Today on the blog, Colorado wedding planner Tied with a Bow Weddings outlines the 10 first steps after engagement! You’ve said “yes” to your guy, showed off that engagement ring to friends and family and are enjoying time with the man who you get to call fiancé. Now it’s time to start planning your Colorado wedding. What are the first steps to take? Read below for the practical first 10 steps to take after engagement.

One of the first steps after engagement is insuring your ring. You’ve probably have a hard time taking your eyes off that sparkly ring on your finger and while it’s on your mind often with its beauty, doing anything else with it probably hasn’t crossed your mind. That’s where this first step comes in. Size your ring if it doesn’t fit perfectly. You don’t want there to be any chance it falls off! Next, get it insured. In order to rest easy with this piece of jewelry you will wear every day it is essential make sure you are prepared for your future.

Often you can add the ring to other insurance plans you already have? Make sure you check out this option first.

The next step before doing anything else is picking your wedding date. It’s always a good idea to have a few in mind so that you can be more flexible when finding a venue.

At this point in the process, if you’re going to hire a wedding planner, this would be the time to find one so that the next steps can be made easier by their expertise and assistance. In particular, when finding a venue and working with vendors, they have all the experience to make this process as easy as possible.

When people find out you are engaged, this will probably be the first question asked . A great plan is to have a vague answer, so that you don’t have to explain that you haven’t decided yet. For example, give the season and year, “spring 2019”. People often don’t need specifics immediately, but having an answer satisfies their desire to be included while avoiding any awkwardness. Double win!

Finding a venue quickly is important as they can be booked months if not years in advance. This is especially true when planning a Colorado wedding as it is a destination wedding location. This is why you want your venue to be one of the first steps after engagement. Ask good questions to know exactly what is included in your package when deciding on a venue, so that you won’t have to deal with the stress of finding out later that something isn’t taken care of that you thought was. In addition, make sure you get things in writing so that there’s no room for misunderstanding.

This step will go hand-in-hand with picking your venue. You need to know how big of a wedding you want to know which venues to look at. Also, you need to know a venue’s capacity to help you narrow down your guest list.

This step can be difficult for many brides and grooms and can feel daunting. To make this easier, talk with parents first and ask them to send their desired list in order of priority. Then you and your groom do the same. Once you have names together, and in order of priority, you can cut numbers so you won’t be stressing later. It’s much easier to take more names out than add more in.

To avoid money-stress, discussing budget is important early in the engagement so you know what you can afford. Talking about finances is never fun, but it’s essential for good communication and a smoother planning process. This step ties in with your wedding size decision as your budget will affect how many guests you can have. Our suggestion is to work on steps 3-5 at the same time.

Designing a wedding website is super helpful in making information easily accessible for your wedding guests. Whether you want to design one yourself, have someone help you design one, or use one of the planning site options (i.e. the knot.com), having everything in one place will be exceedingly helpful. In addition, this is a great place to write down your proposal story and upload photos. Having those available on your site helps guests feel more in touch with your life and saves you time.

Now that you know when and where you’re getting married, it’s time to invite those best friends to stand alongside you on that special day. Whether many or few, it’s helpful to ask them early on in the process so that you can guarantee they are available and give them time to acquire the dress/suit they need. Plus, it’s super fun to have your #bridetribe helping you in the planning process!

The next big task to tackle is finding Colorado wedding vendors to help you on your big day. If you are getting married during a popular time of year, photographers, caterers, florists, etc. get booked quickly. So work on finding those perfect fits for your style and budget and finalize contracts so you don’t have to give things a second thought. Selecting your dream team is one of the best first steps after engagement!

Now this one may seem less essential, but it is actually super helpful for your guests. As soon as you’ve picked a time and location, you are ready to send out save-the-dates and with that comes the beginning of gifts being sent. By getting your registry completed early, you give people loads of time to find you the perfect gift and they’ll be able to do it as soon as they think of it. It’s a good idea to 1 or 2 larger department stores and then 1 local store to register at so that your guests near or far have great options.

Here comes the part probably all brides look forward to most. What do you want your dream day to look like? Which colors, place-settings, order-of-events do you want? Now’s the time to create that Pinterest board (if you haven’t already had everything planned since you were 12), start following wedding inspiration accounts on Instagram, and checking out great blogs. This part technically could be done at any time, whether right away, or waiting until you finish step 1-9, but it definitely helps to make sure you don’t neglect the first steps in the desire to jump into the super fun parts of planning.