How to Begin Planning a Wedding

Getting Engaged

Some engagements begin with an elaborate proposal, meticulously planned and staged for maximum effect. Other marriage proposals evolve naturally over time from a deep connection with someone special and may happen during a regular conversation over breakfast. However your engagement occurs, couples typically experience feelings of elation and excitement that can last for weeks, if not months. Agreeing to a lifelong commitment with the one you love is a major milestone and the beginning of many a happy marriage.

The planners amongst you may only wait minutes before their brains turn to logistics, next steps and what to book first, frantically Googling for tips on how to plan a wedding. Others may simply marinade in their bubble of happiness before even thinking of planning a wedding. Whether you fall into the former or latter camp, or somewhere in between, it is important to enjoy these early moments of your engagement as this will (hopefully!) be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Sharing Wedding Ideas

In the minutes, hours, days and weeks following your engagement your thoughts will inevitably turn towards how to start planning a wedding. What do you need to do first? Who do you want to celebrate with? Where do you want to get married? And when?

You might have been planning your wedding since you were little and have firm ideas about where your wedding venue will be, which wedding outfit designer you favour and the colour scheme for your wedding styling. Remember that many of these ideas are yours and will need to meet the approval of your partner! Take time to listen to their plans for wedding nuptials and find compromises that suit you both.

For couples that haven’t been conjuring plans for a wedding since childhood, thinking about what you DON’T want can help create a shortlist of how you DO want to marry. Discussing your personal priorities and values before you put pen to paper will help you realise what is important to you both, ensuring your expectations are aligned. Establishing a shared vision for your big day in the early stages of wedding planning will help avoid conflict later.

Wedding Budget

One of the most important decisions couples will have to make together is what wedding budget you have available. In 2025, the average wedding cost in the UK is £23,250 according to the National Wedding Survey conducted by Hitched. This doesn’t mean you have to spend tens of thousands on getting married but understand that weddings can be expensive. Talking about budgeting for wedding plans early on will avoid arguments about money further down the line.

This is the point at which you may think about enlisting the help of a wedding planner. Can you afford it? A professional wedding coordinator will cost between 10-15% of your total budget but might be worth their weight in gold if you’re time poor. Factoring in this expense early on will mean many of the tasks below can be shared with your wedding organiser, who will help navigate the logistics of planning your wedding from start to finish.

In addition to hiring a wedding planner, your wedding budget will be dictated by your guestlist, and conversely your guestlist will affect your wedding cost. If you have a fixed amount to spend, work to that rather than making elaborate plans you can’t afford. Similarly, if you have an unlimited budget then planning a wedding may only be restricted by your imagination!

Establishing a budget during your initial wedding planning is important for guiding decisions about how many people you can reasonably invite, and the size of wedding venue you require. There is no point planning a wedding for 200 guests if you don’t have the funds to host them, so think carefully about what you can spend as this will inform your venue choice, guestlist, the date of your wedding and your wedding theme.

Wedding Guestlist

The number of guests you want to invite may determine your wedding budget, and vice versa, so the wedding cost will ultimately determine how many wedding guests you can invite.

A small, intimate wedding may only include close family and friends, giving a total guest list of less than 50 people, requiring an intimate wedding venue to suit your small wedding. On the flip side, if you both have wide circles of friends then your initial wedding guestlist may well be lengthy! Often family politics can affect who you invite to your wedding so sit down together and make an initial list of who to invite, or not, and see what number you get to. You can then start streamlining if necessary to make a wedding guest list that is both affordable and includes your nearest and dearest.

Choose a Wedding Date

Think back to what you do and don’t want for your wedding. Do you envisage a summer wedding outdoors or a romantic winter wedding? What is your favourite time of year? Do you have work commitments or school holidays to contend with? Do you have the funds to get married sooner or need time to save? These are all factors that will determine your ideal wedding date.

Then refer to your wedding budget again. Weekend weddings during the height of wedding season, May – September, will invariably cost more as wedding venues charge a higher premium for peak times. Weekday weddings may cost less but mean you and your guests might have to factor in annual leave from work. If there is a particular wedding venue you have your heart set on, then you may well be restricted by their availability which might not fit in with your preferred budget.

The key takeaway for choosing the perfect date for a wedding is to plan well in advance so your options are not limited by venue or guest availability. Oh, and have a first, second and third choice – just in case.

Book Your Venue

Once you have determined your wedding guests list, your desired budget and the time of year you want to get married, you can start looking at wedding venues! It’s not always viable to view all the venues on your hitlist – especially those that are further away from home.

Part of deciding where to get married involves making decisions about the type of wedding ceremony you want. If there is a special church you want to marry in, then you’ll need to look at venues in the vicinity. Equally, if you want a registrar to conduct a civil ceremony, you may need to look for venues that are licensed to hold weddings legally.

If your heart is set on a venue that isn’t licensed, then a wedding ceremony conducted by a celebrant may be just the ticket. A wedding celebrant will honour your relationship and commitment together with a deeply personal ceremony that whilst not legally binding, will reflect your values in front of your nearest and dearest.

If you’re happy to marry in a registry office, then your wedding venue doesn’t have to be licensed and can be more or less anywhere – so long as you have the permission of the venue or landowners.

Trawl venue websites to find approximate costs, request wedding brochures and scroll through their social media channels to find inspiration pictures. Once you have created a shortlist, start contacting your chosen wedding venues. Response times to emails, your conversations with in-house wedding coordinators and availability create an overall impression of whether a venue is your vibe, or not.

You’re looking for wedding venues to share your excitement, staff who are friendly and professional, that give prompt information when requested. All of these create an impression of how the venue will operate on your wedding day. Their interactions with you will inevitably help shave some of them off your list as finding the right fit is important. You need to feel confident that your wedding is as significant to them as it is to you, regardless of your budget.

Next Steps

After you have defined your wedding budget, drafted a guest list, chosen a date and booked a wedding venue, you can give yourself a break! Wedding planning can be hectic, especially if you’re not a professional wedding planner, which most of us aren’t. Unless the wedding date you’ve chosen is imminent, you’ve pinned down the most fundamental aspects of your wedding day and it should be plain sailing from here.

Your next jobs will be hiring your wedding vendors. Your wedding to do list may include the following suppliers;

• Registrar or celebrant

• Wedding website

• Stylists

• Wedding photographers and/or videographers

• Florists

• Wedding outfit specialists

• Caterers

• Hair and make-up stylists

• Wedding entertainment

• Wedding stationers

• Wedding transport

• Cake designers

  
  

These are the fun details that make your wedding day unique and special. Before you wade into the wonderful world of wedding suppliers, don’t forget to celebrate your engagement and share the news with your loved ones.

Remember to enjoy these moments and try not to get too bogged down in details at this stage. Whilst your wedding day may well be one of the most memorable moments in your life, the foundations of a long and loving marriage are far more important so don’t forget to keep making time for each other.

Wedding Venues in Lancashire

It would be remiss of us to not mention our gorgeous wedding venue in Lancashire – Springbank Manor. Recently renovated and ready for happy couples from all over, Springbank boasts a unique combination of historical charm with modern style and can host both intimate weddings and large weddings for up to 250 guests. Located in Darwen, near Blackburn, our fabulous hotel wedding venue is surrounded by wide open green spaces and overlooked by the iconic Darwen Tower. For hotel weddings in Lancashire that are easily accessible yet enjoy close proximity to rolling green countryside, Springbank Manor may well be THE ONE for you. Get in touch with our friendly team to discuss your upcoming

nuptials. 

Weddings at Springbank Manor