Everyone has heard the question about whether the chicken or the egg came first? When it came to planning our wedding, we had to figure out what should come first in planning our special day! Should we hire our caterer first or our venue? Or maybe our photographer and DJ should be first? 🙂 There are so many people to find and hire that play an important role in your wedding day! I believe that it all boils down to what is most important to you and your other half!

Being that I’m a wedding photographer, photography was at the top of my list when it came time to look for wedding vendors! I figured no matter where I have my wedding, I’ll need a great photographer to capture it all! And we literally went from planning a small park wedding to having a little larger country club wedding!

Here is a mini checklist of questions I asked myself when choosing who to hire and when!

1.Wedding budget!

Before we did anything, we sat down and went over our wedding budget! I’m not a huge fan of numbers and so our total scared me everytime! I mean, it scared me to the point that I didn’t want to have a wedding! I didn’t think we could afford it! But a wise planner named Veronica with the Behind the Scenes in Greensboro, once told us that instead of thinking about the big number, think about the small numbers! And just figure out what you can afford each month and go from there! That’s exactly what we did! There are lots of useful budget tools online like this one on Real Simple!

2. What’s most important to you!

Now that you have some idea of what you want (or can) spend on your wedding, start thinking about what is most important to you! Is having a fancy wedding dress with lots of beading and lace important to you? Or would you prefer to have fresh flowers on every table and in every bouquet? This answer will be different for everyone! For us, photography was very important! I wanted someone great and someone who I trusted!

3. Book all of your vendors!

We understand that everything adds up when paying for a wedding, but once you have decided who you want to make your wedding cake and supply your flowers, you have to book each vendor! Most wedding vendors will require a contract and/or deposit or retainer to reserve your wedding date!

I would love to hear from you! What was most important to you when it came to your planning your special day?