Good morning, my beautiful bride’s to be! How’s the planning coming along? I hope you answered that with a good or great, but if you answered it with a little over whelmed, stressed, confused… That is totally okay, too! I know there are plenty of bride’s right there with you, and it is okay. There are going to be some days where you are stressed, some days you are over the moon excited, and some days that make you just want to elope. Planning your wedding, your dream wedding, isn’t easy, but you’re going to have the best wedding and your going to have your best friend there with you every step of the way!

Last week I talked all about budgets, and if you missed that post you can go here. Your budget is the key to your entire wedding, but once you have an idea of how much you have to work with, you can then figure out your venue!

As I was explaining in last week’s post, after you figure out your budget, you have to figure out what aspects of the wedding are the most important to you! For example, mine are photography (I bet you all knew that already) and venue! Delegate how much money you are going to put into your venue, and only look at venues in the price range. Figure out where you want your venue (beach, mountains, vineyard, museum, park, city, etc.), this will definitely lower or raise prices of venues. You also probably have an idea of what type of style you want your venue to have (just check that Pinterest board you have been making for years now), and that will definitely help you figure out where to have your wedding.

I overthink everything and it bights me in the butt, especially now when I am trying to plan my dream wedding, but in reality you know exactly what you want, so search, find, contact, visit, and book that perfect venue!

If you skipped the scary long paragraphs, and are looking for the bullet points that sum it all up… Here ya go!

• Delegate how much money you are putting towards your venue.
• Figure out where you want your wedding. (Beach, mountains, vineyard, park, museum, etc.) Keep in mind this will make your venue more or less expensive.
• Contact your venues, ask them questions. What do they provide? What don’t they provide? These are very important. For example, if the venue doesn’t come with chairs and tables, that will be an additional price for you. Things to think about!
• Visit the venue before you send in the check. Pictures are SO much different than what the actual venue looks like.
• If you know of any brides that had their wedding at the same venue you are looking at, ask them for their opinion! They are a first hand source!
• What style are you looking for for your wedding? Rustic, elegant, whimsical? These are small things to think about when it comes to a venue.
• Have no idea where to look for a venue? Look here: http://www.weddingwire.com/ ! This website is a really good starting point. I personally didn’t use it; I used other wedding photographers. I stalked their blog posts to see where they had photographed weddings, but that’s just me!

This post could go on and on and take so many different directions, and it wasn’t the easiest post to write, but I hope it helped a little bit! In the end, go with what feels right because it’s going to be perfect no matter what!

Next week we are going to talk about picking a DATE! See you next week!!

xoxo