Step 2 - The Venue

As soon as the wedding talks starts, check out venues in the city.  Even if you don't know the date already, make a list of suitable venues and ask about tentative availability (eg. ask them how booked are they for the month of April?) Usually most people who have big houses like to do it at home. Makes sense, saves a lot of money. But I'd recommend going for a rented place. Why you ask?

- these venues are made for event purposes, so all the facilities are there

-saves you the trouble of cleaning after the event is over

- pictures come out amazing!

My father's house is huge and had a enough space to fit all our guest, but we still went for a rented venue because we had learned some hard lessons during my sister's wedding. Rather pay the money than all that effort and tension.

A few things to keep in mind while booking venue:

Size - does not just depend on the number of guests. Also, figure out all the various ceremonies and where they would fit. Bengali weddings need a special closure made with flowers for the wedding ceremony and we ensured we planned around it.

Freebies - a lot of venues now days come with freebies such as partial decoration, make-shift stages for a show or seating the bride and groom, love seats etc. Make sure you check with all of them what all they can put in. Let them know your plans and they might be able to put together something for you. For my wedding, the got the outside boundary curtains and some other stuff which saved us good money. Also, the outside light-chains and halogens were free. 

Seasonality - if its summer you will need air conditioning. If you don't, talk to them about keeping ac off and you can bargain to get the price down.

It's your day, this is the place were you will get married - remember this is NOT one of the things where you should try to pinch your budget. Don't go all out but don't compromise for just a few thousand. If you are going to be queen for the night, you need a proper palace. You are going to remember this for a long time, make it a good thought.

My venue was the location for a on-going TV soap. Its was beautiful and everyone was impressed by the location, as you see the pics here. 

Happy venue hunting!

Step 1 - Wedding Checklist

After you have the budget, next step is to list down everything you need and want for your wedding. I don't mean gifts or your dress, that's a different list and we will get to that. I mean get the to do check list done. If you search online for "wedding checklist" you will find numerous samples that you can customize for your need. The only difference would that the checklists mostly start 6-9 months before wedding and you will probably have just about 6 months if you are lucky.

Start with the essentials and don't leave out anything, nothing at all. Believe me, in all the rush, you miss out on the most basic and most important things. 

Be very detailed, actually this will also give you a chance to have your outlines planned. The date for big day, mehendi and sangeet dates, venue, number of people to invite, get cards printed, send invites by date x, food etc. 

If you have someone else planning your wedding, make sure to check with them regularly to ensure all your wishes are included.

Happy planning!

The Budget Vs Dream Wedding

The first note to yourself should be it does not need to be either or decision. You can still have a wonderful dream wedding on a budget. Unless you are from a high income family, you will need to think about the budget. Even if you have been working hard and saving all your life for this big day, you should definitely set a budget for yourself .

One sincere advice that I'll give to every bride-to-be is remember this is not the end, this is the beginning. Most brides usually think of their wedding day as the one day when heaven should meet earth and then the rest will sort itself out.  Well, the truth is there are tons of other expenses that will be just as important if not more than your wedding day.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying don't have fun. I'm all for a dream wedding, just the dream doesn't have to be a Yash Raj movie. 

Now there are tons of site with tips on how you can plan a wedding on a budget.  Below are some of my personal learning.

How to fix the budget?

Have a 3 tiered budget - super soft limit , soft limit and then hard limit. I like to think of them as must, should, want. 

- Super Soft Limit : Indian weddings have tons of musts and they need to be covered (clothes for everyone, venue, food, jewelry, cameraman, so on).  Got to have them, these are non-negotiable. 

- Soft Limit : These are what make your wedding fun. Mehendi and Sangeet nights, band bajaa or DJ, gifts for relatives etc. There are ways to get these done on a small budget, so not something to lose your sleep on.

- Hard limit : This is the final limit and anything exceeding needs to be replaced with something else. I would recommend to set this at almost 10% of your soft limit amount. This is to take care of  last minute, "oh I didn't think of that" expense. Believe me there are tons of those even if you have planned every single second. 

Tips to keep in mind while estimating expenses:

- don't try to cut corners on your dress/saree, the venue, the cameraman and your make up. Those are the only memories that will be left of that day years after your big day

- food should be good but you can't please everyone. People will complaint so just think of what you or your groom likes to eat. 

- you will need to spend on gifts for your in-laws and their family. This is kind of your first interaction with the extended in-laws and you want to start on a strong foot.

- Indian weddings are synonymous to eating. So beside the full meals, there are going to be other small meals/snacks that you need to cater.

Hope you find these helpful! Happy budgeting :D

Celebrating New Beginnings!

Welcome to Shubh Karya! 

If you are here, you are probably planning for some kind of celebration soon (at least I hope you are :D). I started this blog because I'm in a celebratory mood. Yes, next week is my first wedding anniversary. While going through my wedding pictures, I remembered all the planning that I and my sisters had put in to make each moment special. We had to plan a lot because 1. sadly I don't belong to any rich family to had a limited budget and 2. we had a lot of learning from both my elder sisters' and 4-5 cousins' weddings that we wanted to make sure was not repeated in this one. About 6-8 months worth of planning while each of us were busy with full time jobs and based in different parts of the world. 

The result was an amazing relaxed wedding with a lot of fun. We managed to squeeze in each of my wishes (I had a few of them) and ensure that each family member was enjoying the wedding instead of being stuck at the gate or with the caterer. Special mehendi night, dancing and singing with close friends, proper band baaja for my groom etc etc

While I'm working towards being a full time wedding planner, I wanted to write down my experiences to help others who are planning their weddings or any kind of party (I do end up planning lots of baby showers and birthday parties for friends).

So lets start planning!