Ready? Set? Plan!!!

Hello! Welcome to the creative process that is my wedding. Let me start off with this disclaimer: I have no idea what I am doing. This is not the blog of an expert wedding planner/decorator. This is the blog of a recent-college-grad, starving graphic artist on a strict fixed income. If I haven't lost you yet, I hope you will join me on the journey that is my cheap, do-it-yourself, self-decorated (but hopefully beautiful) budget wedding. $$$


A little advice?
First thing's first! Pick a venue.
BEFORE YOU CAN PLAN ANYTHING CONCRETE... you need YOUR VENUE BOOKED. I am sure you are familiar with the Real Estate term: "Location location location." Usually this refers to the potential value of a property, but in this case, I am applying it to wedding planning. The venue for your wedding is your planning blueprint. Without it, you have no foundation for your project. Planning a wedding without a location/time frame is akin to building your house on a pile of wet sand. Good luck with that.


The location determines:

• The size of your wedding party
• Atmosphere of your wedding party  Outdoor? Indoor? Fancy? Simple? Intimate and sheltered? Wide open spaces with a view?
• Date of your wedding party  When is this space available?
• Budget/time left for the rest of the planning Often a location is the most expensive element of your wedding; once the cost of your venue rental is determined, you have an idea of how much is left in your budget for other things.

Finding a wedding venue within your budget and time frame may not be as easy as you think. For me, I already started behind. I want to have my wedding in August 2012 and it's already October. That gives me less than a full year to plan, save, and execute. I don't plan on having a grandiose celebration (I want to cap the invite list at about 50 or so, which is classified as a small wedding), but I do plan on having a visually beautiful one. As an artistic individual with a touch of OCD, I cannot settle for anything less than visually captivating.


ONLINE WEDDING VENUE LOCATORS?
Somewhat helpful.
YELP?
Even better.


Online wedding venue locators such as eventective.com can help; however, they will not necessarily list the smaller, less publicized places that may cost a lot less. I probably spent a solid two weeks searching aimlessly before I stumbled across a promising venue on Yelp. The venue I found only had two reviews, but they were good ones! One of the reviewers said that she felt she had stumbled upon a secret treasure and couldn't believe how reasonable the prices were for such a beautiful property. I went to the property's website and felt a twinge of hope when I saw that the deposit was only $350 and the cost of renting the entire property (including an entire house and yard sheltered by redwoods) for the day was $775. Compared to $600-$1000 deposits with $1200-$2400 rental rates, this place seemed too good to be true.


I called the owner of the property on a Sunday morning and they let me look around that afternoon. My fiance and I were so taken with the place and the friendly owners (who were more people-minded than business-minded), that we did not feel the need to look at a second place at all. It would be looking for the sake of looking which personally makes no sense to me. As an artist, when I have a positive emotion or feeling about something I go with it. I don't need a bunch of options when my first instinct already feels right.


IS YOUR VENUE BOOKED?
Yes? Then you can start thinking about decorations!
Knowing your environment is key!


Now that I know my environment, I can design!