When my partner and I got engaged, after the shellshock wore off (it’s real) I was incredibly happy to get to move into the next stage of our journey. I’ll never forget the proposal in Italy —the joy, the nerves, and the love that surrounded us when we told people. For us, this was the beginning of a journey not just to plan a wedding, but to celebrate our story.

I put together a post on our engagement in Italy at the end of last year. After the initial whirlwind of saying “yes,” we sat down together and realized just how much we wanted our wedding to reflect who we are as a couple.

Our Vision

We talked about what mattered most to us in a wedding. Was it the guest list? The decor? The music? For us, it was creating an intimate and personal day where every detail told a part of our story. We want our guests to walk away feeling like they experienced a piece of who we are together. We wanted to invest in beautiful photography, make sure that the food was allergy friendly (for me) and that we felt we we brought our family and friends into an experience that reflected us.

I’ve decided to document this journey, from the big decisions to the small, heartfelt details. Blogging about our wedding isn’t just about sharing the logistics; it’s about inviting you into this special time in our lives. We hope to inspire others planning their weddings, share the highs and lows, and capture moments we can look back on years from now. We have our own shared instagram @thedarlingsgetmarried and then are going to post more about the wedding on this blog as well.

If you’re just starting to plan your wedding, here are a few things we’ve learned already:

Prioritize Together: Sit down as a couple and talk about what’s most important to you. For us, it was [insert your priorities].
Set a Budget Early: It’s not the most romantic part of planning, but it’s crucial. Knowing what we’re working with has helped us make decisions with confidence.
Be Open to Inspiration: From Pinterest to unexpected conversations with friends, inspiration can come from anywhere. Just don’t let it overwhelm you!
Organize your Inspiration: As soon as I got engaged and went back to the Pinterest board that I’ve been putting together for the last 10 years, I realized how outdated most of it was! I went through and deleted so much, and organized everything into categories. Then I realized it was a lot, and it was hard to dictate what I liked about the photo, if it wasn’t the entire thing. Which takes me to #5
Get Milanote! I’ve used Milanote for home design projects, but I found that I needed something more to show my vendors what I wanted, and organize my thoughts for our wedding party. Plus we are going to have a Welcome Party and that almost needed it’s own section. I’ll share more about that on another post.

I hope you’ll follow along as we navigate the beautiful, messy, joyful process of planning our wedding. More than anything, we want this to be a celebration of love—ours, and the love that surrounds us from our friends, family, and community.

In advance of more content, here are some photos that are inspiring me right now: