Newly engaged, any helpful tips very welcomed

Hi All, I am newly engaged and completely new to all this. After the initial shock and celebrations have sort of died down I am now wondering where in the world I even begin to start planning, the whole thing kinda overwhelms me as I am very laid back. My partner is from Argentina but we have at least narrowed the location down to Ireland as my family is rather large (probably about 100-150 guest there without even including friends/neighbours) and his is very small (probably about 11 in total) so it would be a nightmare to try and organise a wedding abroad. I am basically looking for any advice anyone can give me on where to begin! I presume the venue being the main thing. Do you need to arrange viewing and appointments to discuss with hotels etc or can you just pop in and they will show you around? I am thinking maybe August/ September 2016, is there much of a price difference between the seasons? If we like a place what is the next step do we pay a deposit and then pay the rest after the wedding? Will the venues give you an estimate of the total cost or will there be lots of hidden extras that pop up along the way? As I said any advice is very welcome. Thanks in advance for your help. Christina

Congratulations on your engagement. The church (if having a church ceremony) and venue would be the 1st things to be booked. You would need to make appointments to meet with the wedding co-ordinators and they will show you around and give you information on the different packages they have. You will get a fair idea from this what the total cost will be for the venue. Generally they will provisionally hold it for a week and then you would need to pay the deposit to confirm. Our venue required €1000 deposit to book, another €2000 to be paid 2mths before the wedding and then the balance the morning after. After that the band, photographer, videographer, ceremony singer, flowers would need to be booked. You'd be surprised at how far in advance things get booked out so if you have any particular ones you want it would be best to book them as soon as you can. Enjoy all the planning and organising, it really is a fun and exciting time If you need any other help just ask. This is a great forum for getting help and ideas.

Hiya, first of all congrats on getting engaged! its a very exciting time and make sure you take time to enjoy all the fuss!! If your planning on getting married next year, you need to start looking at venues now as alot of them get booked up to 2 years in advance for a friday or sat wedding (unless you are happy to go with a mon/tues/wed wedding). Also, are you having a church ceremony or are you planning on doing it all in the hotel benue? You need to decide that as your church may not be free on the same date your hotel is and vice versa. Some hotels prefer you make appointments, that way they can have the room set up or the room(s) may be in use if you just drop in for a look. But if you call them beforehand, they will advise you on how they like to do things, and they will also tell you what they have available. Alot of hotels now do wedding showcase events where they set up a table in the room as to how they would do it for weddings and invite in a selection of service providers that they work with. So this will give you an idea of costs of the different elements for your big day. There is a difference in prices between seasons and days of the week (some hotels offer deals for midweek winter weddings) but you would need to speak directly to the venues to see what their packages are and where you can save money(or cut out costs of things you dont want in the package). All the costs should be in the package, and I'd wait to have a contract drawn up and go through it in your own time before signing it and handing over a deposit. This is the largest cost to you and you want it to be perfect. Make sure you read the small print of the contract and also inquire about what they will do if they cancel your function for whatever reason!!! (so many brides here have gotten caught by their hotels closing down for whatever reason and panicking on having to find a new venue at short notice) Hope all this helps, sure you can PM me if you want more info

We just popped into the venues for a drink without appointments. Most were happy to show us around - they weren't set up for weddings but it gave us a picture of what the place and staff were like before they knew we were looking at it for a wedding if you know what I mean. We then made appointments with the ones we wanted to see properly We booked ours for Aug 2016 and strugged to find a place with a Fri/Sat available. One place only had midweek or Halloween BH Sunday available.

