Wedding Wednesday-Series 3-Setting The Date!

This week on Wedding Wednesdays, we are going to be discussing the all important decision of setting a date, to make your wonderful big day official! 
First of all what I would say is that I appreciate not everyone will want to or have the means to set a date as soon as they have got engaged. This could be due to many factors such as personal reasons, family reasons, finances etc...all you need to know is there is no right or wrong with when you decide to set a date. It's YOUR day, so YOUR decision!

About 3-4 weeks after myself and Steve got engaged, we decided that we wanted to start looking at possible venues and get an idea on what was out there and what you could get for your money. We started with three venues in mind and ended up picking the second venue we saw (venue post to come soon in this wedding series)! but as soon as we started looking around venues, I quickly begun to wonder when was the best time of year for us to get married?
Now some people will just be lucky or super organised and know immediately what type of wedding they want and the month, heck-even the exact date it should be on! Well...we didn't! We were quite open-minded and as I just said, didn't really start thinking about the date or time of year for our wedding till we started looking around the venues. 
As soon as we saw our dream venue and fell in love with it (we booked it the very same day we took a tour round it)-I all of a sudden had quite a clear vision in my mind of the type of wedding I wanted to us. At this point in the post I would like to point out that I say 'I', because Steve bless his heart wouldn't really be too fussed when we got married, he just wants us to be happy, have a fantastic time and be husband and wife. Don't get me wrong, he through-out this whole process has been part of decision making and given me some ideas for certain aspects of the wedding, but let's be honest here...most of the ideas, planning and negotiating has been now to me-the bride! :)




Back to the decision factor of the date...at the venue when looking around with Steve, my parents and my sister, I very quickly started to pick an Autumnal wedding. We looked around the venue in the Summer funnily enough, and it was still absolutely beautiful but I just kept picturing it in the Autumn and also very quickly, came up with some decorative and colour scheme elements I wanted us to have, which I only really pictured using around that time of year. 
Our venue let us know the dates they had available for 2015 (remember we booked this last year) and already, most of the weekends were gone which didn't surprise us. HOWEVER, we knew we ideally didn't actually want a weekend wedding, as by having a weekday wedding at pretty much most venues up and down the country, you can really save yourself some money on the budget side of things! We decided on the 1st October, which is a Thursday, as we thought it was a date that sounded good-the start of the month, the start of our future as husband and wife and as my dad quite rightly pointed out, 'No one will forget that date will they? It's the 1st'! 


Now that you have heard a little background into how we came to choosing our date and the decision factors that involved, please see below for some of my top tips to take into consideration when setting your wedding date:

*Budget*
I know it's not exactly romantic to talk about but it is highly important! You really want to try to not start married life in humongous debt and the date can help you keep that portion of the budget lower. On average a Mon-Thurs wedding can help you save anywhere between £2-£4k on venue hire (please note this does depend on the venue and their individual prices) and that saving really can make some difference. 

*Guest List*
Don't worry, you don't need to have an exact firm number when looking at venues but you should definitely have an approx idea on how many guests in total you are looking to invite for both the day part and evening reception to your wedding. This will help you rule out certain venues if they are too small or even too large sometimes. 

*Location*
If you picture having your wedding outside in say a garden or hiring a marquee for a half outdoors/half indoors celebration, obviously bear in mind what locations will let you do this and if they are listened to have such things as alcohol on the premises. Also if you want a wedding where the majority of your loved ones can come, maybe don't venture out too far from where you are from, as it might prove logistically or financially difficult for them to attend. Saying that also, if you decide you want a smaller more intimate occasion and your budget allows for it, definitely consider your options with getting married abroad. You could not only get married in a beautiful, exotic or historic location, but make a honeymoon or min-moon out of it too.

*Theme of wedding*
Again please don't worry and think you have to have this all decided before you pick a date-you don't! What I mean by this is most brides (sorry couples)!-have an idea in mind of the type of wedding they'd like. Be it a quintessential English countryside wedding which involves PIMM'S on the lawn and outside games or a Winter Wonderland full of cost candlelight and romantic twinkles, this will help dictate when your big day should be. 

I'd love to hear when you got married or if you are getting married-what date you've picked and why! Leave a comment below :)

P.S-Are you following me on Instagram? If not, please come and say 'hi' and follow me @fashionteller17 -Especially for the tag #MARRIEDMAY which I am currently taking part in.