Here Matthew Shaw, founder of Sauveur – a London-based, leading wedding planner & creative studio, reveals his essential guide to getting engaged and kickstarting the wedding planning process.
Being engaged is one of the most exciting life moments you’ll experience as a couple, but planning the big day can seem incredibly daunting at first. It’s easy to get distracted by the wealth of information that’s available on Pinterest and your favourite celebrities splashing their wedding photos on social media etc., but remember this is your day. While we’re seeing some interesting trends for 2025, from opulent Gilded Age glamour inspirations to curated look books that help couples refine their vision, now is the perfect time to put your spin on your wedding, while embracing your engagement and the overall process together. The whole wedding planning journey is an experience itself, so here are my top tips to help you get started!
Pause, relax and enjoy it
So, you’re engaged? Congratulations! It’s such an exciting time to have ahead of you. There is a tendency to want to rush into the planning but I urge you to take a moment to pause, relax, and just enjoy being engaged! Take the time to celebrate, enjoy recounting the story and telling your family and friends. It’s a wonderful moment and one to be savoured before you start thinking about planning.
Think about asking for help
I would always advise considering if you would like to engage a planner at the beginning of the process. They are true experts in their field and will help organise, inspire, and de-stress the process for you. If you were spending the equivalent budget on another life event, like a home renovation, you would likely be seeking professional advice and the same goes for wedding planning. As well as supporting with the general planning and logistics, a wedding planner will help you develop your ideas and has the experience to ensure these can be realised. Beyond the catering, design, and entertainment, there are also the often forgotten and less sexy elements of planning. Think toilets, rubbish, power… Wedding planners have seen it all before and will ensure this is in place and accounted for from the get go instead of these becoming unwelcome surprises later on in the process.
Do the maths
Budgets are often everyone’s downfall. It’s always wise to get the money discussions out the way at the beginning. If you will be getting support from parents on either side then work that out early on and also set boundaries about what that might mean for input in the planning! Before you start the planning process, and confirming suppliers, you should put together a clear budget of what you are allocating to each area. It is so important to avoid a scenario where you have confirmed a supplier who is beyond your means and have to unravel this further down the line or make concessions elsewhere. You can then collect your quotes, compare to your budget and adjust as necessary. There will be elements you have forgotten, or were not aware of, so this is a vital exercise.
You should always, always, have a contingency in your budget for unknown and surprise costs that appear (they always will) and this will help cushion it and keep costs in line. If you are working with a planner, trust their advice! They will know where you can make savings and where you should be spending.
Consider wedding format
Ideas will, of course, develop as you move through the planning but it is vital to have a good idea of your wedding format from the beginning. This will inform what type of venue you are looking for, which suppliers to approach and the overall flow of the day. Discuss with your partner how you want your wedding day to look from ceremony through to the end. Will you be hosting a welcome evening or another event the following day? Do either of you have any particular cultural customs or traditions you want to weave into the celebrations? You will likely also want to incorporate elements that make the wedding feel personal to you. All of this information is incredibly helpful for your planner, suppliers, and the venue so write it all up into a document that you can share with everyone at the beginning.
Plan the planning
Having a wedding planning timeline is a vital tool in your arsenal. Before you get stuck in you should map out your planning process and work out what you do (and don’t!) need to do each month. There is a tendency for people to panic and try to get everything confirmed and ticked off as quickly as possible. This is both incredibly stressful but will likely also lead you to questioning your decisions further down the line. It’s a process that you can work through and adjust as you do. You’ll want to get your venue secured early on so you have what you need to invite your guests and I suggest researching your photographer early on as they get booked up, but then you can take a break and work out your next steps.
Alongside this you should also work out who is going to look after different bits of the planning. There is a tendency for wedding planning to be quite one sided but it should be a joint project! In a similar vein, you should also think about some boundaries and communication about wedding planning so it doesn’t slowly creep in and take over everything. You will know what suits you both best but just like your wedding timeline it is very helpful to know when you do, and don’t, need to discuss your wedding.
No one compares
There is a wealth of information and inspiration online which can be very helpful for your planning. Before you kick off it can be helpful to get online to read some planning advice, look at current trends and what suppliers you might want to speak to. That being said, everyone has an opinion on weddings and planning and this can often be frustrating and distracting. Try to ignore what your friends may be doing for their weddings, what your parents did for theirs, and what all the inspiration images online are telling you. This will help alleviate stress but also ensure that your wedding is uniquely you! There’s no one way of planning a wedding! There are, of course, traditional formats and plenty of inspiration online and on social media but your wedding is your day! I’ve seen too many couples try and mold what they want into what everyone else does or be unable to make a budget work because they assume there’s a certain way of doing things.
Final thoughts
Remember to take a moment to enjoy your evening and look out over all your friends and loved ones who are there to celebrate you. Weddings go by in a flash so make sure you soak it all up before it’s just a memory! My goal, as a wedding planner, is to ensure that our couples can really make the most out of their day and enjoy it. Whether you have a planner or not, make sure your wedding party is supporting you and that you can really take the time to enjoy the occasion. Relax, enjoy it, and don’t fret if things don’t go exactly to plan – it’s all part of the fun.
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