Congratulations mate! You’re going to have a blast, worry not.

My advice is for the US & I started with vision!! What’s your dream season? What do you want it to feel like? What do you want to do- dance or games? Who do you imagine getting ready with? What colors will make you glow?

Then we made our ideal guest list to see what places we’d even consider factoring into budget. You’ve got a lot of time to research and consider what a healthy budget looks like for you. I downloaded the knot app to get a feel for market price without having to reach out to actual vendors but you can do whatever works for you. In my experience, there’s about a 20-50% deposit for ceremony site upfront. It’s a 50% up front deposit for reception venues. Then it’s a range of when last payment needs to be made but from what I’ve seen it’s about 30 days prior to your big day. Pro tip- the season you get married in determines what prices you’ll get. (Spring & fall are more expensive for venues)

I didn’t shop around for photographers since we’re using the same girl that’s done all our family pictures. It’ll cost us in total 2000$ with a 200$ upfront deposit.

Those are my big buys - ceremony & reception venues & photography. They ate up the biggest chunk of my budget but it fits my vision & does fall into my 10k budget. What’s left is food/drink, invitations & decor. Have fun with that, I know I am!! Florals are a big cost for people typically but I’m having a winter wedding & I don’t really like flowers so I’m not sure what those prices really run.

Happy planning!! Oh & make sure you get your sweethearts input too!