If you are planning a wedding in Vancouver, this blog is truly made for you! An ultimate guide about planning a wedding, valuable information, and tips to hold a perfect wedding in your life will be provided in detail. Check this post out and make sure you don’t miss anything!

1. What Is A Perfect Wedding?

The definition of a perfect wedding is variant, it depends on what people value and how they want to enjoy it on their important day. But in general, a perfect wedding should meet the expectation of the bride & groom. All the wedding tasks from A to Z are well-planned basing on a perfect timeline, that way will prevent the bride & groom from being overwhelmed and stressed. The flow of the wedding goes smoothly, and of course, a perfect wedding can’t not complete without laughter, the joy of the bride, the groom, and the guests.

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2. Things You Need To Prepare

• Mental Health: To make a wedding in Vancouver happen, you first need to make sure you are staying in good mental health status. Planning a wedding can stressful and overwhelming as there are a bunch of tasks to take care of. Give yourself a short break when you feel that way. Connecting to nature or taking yoga & meditation may give you some peace of mind once you head back to work.

• Wedding Checklist: Another important thing is to spare enough time to plan and sort wedding tasks month by month. While holding wedding in Vancouver, you may need to avoid during winter as the weather is extremely tough. Vancouver wedding season normally starts from April to October, you can take it as a reference to plan ahead of time, break down tasks, and put them down in the wedding-planning checklist and wedding timelines. It would make the whole process easy to follow up and keep on track. For those who don’t know where to start a wedding-planning checklist, you can refer to The Knot & WeddingWire, they provide awesome tools to customize and generate your checklist. The simpler way is to go online and download a wedding in Vancouver checklist template that fits your needs. 

• Wedding Budget: Decide on your budget before working on wedding tasks will make the financing process a lot easier. Allocating funds will keep you on track with your spending and adjust the numbers along the way. According to WeddingWire, a wedding in Vancouver (Canada) in 2020 costs roughly $30,000 on average. It’s pretty costly especially for young couples who are financially unstable. You can consider some ways to cut out wedding fees  and save on your wedding in Vancouver such as using balloons instead of fresh flowers for decoration, buying a sample wedding dress, or sending your wedding invitation digitally.

• Wedding Theme: Because you may only experience precious wedding moments one time in life, make it count! A wedding with a beautiful theme matching the couple's style would make it more memorable. For a wedding in Vancouver, you are open to lots of choices as the city offers fascinating venues in magnificent nature like the beach and green gardens or the park. Spend some time doing some research about your ideal wedding themes before you work on the decoration part. Some websites like Pinterest or The Knot are useful to give you inspiration for your dream wedding. 

3. What Services Do You Need For A Wedding?

3.1 Wedding Planner

It totally depends on your wedding budget. If your funds allow, you can consider hiring a wedding planner. She/he, without doubt, will make your life a lot easier. Wedding planners are those who help couples with the planning, organization, and management of their weddings. They will take care of most of the wedding tasks from arranging vendors, helping with wedding clothes, decoration to set up the ceremony.

With their help, you’ll be stress-free and enjoy the wedding preparation more than doing it by yourself. It’s not hard to find good wedding planners in Vancouver. You can either search the wedding service and reviews on websites like WeddingWire, The Knot or simply discover a good wedding planner near you through reviews on Google. For your reference, the average cost for a Vancouver wedding planning service starts from $1,500 (partial planning) up to $6,000 (full service), it’s up to your demand to select the suitable wedding planning package. 

3.2 Printing (Invitations, Menu Cards, …)

Before your wedding in Vancouver a few months, you need to have your invitations on hand in order to deliver them to your guests on time. Probably you have not done this in your life, you can follow some tips given down below on how to nail wedding invitations:

• The wedding invitations should match the wedding theme. It’s good if you have some design/theme ideas in mind for your invitations.
• Before printing approval, make sure to double-check all the details like wording, spelling, and addresses to avoid mistakes.
• Confirm with a printing service staff that your wedding invitations should arrive on time.
• In case you realize that you accidentally miscount wedding guests for ordering the invitation quantity. You’d better add some extra in your total number to solve the issue.

Besides invitations, some other optional cards you may want to include in your wedding. There are lots of local services specialized for wedding invitations Vancouver and other relevant printing jobs, namely OMD Creative, Cornwall Stationery, Design by Dainty, …

3.3 Wedding Dress, Rings, Make-up Services

• Wedding Dresses: There are several styles for wedding dresses & accessories out there: princess style, ruffles, off-shoulder sleeves, square necklines, and so on. As such, choosing a wedding dress for your dream wedding is something pretty difficult for most brides. It’s advisable to know your wedding theme beforehand. That way will narrow down your selections and make it easier to find a dress style matching your wedding perfectly. Another tip is to make yourself open with any style, keep trying dresses until you find the most comfortable one. Renting wedding dresses in Vancouver is an economical option for those who want to cut wedding costs. You will save a great portion of the money, while wedding rentals Vancouver like gowns, equipment is convenient and can be found here and there. Some suggestions of the popular wedding dress rentals in Vancouver are Bello Wedding, CINDELA Wedding, Mr. & Mrs., and Vimo Wedding.

