Your Wedding Plan: Foundation Elements

Last but definitely not least: The wedding website, the hotel block and your wedding party

Finally, we come to the last of five items your wedding plan should include before you even start to think about decorations. Unlike the others on this list, these items won’t have a direct impact on the types of decorations you will choose.  However, they are integral aspects of your wedding plan, need to be done early in the process and are not affected by the overall look of the wedding.  That’s why it felt okay to lump them all in together as one item.

1. Your wedding website 
   Your wedding website does not need to be in your colors or reflect your theme.  It doesn’t need to be more than a one page website that you host or even a free site offered by most large wedding websites. All it needs to do is share the important information with your guests. Before you send out save-the-dates, you should build up the website as much as you can.  If you can’t fully build out all of the pages, at least make sure to include the most important info: is the date and location of the wedding and…
2. The hotel block.
   If you have any expectations for people to attend your wedding from out of town – friends, family or both – they will need to have the option of somewhere to stay. Even for hipsters in glorious Portland, not every guest would want to pitch a tent in your backyard to be there for your special day! In order to get a block at a good price at a nice but not terribly expensive hotel, you will need to look early and ask a lot of questions.  It is considerate for people traveling to allow them to make their accommodations early.
   • Make sure your wedding date isn’t at the same time as a major event in your city or on a major holiday. The hotel rates for those days skyrockets.
   • Try to reserve room blocks at hotels with different price points. Not the difference between the Motel 6 and the Ritz-Carlton, but be considerate of the cost to those who are coming to see your special day. Rooms at extremely reasonable rates and some slightly nicer ones would be more than adequate.
   • You might consider asking the hotel to throw in some freebies for your guests, like free wi-fi, free breakfast or even to hand out gift bags (that you provide) to guests as they check in. They may even be able to provide a complimentary shuttle service to and from the wedding venue if you ask.
   • Remember that the hotel will probably need a deposit (usually about 10% of the rate) to block off the rooms.
   • Consider, for those  young enough to be adventurous, trying to contact a few hosts on Airbnb ahead of time to find out if they could reserve a date (and agree on a release date for them to be able to book their room if it’s not needed by your guests)
   • See what hotel rates Hotel Planner can get for your wedding by clicking here.
3. Picking your wedding party should be done as early as possible before your date.  Any earlier and you risk friendships growing or changing, but you want to give people plenty of time to prepare.  This decision is deeply personal and can cause issues and insecurities to arise between you and your fiancé, so leave plenty of time to mull over your choices before pulling the trigger and asking someone, which is an (almost, barring extreme circumstances) irreversible act.

Once your wedding plan has all of these covered, you should be able to envision how your wedding is going to look as well the time and budget you have left for decorating and personalizing your big day.

The post Your Wedding Plan: Foundation Elements appeared first on Wedding for 1000.