Long time no blog post! I had so many of you reach asking for more info about my wedding and the overall wedding planning process and I'm so overwhelmingly happy that I get to share more of that aspect of my life with all of you. Solely posting on the 'gram didn't feel sufficient (wedding planning is no joke people!) so I've decided to move most of my wedding info onto the blog.
A few weeks ago I gave you what I'd call the 'skeleton' of my wedding: the month and year, the locations, and the core vendors that I've already booked. I generally think of myself as a pretty decisive person but I have to be honest and say when it came to committing (read 'committing' as 'paying/ putting down a deposit') to wedding vendors I had a bit of a hard time. I had so many ideas of what I wanted my wedding to be and while I was finding excellent vendors who I was beyond excited to work with, committing to a vendor potentially meant narrowing down a few of my hypothetical options. Social media proved to be a pro and a con for me during my early stages of planning because I would find an amazing vendor, get ready to confirm them for my date and then I'd see a picture of another vendor who offered the same services but in a completely different manner or style. Ultimately, my wedding planner and I had created a shared mood board and I would always loop back to that when I was feeling hesitant about locking in a vendor. At the end of the day, there are a million potential vendors--especially for those of us getting married in LA-- and I'm sure 99.9% of them would give you some version of your dream wedding. For me, picking which vendors would help bring our wedding dreams to life was made easier by consulting my mood board and focusing on the overall style and vibe we were hoping to achieve when designing our wedding.
All of that being said, let me break down the general steps that I followed when I was (and still am!) looking for and deciding on vendors:
1. Budget
Unless you're a Kardashian or lottery winner, odds are your wedding has a budget. Do yourself a favor and keep that in mind when looking at vendors. A simple Google search can help you find a general breakdown of roughly how much of your budget should be allotted to each vendor and category. If there are specific aspects of your wedding that matter most to you, you can adjust those percentages as needed and cut down costs in other areas that you aren't as worried about. Personally, my fiance and I both cared the most about the photography and music for our wedding. We know wedding photos are the tangible memories that we walk away with after the best day of our lives so we allocated more room in our budget for our photographer. We also love music and having a live band was always a priority of ours, so we made room in the numbers for that as well. My wedding coordinator set me up on Aisle Planner and their budgeting tool has been a lifesaver. It's easy to use and very visual, so staying on track financially is easy to do. Finding vendors in all price ranges is completely doable (Southern California Bride Blog and The Knot are great resources) so take a little bit of time to do your research and suss out the best potential vendors in your price range. Which leads me to my next tip...
2. Research
I mentioned above that social media can be a pro and a con when trying to figure out your wedding vendors. If you keep your budget and overall style in mind, I say hashtag and Google away! The wedding industry is massive which can be overwhelming...or beneficial if you're focused and know what you're doing. Wedding websites that offer vendor info and reviews can (and should) be your best friends. Read reviews from former couples who worked with your potential vendors. Look at their tagged photos on Instagram to see a wide variety of their work. This aspect was huge for me. I would spend hours scrolling through a vendor's social media pages feeling like I loved their work but didn't know if I fit THEIR style. Then I switched my way of thinking and asked, "does this vendor fit MY style?" Quality is quality at the end of the day so instead of getting stuck on the look of someone's highly curated and edited Insta grid remember that you only see what they are choosing to post on their pages. If you look in tagged photos a lot of the time you will find a much wider breadth of work than you necessarily see in their main page of posted photos. If you find a quality vendor who you are interested in working with but you have questions or concerns, ask questions! Every single vendor I've contacted (including the many that I reached out to but didn't end up booking) have been warm and willing to work with me and my wedding vision. Taking a little bit of time to learn about your vendors can open up new possibilities and ideas that you might not have previously considered.
3. Ask Around
When in doubt, chat it out! Talking with other brides-to-be and recently married friends and family members can really help you narrow down the vendor search. It never hurts to ask what they loved (or didn't love...) about vendors that they have worked with or booked so never be afraid to ask questions. Additionally, if you have already booked any vendors ask them about the people and businesses you are considering hiring because after all weddings are their area of expertise! My wedding coordinator and photographer have helped me find some of my additional vendors. I love and trust my coordinator and photographer's opinions so their recommendations mean a lot to me and have been incredibly helpful.
Wedding planning is so personal. You are hand crafting the most special day of your life and while the planning can be incredibly fun it is also stressful and overwhelming at times. With a little bit of organization and research you can find vendors who will (hopefully) relieve some of your stress and allow you to focus more on the most important detail of the day: marrying the love of your life. If you're getting married in the Los Angeles area please feel free to reach out to me with any wedding planning related questions! I'm by no means an expert but I am meticulously organized and a notorious over-researcher. I would love to share the little bit of wedding planning knowledge that I have with my fellow brides-to-be!
*photography via @di_pulido