WEDDING PLANNING CHECKLIST

Ultimately everyone starts planning their weddings at different times, maybe a year before and maybe a few months before the wedding date. This checklist is to be used as a guideline to create your own checklist that applies to you. The main things to remember for your event in Hawaii are that your flower order and most final payments are due one month before your wedding date. Final meal counts are typically due to your catering/banquet staff between 2 weeks and 3 days before your date, but you will need to check your contracts for specifics.

9-12 Months Before:

*Think about the type of wedding you want. Do you want a formal or informal affair? Extravagant or intimate? Indoors or outdoors? Also think about the time of year you want it to take place.

*Create a budget. Think about how much money you have now, what you will save in the next few months and any financial assistance you are receiving. What do you want to spend, what is your vision, and what will it cost to have your vision? Are you going to compromise on your vision or your budget? *Decide on the size of your wedding and develop a guest list: The rule of thumb is that about 20% of invited guests will not attend a traditional wedding, but this number goes up slightly for a destination wedding. Have an A list and a B list. The A list people who cannot attend will free up space for you to invite your B list guests.

* Collect guest’s email and mailing addresses. You need to know how many guests you are going to invite so you know what venues you can consider. For example, if you are inviting 100 people and the venue can only accommodate 50, that is not a venue you should consider.

*Select the members of your wedding party

*Choose a destination: Unsure? Talk to a travel agent or hit the Internet.

*Gather information about marriage requirements for your destination

*Hire your wedding coordinator

*Research Venues: Request proposals and photos from resorts and/or venues that interest you

*Research Vendors: Begin researching wedding vendors including photographers, videographers, florist, reception bands & DJ’s

• Get organized: Start a binder to file all your paperwork, ideas and inspiration in one place. For example, contracts, magazine pages o