As we ring in 2022, can we start by just saying a big CONGRATULATIONS to all of the incredible couples who got engaged over the holidays?! Whether you are reading this with a shiny new ring on your finger, or you’ve been engaged for a while, just being engaged is something worth celebrating often. This time in your relationship goes so quickly so make sure to pop a bottle of bubbly and celebrate! We were SO excited to see so many proposals all over the holiday season (what better way to ring in 2022 right?!) and so we wanted to create this quick guide to getting started in you are planning a wedding in 2022.

And by the way – before we get too deep – we still have limited 2022 availability and we’re officially booking into 2023! If you know you want to work with a wedding planner and designer, or at least you know you want a beautiful wedding day AND incredible planning experience (as in, you aren’t stressed out all the time!), I would love to hear from you. You can read more about ways to work together here, or connect with me directly here. We like to believe the best things in life aren’t done alone and that definitely includes wedding planning!

Sit down with your partner and talk about your wedding day vision.

You may both envision entirely different things and the sooner you get on the same page, the better! As I took time over the holidays to reflect on our 2021 weddings here at Brehant Creations, I can’t help but feel so much joy thinking about how truly different each and every wedding was. If you feel like you have a clear wedding day vision and your partner feels a bit more unsure, consider asking them what their top priorities are for your wedding day. Perhaps they could care less about tablescapes (one of my favorite parts!) but what they really want is the dance floor packed all night!

Create your Wedding Guest List

I’m going to be very honest with you: your guest list is kind of a big deal. Figure out who your “must have” people are, who you would like to have there, and set a hard number you want to cap it. Trust us, your number WILL just keep going up. You don’t want to start looking at venues or making any other wedding decision really until you have a hard limit to your guest count (there is no worse feeling than realizing you are over the limit!).

Can we also give you some advice? The lower your guest count, the further your money will go. As a Connecticut wedding planner and designer, most of our couples really hire us for to create unique and untraditional wedding designs for them. Because so many of your wedding costs depend largely on your guest count (we break down the cost of one single table here!), we recommend keeping your guest list tight. That doesn’t need to mean a micro wedding of 30 people, but you don’t need to rock a 200+ person guest list in order to have a great time. Don’t try to make everyone happy. Your wedding day truly is the only day EVER that is entirely about you.

Set your Wedding Budget

This is challenging, can be awkward and yes, it needs to be done. To give you an idea, our client’s average budget range between $100-200k so if you are drooling over our portfolio page (which we do on the regular!), that should give you a bit of an idea. HOWEVER, like we just mentioned, budgets vary greatly depending on your guest count! If you have a smaller budget but don’t want to sacrifice all of the details you love, inviting less people will make a big difference.

While you are thinking about your wedding budget and what you and your partner can realistically afford, sit down with your family and see if they’re planning on helping – most of our clients are lucky to have very giving family members!

Make yourself an email address for your wedding!

You will get significantly more emails than you expect – and you will inevitably end up on about a thousand vendor lists. With a “wedding-specific email”, all of your wedding details remain easy to find and you can both log in on your phones.

Bonus: you don’t have to ever look at it again after the wedding if you don’t want to EXCEPT to keep in touch with us, of course!

Hire a Wedding Planner and Start Looking for a Wedding Venue

As I venue scout for our 2022 and 2023 couples, it’s becoming more and more apparent that no matter when you are planning to get married, you should start looking for a venue ASAP because they are booked up! Although I firmly believe you should hire a wedding planner before making any major decisions (and choosing a wedding venue is arguably one of the largest!), you should consider the type of venue you might want. We have ballrooms, barns, historical mansions, and so much more right here in Connecticut and the New England area. I also absolutely love planning an outdoor tented wedding which can typically be set up at a venue, or private estate/home. The options are truly endless and the hard part is deciding what YOU want. Don’t worry, we help with that.

Planning a Wedding in 2022 & 2023

Listen, if this at ALL overwhelming to you, let us just remind you that we are standing by, and are excited to make this time a time worth CELEBRATING. Winter brings a completely different schedule to our lives as wedding planners. We aren’t producing epic events every weekend and we spend a lot of our time answering calls, emails, and doing everything required to make our couples vision a reality. It’s a WONDERFUL time to start planning (and to be honest – the earlier the better!).