that the love of your life got down on one knee and said those four magic words, “will you marry me?”. To which you responded softly between tears ‘yes, I will”, or gave him a big smile and said “heck yeah baby!” or maybe you were too shocked to even respond you just stared at him with big dooey eyes stunned about what was happening. Whatever category you fall into, this is definitely a special time in your lives and we are excited for you guys as I’m sure are all your family, friends and loved ones who after congratulating you quickly follow-up with so “have you guys set a date?” Trust me, they mean well, but forget that asking such questions can sometimes make you feel stressed and start to panic about what the next step should be, when you really should be savoring the moment and basking in the newly-engaged glow. To help ease your stress, and answer your question of ‘I’m engaged! Now what?!”, we put together a list of 5 things to help you through this time –

• Get a wedding email account: You know how you’re constantly complaining about all the marketing/promotional emails you get from retailers? Yeah, once you start wedding planning that number will triple. So save yourself and your personal inbox the stress by opening a separate email account for all your wedding related stuff. This way your personal everyday email is not cluttered, but also you and your fiance can both have access to this new email account, and can manage it and respond to vendors easily. You could even keep it post wedding for all your joint communications or calendar sharing. Examples of emails are – JaneJohnWedding@xyz.com, TheJohnsonsWedding@xyz.com, BecomingTheDukes@xyz.com

• Create a vision board aka Pinterest: If you haven’t already we recommend signing up for Pinterest. Why? Well Pinterest is like a digital, shareable vision board which is a great way to help you pull together in one place things you like and would love to have at your wedding. Essentially, creating a vision board that you can then share with your fiance, friends/bridal party, wedding planner and vendors. This way everyone who has a key role with the planning is well aware of what your wedding theme is and no one has to go digging through emails or tons of pictures on their phone to find the specific flower arrangement or table setting that you liked, and sent them months ago. It’s all in one place.

• Budget & Location: Prior to your engagement you and your fiance might have discussed in passing where you would like your wedding to be; either where you both live or where your parents/family live or maybe even a destination wedding. You also might have thrown out numbers for how much you both think you could spend. That was before the ring, and maybe a few months or even years ago. Now that you are officially engaged, you both need to revisit that conversation and see what and where realistically makes sense. You want your location to be one that family and friends can afford if it requires travel, and also where the cost of a wedding is within your budget. With regards to budget, set an amount and make sure to have a buffer for contingencies and keep that buffer amount to just you and your fiance only. Don’t go telling everyone who asks ‘what’s your budget?’, “our budget is 35,000 but we have a buffer of about $10,000”. What happens is people then automatically see your budget as $45,000 and work with that in mind instead of $35,000. It might be hard to not splurge on everything, but remember after the wedding and partying, all your guests return to their homes and you and your new husband are left with the reality of your bills. So work on staying within your budget and not exceeding your secret buffer.

• Your Support Team: The day you get engaged and the day you get married are no doubt exciting days, but the journey in between from one to the other can be quite overwhelming and stressful due to the planning. It is important that you surround yourself with an awesome support system who are willing to help keep you calm and sane throughout by either being there for you to vent/rant when you can’t seem to find a venue that works for you guys, when you’ve told the fiance to go get his tux measurements a thousand times but he keeps pushing it off 🙂 , or when your guest list is slowly getting out of control with your wonderful parents wanting to invite everyone they know. Make sure that the people in your bridal party and your close friends are understanding, and willing to help you go through these tough times and not just show up on D-day to celebrate.

• Take Love TimeOuts: You already heard from us and everyone else that wedding planning can be stressful, but in addition, that stress can sometimes take a toll on your relationship. Especially when you and your fiancé might not see eye to eye on certain things, which can turn into a heated argument or just generally feeling like you guys aren’t on the same team. Whether you’ve been with your love for over five years, or your love journey is only six months in, make a conscious effort to take timeouts from the craziness of the planning to appreciate each other, spend quality time together and begin reinforcing the pillars of your relationship that will hold you beyond the wedding day. Also, try to compromise with each other and remember that although your wedding day is a special day for a lot of people – you, your fiancé, both your parents, family members and friends – you can never please everyone. So try to compromise where possible, but keep your love at the center of it all.

Hope you found these tips helpful. As always if you have any wedding or event related questions feel free to contact us via email, phone or on our Facebook and Instagram pages. Once again congratulations, enjoy being engaged and all the best with wedding planning!

Best Wishes,

Mayven.