Ever wondered what to do after you’re engaged? If you’re reading this post, most likely you either have a ring on your finger and you can hardly breathe, or it’s just around the corner and it’s like the Christmas morning you’ve waited for your whole life!! You might already be feeling overwhelmed by all the wedding planning that just all the sudden got put on your to-do list! But the good news is that you don’t have to do everything all at once!! Set everything aside for now except these five simple tasks.

What to do after you get engaged:

1. Celebrate

Take a deep breath and let it out. YOU’RE ENGAGED!!! Before you even start trying to plan your wedding, let that seep in, embrace it, hug it, LOOOVE it!! If you haven’t already, grab your fiance, turn on your favorite song, and go dance around the kitchen. Because you only get to be engaged once!! There will be plenty of time later on for you to figure out all the little details as you build your life together, but for now, just let it all go! Find one of your favorite places and go there or go to your favorite dessert store (some place like Coldstone or Crumbl) and just spend some time together celebrating.

2. Tell your friends and family

After you’ve taken some special time to celebrate just the two of you, it’s now time to tell all your family and friends!!! A fantastic way to do this is to plan an engagement announcement party where you can show everyone your new sparkly ring and tell them all about how he proposed! It’s really important though that the people who are most special to you find out from YOU!! Not social media or somewhere through the grape vine. If planning a party doesn’t fit your schedules, consider visiting the people that are special to you, giving them a facetime call, or just a classic phone call to share your excitement with them about your engagement and how he proposed! Everyone always wants to know that story!! After you’ve told all the people who are most special to you, it’s time to perfect your ring selfie and post away to social media!!

3. Choose your wedding date

Now that everyone has had an opportunity to celebrate with you, it’s time to start hashing out some of the basic details. The first and most important thing is WHEN are you going to get married?! You need a date! There are a few things though that you might want to take into consideration when you’re choosing your wedding date. Because remember, this day is one your going to celebrate Every. Single. Year!! For the next 20, 35, 60 years!! So first, think about holidays. Do you want to celebrate your anniversary when everyone is running around in witch costumes and gory zombie makeup? Maybe you do, maybe you don’t! Or do you want the excitement of your wedding to be mixed up with Christmas shopping and Christmas family parties? So think about the different holidays around your anniversary!

Also, most likely one day, you’ll have kids! And they have school schedules that might make it hard for you two to run off on a cruise or to a beach resort. Taking a look at a traditional academic calendar might not be a bad idea as you choose your wedding date!

4. Choose your guests

Once you’ve narrowed down your wedding date, it’s time to narrow down who your wedding guests are going to be. You might be thinking this is something you should do later, but let me tell you why it might be better to figure it out now. And that is your venue. Not every venue can fit a lot of people whether your venue is a temple, greenhouse, or winery. There are most likely going to be some limitations in terms of how many people can come to your actual wedding ceremony. This will also become an important part of figuring out your wedding budget. Typically the people that come to your ceremony are fed either at the brunch, luncheon, or cocktail hour. So do your best to get a head count of how many people you need to plan on seating for your ceremony. It might even be helpful to break it down to the people who MUST be there and the people who you’d really like to be there, and the people who can come if there’s room and a budget for it.

5. Book your venue and photographer

After you have your wedding date and guest count, it’s time to find your wedding venue and book your wedding photographer! Outdoor weddings are definitely my favorite because of how gorgeous natural light is but depending on the time of year you are getting married in, an outdoor wedding may not work so well. There are some venues that have the option of having an outdoor or an indoor ceremony just in case the weather gets bad on your wedding date. The Thomas S. Monson Center in downtown Salt Lake City is a perfect example of this type of wedding! And just a little tip for brides on a budget, choosing to get married on a weekday will lower the price for most venues!

Once you have your venue secured, it’s time to book your wedding photographer!! There are so many things I wish I would have known about choosing my wedding photographer!

This such an important part of the process because years after the wedding is over, you might still have your dress and shoes, but most everything else goes away and even memories start to fade… the single thing that can preserve all of those things is a photograph. A single photograph can remind you of how in love you were, how you couldn’t stop smiling, all the little details that you poured your heart and soul into to make the day memorable, and all the people that came because of how much they love you. You are trusting your photographer with the most important part of the process and so there are so many things you should consider when choosing your photographer!

Next up….. why you need an engagement session!!!