How to Start Planning a Wedding: A Step-by-Step Guide
If you're an engaged couple and you’re planning a wedding, you've come to the right place. Over 20,000 weddings have been planned with Folia, so we've learned a thing or two about how to plan a wedding, particularly in 2026, 2027, or 2028 (all of the weddings on our platform). Here are the insider tips for how to plan a wedding, using Folia Planner (note: if you’re a professional planner, look out for our next post about how pros plan weddings with Folia Planner Suite).
First things first. You're engaged, you're excited, but you've never planned a wedding before, and you'll probably never plan one again. It's one of the largest expenses and most important events in your life, so you want to get it right. You want it to be magical. You want it to be perfect. You don't want to overspend, but you don't want to underspend. So you need a hand. We're here to help. Everything you need to plan a wedding is available in Folia's first of its kind wedding planning platform, built for couples in the process. Here's what most couples do first (as do many professional planners):
Step 1. Setup your to-do list.
Some start with 10, some start with 100, or you can start with Folia's 47 presets sourced from the most commonly planned checklists from across Folia. The most used tasks at the beginning of the wedding planning journey include choosing a budget, a wedding date, beginning to draft your guestlist, researching venues, choose your wedding party (best man, maid of honor, etc), ordering save-the-dates, and scheduling dress fittings.
After the first few months, and as the wedding date approaches, you'll want to start getting into more detail, so you should have tasks associated with finalizing the guestlist and choosing details about the wedding day: selecting a venue, researching photographers and videographers, choosing a theme, researching bands/DJs, researching florists, tasting cakes, and arranging transportation for guests.
A couple of tasks you’ll want to decide on early on: 1) Professional Wedding Planner. Decide whether you want a full-service wedding planner, a day-of-coordinator, both, or neither. In general, weddings with a budget above $40k are much more likely to involve/require a planner, while weddings below $40k are more likely to be planned by the couple, assisted by a day-of-coordinator (which many venues provide). 2) Decide how much to budget for what. In general, the number one regret couples have after their wedding is under-budgeting photos or video, so be sure to reserve enough in the budget for those critical services, to remember your special day. Which brings us to step 2, budgeting, below.
Step 2, choose your budget.
There is a very wide range for how weddings are budgeted on Folia, from a few thousand dollars, to $900k. This guide will help you decide how much to budget, whether you are planning to budget at the lower end (budget/DIY wedding), the middle range, or the high end (luxury wedding). Alternatively, you can always use budget suggester and simulator to suggest common amounts to apply to each expense, based on 20,000 weddings from across Folia. In general, the highest cost line item is likely to be your venue, so we recommend reserving at least 25% of your budget for that, and beginning to research venues early on, because the best one’s book up 1-2 years in advance for the most popular wedding dates.
The other largest expenses are typically the following items, and we've included suggestions for how much of your budget to allocate to each: Catering (20%), Photography/Videography (10-15%), Flowers & Decor (5-10%), Music/Entertainment (5-8%), Attire (5-8%). As a friendly/pro tip: a popular trend for weddings at almost every budget level is a photobooth, which can be rented for between $400 and $1,200 ($550 on average), and captures amazingly wonderful photos of your loved ones at their silliest.
Step 3, Build your guest list.
Guest lists also have a wide range, but contrary to popular belief, the guestlist size is not directly proportional with budget. We've seen large budgets with small guestlists, and small budgets with large guestlists. These don't have to match. The average wedding has about 75-100 guests. Anything above that is relatively large, anything below that is relatively small. Rather than start with a number, we recommend asking yourself who you want to be there, write those names down, and that's your number. You can make it work for almost any budget. Start reaching out early to gauge availability of your most important people and keep track on the Folia guest list (or Google sheet, if you prefer).
Step 4, Lock in your wedding date.
Once you've confirmed the key date(s) when your most important loved ones can attend, lock in the official date, and start sending out RSVPs to your full preferred attendees list. We recommend doing this digitally at first (text or email or phone call), and then doing your physical Invitations and "Save the Date" cards at a later date.
Step 5, choose your theme and build your dreamboard.
