Our very own bride-to-be Laura will be writing a blog for us, detailing her journey to the aisle…or beach…or somewhere else entirely – she hasn’t even picked the venue yet!  She has been chosen from hundreds of potential brides who have written into us, asking for advice on their big day after not knowing where to begin.  We think it’s going to be great fun hearing how she progresses, especially as she is a self-confessed tomboy, and is giving herself less than a year to plan her dream day – eek!

We hope you’ll join us in following Laura’s progress as she decides on colour schemes, flower arrangements, and all of the other details involved in planning a wedding.

We know that many of you will be planning your own wedding at the same time, so you might be able to get some ideas – or even share some with Laura.

This is the month in which you will set the date for that all important big day. You carefully need to consider the weather, the cost and who is going to be available to attend, before you finally agree to a certain date.

Then, you need to start looking for venues. It’s important to book your venue early as this means you have more chance of it being available on your chosen date. The next thing to do is to start deciding on your guest list. Once you know your venue, you will have a rough idea of how many people you will have room for and a guest list will help you to make decisions about photographers, caterers and other suppliers – as they will need a guide as to how many they will be providing for.

Before you enter the second month of preparation, you should decide upon the budget for your wedding. You need to know how much to spend before you start splashing the cash on wedding stationery and flowers.

Everything you organise for your big day will be determined by the theme or style of your wedding. And this is particularly the case for your wedding stationery; your wedding invites are the first indicators of the style of your wedding day that your guests will see. From the wedding invites they will be able to determine whether it’s a formal event, something more casual or even just a small affair.

The wedding invites should give your guests a really good clue as to the sort of wedding that you’re having, so it’s important that you get it right. Take a look through the different designs available and make sure that you are completely happy with your choice before you plan the rest of the day.

The first thing to do is to start the preparations early. As soon as you know the date of your wedding, start contacting suppliers so that you have more of a chance of getting the suppliers that you want.

You could get a wall chart to help you plan out your organisation. Use this to note down appointments and deadlines.

You should also get all of your ideas down on paper. Make sure that you know exactly what you want, so that you can explain it all to suppliers. This will make your decisions and the briefs you give out a lot easier.
Always be on the look out for ideas too; visit wedding events and look through magazines to find endless possibilities that you didn’t even think of.

Once you have done all of this and also delegated some jobs to friends and family, you will find that the planning process is a lot easier than you imagined.

However, wedding themes don’t have to be obvious. And while some couples might choose to hold a Shrek or Star Wars themed wedding, you could choose a theme that is much more subtle.

Some themes centre around colours and couples adopting this style might ask their guests to come dressed in their chosen colour scheme. Some themes will be more obvious though and might centre around certain items such as a flower theme, or a stars and planet theme.

No matter which sort of theme you choose, you can base your wedding table names on these themes. It can be difficult to think of wedding table names, so the theme can really help you to focus.

For example, if you have the flower theme, you could choose a different flower name for each table. Or if you have a film theme, a different film name could create the wedding table names.

It’s fun and easy to think of different themes and it can really help you to focus and bring your whole day together.

Before you start buying anything, look through magazines, look on the internet and start to get a feel of the type of wedding day that you would like; whether this is formal, fun, small or large.

Once you have a very strong idea of the day that you would like, you can start making decisions. Start off by choosing your venue and make sure that it fits in with the style of wedding that you want. For example, a beach location is probably not the best idea for a really formal wedding day, but it might be a good idea if you want something more relaxed and fun.

Once you know where you are getting married, everything else should fall into place. You can start to choose your wedding invites to send out to all of your potential guests.

Then everything should fall into place and you can get everything to match the style of the wedding that you have chosen.

But another aspect of the wedding that is very important is the wedding cake. A lot of couples seem to forget to consider the wedding cake when they are planning their wedding. But for most weddings, it will be the centre piece of the wedding and of course, everyone will be waiting for that all important moment when you cut the cake.

So start looking for your wedding cake early on. In fact, when you start to look for your wedding invites, you should always keep your wedding cake in mind. Your cake will need to match the tone of the wedding stationery and the whole feel of the day, so it’s important to choose the style of cake early on, while you are choosing wedding stationery and fine tuning the tone and the style of your big day.

One of the toughest things to organise is the reception after the ceremony. You want your guests to be entertained but it can be tricky to think of the right way in which to keep people of various ages entertained.

A great way to do this is to ask your guests if they can send their wedding RSVP cards back with one song choice written down on them. When you send your wedding invites out, you could include a note asking them to list their favourite song to dance to when they send back their RSVP.

That way, you will end up with a huge list of songs that you could pass on to your DJ to play. This is a fantastic way to ensure that the music suits the guests and of course, a sure fire way to ensure that everyone gets up and dance – for the best wedding reception you could imagine.

But one of his main duties is to organise that all important stag night. It’s probably the job that he will take most seriously as the pressure is really on to give you the best send off into married life.

Stag nights used to always be about drinking, going out and going a bit wild, with perhaps the odd embarrassing story to tell afterwards. But the stag night really has evolved over the years and it’s not always about going out and drinking; in fact there are a number of options to choose from when it comes to stag parties.

The first thing to do is to establish the reason why you are throwing the stag party; is it just to have fun, is it to catch up with old friends, or to do something you’ve never tried before.

Once you’ve established what the groom wants to get out of the stag party, you can start making plans and organising that all important party.

It can be upsetting to receive your wedding RSVP cards back only to find that some of your close friends and family cannot attend the big day; but you can still include them in your wedding.

Some guests might not be able to attend because they live in a different country and can therefore not get to the event and others might have work or family commitments. But for those close friends and family members who are unable to attend, you could organise some video messages. Each message could be played at the reception and this is a great way to include these guests in the wedding. By leaving you a meaningful message, the people unable to attend will feel much more of a part of the day and they will feel that they are giving you a more personal message than a simple card through the post.