Only Fools Rush In

You’re engaged! Amazing! What next? Enjoy the engagement.

My husband, Ronan, and I were engaged on a hot and sunny day in April on a punt in Oxford. Romantic and picturesque, but the proposal was not without its hilarious calamity that is probably funnier now than it was at the time. Ronan and I are not the type of people to sit around for very long, especially after something as big as getting engaged, and we certainly knew that we both wanted to do everything for the wedding ourselves. I mean EVERYTHING. From the planning, to DIY-ing our own decoration, the logistics, and everything in between. We wanted to crack on with the plans straight away! However, I cannot stress how important it is to just enjoy the engagement period before diving into the plans because, trust me, as much fun as it is, once you get going you will wish you could go back and just enjoy the engagement period.

Ronan and I had been together for five months before we were engaged (that's right, five months!) and, for someone who can be a little indecisive, it most definitely was the quickest and best decision I have ever made. As cliché as it sounds, you really do know, when you know! I hope this detracts the social stigma in this day and age around being engaged to someone so soon after dating. Every relationship is completely different, and you have to do what feels right for the both of you, not what feels right in accordance with social norms. However, for the two of us, this meant that we wanted to enjoy the engagement period even more before rushing into planning, but without having an incredibly long engagement. It’s actually possible! Ronan and I both think on more or less the same level, which is one trait that connected us very early on and ever so strongly. We quickly realised that we had to remain practical AND enjoy the engagement as much as we could, which didn’t pose too many difficulties because of our like-minded brain.

We managed to save for and plan our entire wedding within eighteen months, and that was within twenty-three months of knowing one another! You don’t have to know exactly what you want before the engagement; things can change. So, it really is possible to plan the dream wedding within a shorter time frame if you have an idea of where to start, have the budget for it, and organise it as early as you can; but being on the same page as each other does help an awful lot.

Consequently, the most crucial aspect of beginning our journey was to ensure that we nailed down our wedding venue. We both quickly realised from our research that wedding venues book up extremely fast. So, while we enjoyed the engagement period, I started to research into and book appointments for wedding venues around Oxfordshire, so that we could secure a venue as early as possible. Don’t forget, venue hunting is all part and parcel of the fun!

As I mentioned above, Ronan and I were adamant on planning our entire wedding ourselves, and I was adamant on creating the décor myself. From the church to the reception and everything in between, I have written this blog to take you through the journey we went through while planning our wedding, along with the all-important details that no one tells you about and how to organise these, in order to prepare you for your big day. Whether you’re doing it all yourself or hiring someone to do it for you, I’ve put together some useful tips from experience to help you along your journey.

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