You’ve just gotten engaged, congratulations!
One night over dinner in Ryans apartment I ’subtly’ dropped him the hint that I was ‘ready to go ring shopping’ (those were the actual words I used). After Ryan was finished choking on his steak we went and gazed at a selection of engagement rings.
After that Ryan gave nothing away. For weeks I was wondering, “How will it happen?”, “I wonder what he has planned!” and, “Come on, is it happening soon?” Then the day finally came and he popped the long-anticipated question!
We were totally buzzing. Soon after the engagement, I was like “Ok. Now what?”.
I got overwhelmed pretty quickly and I know I’m not the only person who has felt this way. So I figured I’d share some tips to help you out if you have also been here!
Here is a list of the first things to do after getting engaged.
Tell Your Nearest and Dearest
If your bestie or favourite cousin or even your sister got engaged and you found out from a Facebook notification, it would suck right?! One of the first things you should do is call all those close family and friends, tell them the BIG news and let them celebrate with you!
This is such a special time in your life and they will want to be there and experience it with. And seriously… Make sure you spend time CELEBRATING.
Pick a Time for the Big Day
From my experience when people find out you’re engaged the first question they ask is, “How did he do it?” But the question that normally follows after that is, “When’s the big day?”
For now, I don’t feel like you need a specific date but more of a time of year. We knew that we wanted to get married in Spring as for us Northern Ireland always gets its best weather in Spring.
This way, when we were inquiring with vendors we were able to let them know our general idea of the month and check their availability to make sure we could get the vendors we wanted!
Set an Ideal Budget
This one is an important one. Setting a budget for the big day helps bring some clarity when you’re planning and thinking about what vendors you want to use. Once a budget is set, one of the first things you should look into is booking a venue. The plus side of doing this is that once you have got a venue booked you now have a date, number of guests that could come, and a general base of operations!
Look for Inspiration
Pinterest will be your biggest friend for this part of the wedding planning process. If you’re like me, you may have already been saving pins to your ‘dream day’ board for years…
Start looking at how you (and maybe your partner) want your special day to look. I love this stage!!
One thing I would recommend when doing this though is being realistic and trying to stick to one theme. The pins I had saved over the years all had about 5 different wedding themes/styles incorporated into them and it was becoming a little overwhelming so honestly,
I kind of had to start from scratch! I picked the theme I loved and I pinned to my little heart’s content!
Get Engagement Photos
One of the last things we would recommend that is at the top of your ‘What to do Next’ list is finding a photographer. (I know we may seem slightly biased, but for reals!)
This is an important task as the photographer(s) that you pick will spend 90% of the day by your side so it’s pretty important that you are a good match. The best place to start the search for your photographer in our opinion is on the wonderful app that is already dedicated to photos, Instagram.
Engagement sessions are a fab way to get comfortable in front of the camera and get to know your photographer. Honestly, they have so many advantages to them that we actually wrote a blog post on why you should get them. You can read it here.
A lot of photographers out there will often offer a complimentary engagement session with some of their packages, so this is always a bonus! (Budget budget!)
If you have read this and want to know more about our services or even book an engagement session, then you can contact me by hitting the button below.
I sooo look forward to getting to know you and documenting your story!!