Determine Your Wedding Style
By Anne Renaud

Congratulations, you are engaged! Now what? Relax, get a pen and paper and start by writing down how each of you envisions your Wedding Day. Do you want a small intimate wedding with close friends and family, or do you want to invite many people? What are your priorities and primary focus? Is it music, quality of food, amazing photographs and video to enjoy for years or something else? Browse through the numerous wedding magazines and internet sites for ideas. What type of ceremony do you want? What season is most appealing to you? These are major factors to begin with. You need to have a fairly solid idea of your wants and desires for this day before you can start to hire any vendors.

Determining a budget from the very beginning is very important. If parents will be contributing to the cost, make sure you are clear on this to avoid any uncomfortable or hurt feelings later. Ideally, set up a credit card account just for the wedding. It is best to use a credit card for the deposits and even payments to ensure protection. It is also very useful in keeping track of all monies spent.

If having amazing photographs and video is a priority, maybe you will hire a DJ instead of a band, maybe having gourmet food is more important than the number of people who will attend and so on.

Having a fairly good idea of what you want this day to be like, then making the budget and sticking to it will make this process so much more enjoyable and fun!

Anne Renaud is a Certified Wedding Specialist and owner of Weddings by Anne. You can reach Anne at annere2@yahoo.com