Between Thursday and today (Saturday), my fiancé and i have chosen and paid for our photographer and wedding bands. When I say I am excited, that is an understatement. I have so much advice I want to give and I will jump into that later but I wanted to start with talking about the advice and precautions people warn you about when getting engaged vs. the reality when you are actually in the thick of planning.
I truly think that most of the planning for us has been super easy. It really helps that Brandon is involved and voices his opinion so I am not left making any decision on my own. I do believe because we had a big gap between when we got engaged and started wedding planning, that helped as well. Most people will want to just jump right into things without enjoying the moment – I do not recommend this. My biggest piece of advice would be to enjoy the moment, soak it in, and enjoy all the happiness that comes with getting engaged. This only happens once and really is / will be one of the best times in your life, as it is one of the only times you will truly be surprised by something.
A couple weeks ago, we went through our venues preferred vendor list and realized that we did not love the photographers that were listed. So, I went to their instagram and found that many other people had found the same thing as there were an array of different photographers that had tagged our venue in their pictures. We are going for more of a bright / natural feel for our pictures. I found four photographers that pictures matched our criteria and messaged them on instagram during this past week. All responded quickly with their pricing, but our gal that we chose had requested a FaceTime first to make sure that our personalities aligned to make our big day go as smooth as possible. This stood out to me. While I understand customer service is part of her job, she definitely did not need to set up a FaceTimes, instead she could have just collected the money and said see you on the wedding day. Brandon and I spent about an hour on FaceTime with her on Thursday night as she went over all of her offerings and packages. After the call I knew that she was the one that we would choose to photograph our wedding day. If you take anything away from this post at all, please please please make sure that you get along with your photographer before you make your decision!! The last thing you want amidst all the stress on the big day is a sh** photographer that has no personality. Moving onto Friday, we asked her to send the proposal and signed it as well as paying the down payment. She did offer to give us 5% off if we paid up front and we did choose to do that because that 5% saved us quite a bit of money that we could allocate to other areas of our wedding budget. We are SO SO excited and I will keep you updated on our engagement picture session which was included in our wedding package. 🙂
Saturday (today) we went to look at tuxedos for Brandon, as we are doing black tie. We found the one we liked right away and that is so classic of us. When we know we want something, we will not deviate from it and are quick to make up our minds. That is one of my favorite things about our relationship. Neither of us have time to go back and fourth on different ideas – it is best just to make up your mind and move forward to the next step of the process in the planning. Anyway – we are going to do some more researching online as it gets closer to summer and get all of his measurements done then. Once we have that solidified, then we will get the groomsmen all lined out with what they are wearing. WOO!
One of the best parts of this week was going wedding band shopping! Since moving to Salt Lake, we did not know of a good place to go so we just went with Jared. I am thankful that we did, as all wedding bands were 30% off today! Obviously guys wedding bands are no where close to women’s, but every bit counts. First, Brandon picked out his ring. It is dark and compliments him very well. I am so excited to call him my husband y’all, so finally getting his wedding band made me the happiest girl in the world. So thankful for him. Then, the diamond gal asked if we wanted to look at wedding bands for me and of course I said yes. So, we went over and picked out mine and I chose something that is completely different from the idea that I had in my head. I am not going to post a picture because I want it to be a surprise for y’all when we actually get married, but I am in love with it. Again, I made up my mind the second I saw it.
As mentioned in a paragraph above, my biggest piece of advice so far is just to make up your mind on something (quickly if you can, almost like love at first site) and move on from it. Truthfully, no one has time to sit there and go back and fourth. Wedding planning can already be stressful as it is, no need to add more stress by going back and fourth for days or weeks on something simple. Just make up your mind and move on.
Let me know below if you have any suggestions for me as I move forward on this wedding planning journey. 🙂
Xoxo,
Jeslee
JesVentures ☀️ 
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