Thoughts from a Bride to Be Shivani- In the Beginning
“It happens like this…
… He gets down on one knee you freak out, and get really excited and happier than you’ve ever been in your life! Of course you say “YES!” And then it hits you… Holy Crap we have to plan a wedding.
What have I learned so far? Planning a wedding is an extremely daunting task. Join me throughout my bridal diaries for my tips and tricks, what I’ve learned along the way and maybe some emotions too.
Before anything though, let me just take a moment to tell you about my amazing fiancé. I’m marrying Dr. Karma Patel, a chiropractor from Richmond Hill. We first met years ago in university but we didn’t speak much. 5 years after we graduated, I’m not sure why but Karma messaged me on Facebook and we started to actually talk. Soon we were talking over Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and so I told him we should probably hang out. I had never really just dated someone before but something was telling me to get out of my comfort zone and go for it. I’m so glad I did. After 3 dates I went to India for 6 weeks, and Karma was on my mind the whole time. We facetimed every single day and I fell in love with him. He’s the most kind, genuine, thoughtful, smart and hard-working person I’ve ever met. He’s the best decision I’ve ever made. And here we are… planning our wedding just 2 years later!
Karma and I are both pretty much control freaks and we like to be very strategic and organized. Naturally, we wanted to start planning really early and right away – he proposed in January and by February we started bouncing ideas off of each other about venues, decor, entertainment, food etc. It’s really important to start planning early in Toronto because vendors get booked up FAST!
It’s really important to discuss timelines with your fiancé. For example, Karma’s family usually does their wedding and reception on one day and my family does the same over two days. We discussed with each other and briefly with our parents and decided on two days so things wouldn’t be rushed. After speaking to the pundits and getting some dates; it was…
Time to get planning!
Next we thought we should get the big things out of the way first: venues. Your venues really determine so much of the rest of the process so we went to see venues on our own first – after getting some recommendations. We took people to see them AFTER we decided on our final venues. This way, we didn’t have other people in our ears, we really decided based on what WE wanted, and of course on the best deal ;). It’s so important to really sit down and figure out what the two of you want first, without talking to too many people and getting confused by too many ideas/opinions. Communication between the two of you is KEY to make sure you’re both clear on what you want for your day. We all know it can be easy to get caught up in big Indian weddings, with everyone having something to say and wanting to be involved. That’s all fine! But don’t forget that it’s YOUR day too and you and your finance should first and foremost be content with everything you choose.
We did a lot of research; we looked at the experiences we’d had at previous weddings and their venues, spoke to friends/ family who got married and got a lot of recommendations. It’s so overwhelming looking at venues so we made a chart of our top 5 places (5 for the ceremony and 5 for reception) based on location, size, and price. After calling a couple places it was easy to rule some out – we only ended up seeing 4 places total before we decided on Paradise Banquet hall for our ceremony and Chateau Le Jardin for our reception.
We LOVE our venues and we’re so happy with them because we really chose them based on what WE wanted without the confusion of trying to please others. Luckily, everyone ended up loving our venues too so we’re in the clear!
Honestly, once your venues were chosen it became pretty clear what needed to happen next because everything starts to flow. It isn’t always so easy though, stay tuned for my next post… Dealing with Parents when Planning!”
Author: Shivani Persad
Tips from this post:
- Start early, that way you have a lot of time if things need to be changed and you can secure your vendors ASAP!
- Communicate about everything with your fiancé. The timeline, the vibe- everything, so you can get a clear picture of what the two of you want before going and seeing vendors or talking to others.
- Go see venues with JUST your fiancé first, so you can figure out if a venue has what the TWO OF YOU want, without outside opinions confusing you.
- Get the big stuff out of the way, venues first.. then everything else will get going!
- Do your research! Make sure to talk to friends and family who have already planned weddings to see how they did it, who they saw and what they spent – it’ll give you a good guide throughout your own planning!
