so you're engaged, now what?

After all of the set the date pressures in the early days of engagement, it can be really difficult to figure out where to begin. Proposal and then boom suddenly in the throws of wedding planning. Mr. Narwhal and I hit the ground running after our engagement in August, and I think it can be attributed to following a few key steps post-engagement.
1. Decide on the length of your engagement.

We knew we wanted a late summer wedding and knew that one year was the maximum we wanted to be engaged. Since we knew that a year was tight in terms of booking venues and vendors, it was important for us to get busy planning, especially since Muskoka is quickly becoming a hot destination wedding spot. 

2. Have the money talk. 

Every family and every wedding is different. Before you can get too in the throws of wedding planning, establishing a loose number and figuring out who will be contributing is really key. Will you be following a traditional wedding budget model? Will you be paying for it all yourselves? Will your parents split halfway? In our case, we both tackled talking to our own parents to get a general sense of what we were working with between us all. It isn't easy to ask about a significant amount of money for one day, but it's an important conversation that you should have before you create an unrealistic wedding vision.

figure out the just right number for you both // via Hitched.co.uk

3. Create a rough guest list. 
Mr. Narwhal thought he wanted to invite 20 people. Luckily for me in my pre-planning, I had already generated a decent list, and we quickly realized that we had a fairly hefty number of people (a reality check for Mr. Narwhal). The initial count was approaching 180 and some difficult conversations we were able to get it around 160 (plus children). 

4. Discuss your wedding vibe. 
Are you the Sunday brunchers? Are you getting married at a banquet hall? Inside a church? Outside? In our case we had a good sense of our vibe before we got engaged, but in those first couple of nights we browsed Pinterest and wedding sites together and settled on our ideal wedding day with our general budget in mind.

Photo sources left to right
Image from Green Wedding Shoes // Image by Stone Crandall Photography
Image from Green Wedding Shoes // Image by Forged in the North Photography
Image from Ruffled Blog // Image by Cami Takes Photos
Image from Green Wedding Shoes // Image by Logan Cole Wedding Co.

5. Begin researching venues.  

Begin looking for venues that fit your vibe. Send out emails and watch your inbox explode. Set up appointments to visit your venues so you can move forward in setting your date.

6. Tackle a fun wedding related task.
I cannot stress this step enough! That first week was pretty stressful for me trying to sort out a venue and a date. So, to put my stress at ease, I decided to start emailing photographers. It was good to get quotes from some of my favourites, and find out who would be within our price range. Sure, we didn't have a date, but it was something I was really excited about for wedding planning.

7. Record your ideas and information somewhere. 
I quickly realized how important it was to be writing all of the information down. I like to write things down and have a physical copy, so I purchased a handy dandy notebook. In whatever medium tickles your fancy, start recording your ideas in a common place.

Monica Gellar binder anyone? // via Tiffany Farley

Once you start to get these steps under way, you'll start to feel like you've got this whole engagement wedding planning thing under control!

What steps did you find helpful when you first got engaged?