This often guides many of the decisions which come next, including selecting your venue, decor, flowers, cake, attire, invite cards and more. Following recent trends in minimalism, 2027 is expected to involve more storybook/fairytale romance themes, old-world/European influence, rich textures, and dramatic lighting. Storytelling is the connective tissue of the theme, connecting everything to a couple's individual journey and narrative. Light neutral colors are always popular, but bold saturated color is making a comeback, darker and more dramatic. These are just general themes, but every wedding is unique, and your theme should be uniquely yours. Start by browsing a few images you like across the internet, drag them onto your dreamboard, and then let your partner or your planning collaborators comment until you finalize the best ones.
Step 6, choose your vendors (your venue is your top priority).
The venue should be your number one vendor, and hopefully you're narrowing down and finalizing this decision at this stage. Beyond your venue, the most important vendors to consider include: photographer/videographer, catering, cake, attire, florist, transportation, bands/DJs, save the date cards, decor, stationery, hair & makeup artist. A few great places to discover vendors include Google, AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude), Instagram, Pinterest, The Knot, and Zola. One of the most popular emerging trends is content creators, a new vendor category which is increasingly used for modern weddings. They often provide rapid delivery (unedited, candid photos/videos and reels within 24-48 hours), behind-the-scenes docs (shooting casual, authentic moments before, during and after the wedding), and private memories (raw video clips the couples can enjoy personally). You can typically expect to budget $500-1,000 nationally for entry-level creators, $1,200-$4,000 on average, and $4,500+ for premium destination creators.
Step 7, plan your seating chart / floor plan, and ceremony.
This is where it gets fun! Create your tables, seat your guest, decide who sits with who, who should meet who, where there's chemistry, who might get engaged next, what everyone eats, where the dance floor is, where to put the bar, and so much more. Folia's seating chart is our most popular feature, and auto-syncs with your guestlist and color codes meals, making the whole process smooth and easy. You can add/remove guests from seats/tables, and drag/drop rearrange as much as you'd like. Have a parent in law you cannot stand? Seat them as far away from you as you'd like! Have little ones joining? Create a dedicated children's table. Have a few singles in the wedding parties? Create a singles table. Have fun with it. You can choose exactly how far you and every other guest will be from each other and from every wedding venue feature (the bar, the food, the dancefloor, the photobooth, the mud wrestling tub (yes that has happened)). In terms of tables, you can choose round tables, rectangular tables, king tables, sweetheart tables, or the most popular trend everyone is raving about, Serpentine Tables, the most popular option for 2027 weddings.
And don't forget the ceremony. Choose the number in your wedding party, where they'd stand, the number of rows and seats per side, and assign specific people to specific seats if you'd like. This is a great time to think about your playlists as well, both for the ceremony, and for the reception. Once the ceremony and seating chart are done, print them out and share them with your venue, caterer, and others.
Step 8, Your Wedding Day Timeline
Plan every step, from breakfast, to makeup, to arrivals, to ceremony, to speeches, dinner, dancing, photos, and so much more. Like Seating Chart, Timeline is also one of Folia's most popular features. Once it's perfect, your coordinator can organize and execute the wedding to perfection, without a hitch. Folia's unique calendar view makes it easy to bulk create items on the timeline, or to drag and drop items as you decide and re-arrange items as your plan comes together. Once it's complete, export a PDF or email customized vendor callsheets to each vendor.
Step 9, the final 6 months
Avoid a final month rush and chaos by planning the final steps over a 6 month period. These final steps will get you well prepared for the big day. Typically, the final tasks before a wedding include final RSVPs for any stragglers who haven’t confirmed (send them a follow up note!), final vendor payments, the rehearsal (speeches and/or dinner, depending on complexity), marriage licenses and dress alterations. Get these done early, and you’ll be able to calmly enjoy the final months as your wedding approaches.
Phew, ok I realize it’s a lot, but if you take it one step at a time, checking off to-do items every week and every month, you’ll be well on your way to planning your perfect wedding day in no time. If you want to start with step 1 today, sign up for Folia and we’ll auto-generate your first To-Do list.
- first-post
