The moment of truth has arrived. You’ve found your true love and the proposal has been given and accepted. You are just passing through the amazing moments of excitement and ambitious thought that come after a wedding proposal. You are in love and ready to marry the person of your dreams. But now the reality of the situation begins to sink in and you must begin making the arrangements. What next?
Now is the time to jump head-first into the planning. You will need to make the biggest decisions now, before the event details begins to surface. You will want to decide on the basic layout for the wedding. This layout will include whether or not you plan to humor a large wedding party/ceremony or if you want to elope. You will want to decide who is paying, what they are paying for, and how much they can offer. You also need to make a conclusion on the size of the guest list; small gathering or cathedral size event. Also, this is the time to assign and decide on the venue location.
Your most sizable, and most important, decisions should take place in a timely fashion, in the first week or two after the proposal, so that you keep the momentum rolling. The hardest part will be in the smaller details, that take place later on in the process, so think of this time as the fun, bulk-planning period.
Your options for the main wedding detail are limited to either a normal ceremony/reception wedding or an elopement wedding. Many people think of a bride and groom running off to Las Vegas Nevada for an elopement wedding, but this is just not true anymore. It is becoming more and more common to see couples bring several attending guests to an elopement ceremony. As long as the venue allows for it, it is acceptable to see immediate family attending an eloping couples ceremony. This type of wedding is popular in situations where the couple is paying for the wedding themselves. It is cost effective, private, and extremely personal. The couple also has the luxury of spending more time and money on their honeymoon.
The favored option of wedlock is, of course, the traditional wedding ceremony and reception. This type of proceeding will cost far more than its cousin of matrimony, the elopement. Most loving couples will pay, on average, $5,000-$30,000 for a modest wedding. This is in no way a criteria seeing as how many couples can spend far more than thirty thousand dollars on their wedding. The traditional ceremony wedding is the best option for couples who are receiving financial assistance from the bride’s family, or other family member’s. Since they are receiving financial aid they are submitted access to a larger budget. The financial status and availability generally makes the final decision.