[quote="xtinacawley":2gbcqxgf] I am basically looking for any advice anyone can give me on where to begin! I presume the venue being the main thing. Do you need to arrange viewing and appointments to discuss with hotels etc or can you just pop in and they will show you around? I am thinking maybe August/ September 2016, is there much of a price difference between the seasons? If we like a place what is the next step do we pay a deposit and then pay the rest after the wedding? Will the venues give you an estimate of the total cost or will there be lots of hidden extras that pop up along the way? Christina [/quote:2gbcqxgf] First off, congrats on getting engaged, an exciting time which will fly in so enjoy every minute! Once you have decided what type of wedding you want, if you want Aug/September next year then you need to get moving, August in particulars a really popular time of year & some vendors are booked up to 2 years in advance. Definitely make appointments with venues to get shown around & a feel for the place & the staff. To be honest i was stuck on a tight budget & between two venues, the staff swayed me in the end because they made me feel like they wanted to host our reception so by making an appointment & talking to the people in charge is very important! They held the date for 2 weeks for us but i couldnt get to them til the third week & they were fine with that, deposit was 1500 with rest to be paid morning after the wedding. the hotels brochures will include all the packages, whats included, the added extras you can have so if you have a rough idea of numbers you can roughly estimate the cost. Happy planning!

Congratulations, its such an exciting time for you both. My first tip would be to enjoy being engaged because it is a big step and a big change in your relationship. I am thoroughly enjoying my time planning our wedding but it does fly by very quick so really enjoy it. i would firstly book your church if that's the type of wedding you wish, you also must book the priest separate to the church.It may not be the case in your county but was in mine so just be prepared from that side of it. Next up would be the hotel venue again if you are having in a hotel. I would visit as many as you can and see there set up on a normal day, I wouldn't make an appt as I think things could be very staged and you get to really see how the hotel works on a daily basis. Seasons do change prices and if you are thinking Aug/ Sept this is high season and you will pay more than a winter wedding. Also enquire if you have an arrival and evening buffet included, most hotels do offer some sort of arrival package. Next one would be band, photographer, videographer, flowers and church music. Enjoy all the planning

Congratulations on your engagement, it's really a lovely time so make sure you enjoy it. My advice would be to first sit down and do a rough guest list so you know what sort of numbers you are looking at. Hotels often have a minimum number, while others may not be able to cater for the size of wedding you want. When you have that done, research venues that will meet your requirements. Email them to ask what their availability is and to request a brochure, this should give you a rough estimate of what you might be expected to pay per head. You will need to make appointments because the wedding co-ordinator will sit down with you and go through packages. This was actually the time we did most of our negotiating and managed to get a good few things thrown in free of charge. Our hotel held our date for over 2 weeks while we made our final decision and then asked for a €2000 deposit. I got engaged on Christmas Day (getting married in November) and we are ticking things off the list slowly. We have adopted the approach of doing as much as we can early so there is less stress later on. I would advise getting band, photographer, videographer and florist all booked early. After that the major decisions are the dress and invites - but you have loads of time to worry about them. Just remember to enjoy this time. It's wonderful going around venues, picturing your wedding.

Thanks everyone, still new to the site so had kinda forgotten about it but i'm guessing I will be on it alot more as time goes on!! Well we dropped into a few venues to try an dget that out of the way and we ended up booking Castle Dargan in Sligo, the place was lovely and Kim the wedding co-ordinator was a pleasure to deal with. I am so excited to start planning the rest. Thanks for all the help everyone x

Congratulations on your engagement! It is unbelievably exciting! I have two pieces of advice. 1. Although you may have friends/family/know someone in town who has a skill you would like to use for the wedding, assess everyone as a business, not a friend. You want to make sure you are happy with the quality of their work. We made the mistake of paying a E300 deposit on a photographer thinking "Aw sure it would be nice to give her the business" and when we looked at her more closely her photos were nowhere near what we wanted. So we lost that deposit. 2. People are going to offer to help, which is great! People who offer to help who end up doing nothing - not so great! I wish I had sat down with a couple of people who offered to help and talked about what exactly is involved and timelines for when we want things done before taking them up on it. Other then that, this site is great for gathering info, finding suppliers etc. You could ask your hotel if they have special relationships with any suppliers who may offer a deal too. Best of luck! Thankfully I have enjoyed about 92% of the planning, I hope you have the same success rate! =]