In the past few weeks, we’ve given you the secrets to setting up your wedding planning for success. Specifically, we’ve chatted about the importance of establishing guides prior to booking anything – three guides to be exact – as the foundation for a solid event planning & design experience. 

 

The guides are the groundwork for phase one of our six phased approach to wedding planning.   spent time building a solid foundation. And as a reminder they are: 

1. The development of a budget that actually works for you 
2. The identification of your max. Anticipatory guest count 
3. The first step in our Design Blueprint – event vision identification  

 

These three guides promise to allow for all future event decisions to be aligned, cohesive, and ready to strategically drive you forward – ensuring that each subsequent decision stems from the next. {Looking for more how to guidance than just the blog posts above – don’t miss our 15+ free newly engaged getting started with wedding planning guide. We cover all of the above in depth providing you action steps & our expert guidance in the guide!} 

 

You see by taking the time to intentionally build your budget – you’ve given yourself permission to spend while ensuring you have enough for the rest of the event. 

 

You’ve also identified boundaries within which you will be able to build your event – ie venues that will comfortably be able to accommodate all your guests.  

 

You’ve also devoted some time to identifying and aligning your preferences so that you have your vision – and not one provided to you –  top of mind as you start to book and build your event. 

 

By completing these three tasks – you are armed with strategic guides. You’ve thought through some of the key elements of your event and have essentially crafted its skeleton – one that reflects functional, practical and aesthetic based facets. 

 

So what’s next? So glad you asked! 

 

Building Your Vendor Team. 

 

The first two phases of our six phased approach to event planning is focused heavily on building a foundation and one of the primary goals of a solid event foundation is a solid vendor team – in its entirety! That’s right the full – well almost completely full – vendor is a major focus of the work we do with our planning clients right away in the event planning process {and how we’ve structured and built The Modern Wedding Planner as well} 

 

Surprisingly, this is not something consistently encouraged by all event industry professionals – often I see antiquated advice that says you can leave booking certain vendors to later in the planning experience. 

 

We’ve found with our planning, couples that build their vendor team early in the planning process experience a significant reduction in stress and overwhelm. And this reduction often leads to feelings of confidence in their vendor selections = truthfully resulting in a much more peaceful/enjoying wedding day. 

 

So how exactly do you get started with booking vendors? What vendors do you start with first? What should you have to get started? 

 

Let’s dive in!  

 

What You Will Need: 

 

We typically recommend that you get started with booking vendors after you have established the following: 

1. Built Your Budget 
2. Confirmed Your Max. Anticipatory Guest Count
3. Honed In On Your Event Vision 
4. Booked Your Venue & Confirmed Your Date

 

Once you have these, you will be ready to start to research your vendors and start to build your vendor team. 

 

What Vendors To Book First: 

 

While we wholeheartedly believe that your preferences and priorities should always be a guiding factor in the planning of your wedding, we have found that most often couples will naturally start with the three vendors we’ve deemed as Big Three Vendors. 

 

Big three vendors are those that we recommend booking early in your event planning process – and most often this is because they are booked pretty far in advance of wedding dates – typically 24 months. More often than not, these vendors as well cannot serve multiple events on the same date. 

 

We encourage our couples to build the foundation of your vendor team with these vendors so that you can have your dream vendor – without all the rush or hurry. These vendors include photographers, entertainment, and the caterer. 

 

*We also will throw in a recent change in a trend we’ve been seeing in the industry – wedding planners are being booked further and further in advance – especially after 2020. Our company for example is currently booking 2 years in advance and often has very limited room in our event calendar for the current upcoming season. If you are considering the assistance of a wedding planner or wedding coordinator – we are recommending that you reach out early in your engagement as we have also seen many event companies shifting towards limiting their events for the year as well.  

 

How To Get Started With Researching The Big Three: 

 

When getting started with vendor research, the process can feel incredibly daunting – after are there are so many vendors to choose from. Perhaps you are wondering how you should compare the vendors so that you actually can identify the vendor that is best suited for your event. 

 

We’ve got you covered! 

 

Let’s dive in with a few considerations that will help you guide you in your search to research, identify, and build a vendor team you love and feel confident in. 

 

We recommend using the following general categories to compare and contrast vendors: 

1. Budget 
2. Personality 
3. Offer Inclusions 
4. Reviews & Recommendations 

 

For each vendor, we then provide our couples {and MWP community} with vendor specific categories to dive even deeper into the research/vendor identification process. 

 

In fact, we’ve taken our signature planning & design approach used with hundreds of clients and channeled it into a comprehensive, step-by-step, results driven resource that empowers you with the tools, the strategy, the industry based secrets, and the assurance/confidence to make your dream wedding design a reality! Grab our Free action packed guide here and start your planning journey on the best foot possible.