• Wedding Rings: A wedding ring is also as important as a wedding dress is. It’s a symbol of commitment, a promise and love, and something that requires a lot of thoughts. Some top tips for you to find a suitable wedding rings Vancouver are: start with the type of metals, mind your lifestyle, fit fingers perfectly, and care about its quality.

• Wedding Make-up: Unless you are able to find friends who are skillful with doing make-up and have them do it for you, you’ll need wedding makeup Vancouver service to complete your look. You also need a wedding makeup service so that your appearance will be done professionally. You can put your trust in your makeup artists to help you glow up without any concern. It’s not hard to find a professional wedding hair & makeup package in Vancouver, the easiest way is to research services and reviews online and choose your suitable package as desired. 

3.4 Wedding Photoshoot

A wedding can’t not complete without engagement and wedding photos. They play as a document of love, storing beautiful memories of you and your partner. Shooting for the engagement & wedding photos might be the most exciting part with every couple. For a wedding in Vancouver, you and your partner can brainstorm some ideas for wedding photos at first and discover some wedding photography trends, and wedding photography concepts that impress you the most. When you have some concepts that you want to shoot in mind, now it’s time to discover some great Vancouver wedding photography locations.

From the green forests, magnificent mountains to blue beaches or the sophisticated downtown, all gather in one beautiful city; therefore, deciding on the wedding photoshoot location in Vancouver is not a big problem, it just depends on your taste. The next step is finding your wedding photographer in Vancouver. It can be difficult to hire only one wedding photographer among hundreds of them out there. You can evaluate and consider some factors following: suitable prices, professional work attitudes, photography styles and comparison between packages. For reference, you can check out affordable wedding photography prices at 48 Studio, the package starts only at $499 which is very competitive on the market. 

3.5 Wedding Venue 

The fact is finding a venue to hold your wedding isn’t easy at all. You may have to check out a certain number of wedding venues before settling down in one. Try not to be overwhelmed,instead asking some specific questions would, to some extent, support you with decision-making.

You can ask yourself what’s your wedding theme is, what’s your budget for renting a venue, either you want it outdoor or indoor, how’s the wedding guest size. By asking these, you at least have a more detailed picture of how your wedding venue would be. A wedding in Vancouver can be held in different types of venues, including hotels, parks, wedding restaurant Vancouver, farms, mansions, and more. You’ll need to mind the right venue that fits the Vancouver weather on your expected wedding day as well. For couples who need to find wedding venues Vancouver Island, wedding venues in North Vancouver, or somewhere even further, you can search via WeddingWire or other online places as wedding venues there are not offered as many as in Vancouver lower mainland. 

3.6 Wedding vendors (Decoration, DJ, videographer, photographers, …)

• Wedding Decorations: Decorating your wedding is like putting on beautiful make-up and dresses to shine. Wedding decorations are an essential part to glamourize your venues, impress your guests. Popularly, a wedding in Vancouver is decorated in neutral bright themes or colours inspired by nature. Using fresh flowers for decoration is widely well-liked nowadays even though this option isn’t really affordable. Celsia floral is regarded as the best wedding florist Vancouver. Their styles enhance the elegance, romance, and beautiful nature andbecome the signature of the brand. You can also check out other wedding flowers Vancouver vendors such as The Wildbunch, Grey Florals & Co, Blossom & Vine Floral Co, Budget Blooms, Arbutus Florist. They all provide great service and wedding flowers as well. On the other hand, if fresh flowers seem to go over your budget, you can consider other ideas for wedding decor Vancouver like balloons & candles. They’re low-cost, yet still, bring the glamour effect to your wedding. 

• DJ, Music Bands, Videographers & Photographers: These people will light up your night, creating joyful wedding moments, and ensure everyone can enjoy the party as much as they can. Normally, for a wedding in Vancouver, couples choose to have live music at their wedding party. But in the end, it always depends on your preference and budget. Wedding dj Vancouver is a good alternative and even costs less than hiring a music band. 

• Wedding Officiants: To some extent, wedding officiants are considered vendors, they’re in charge of leading the wedding ceremony and officiate the couple’s marriage. You need to book your wedding officiant Vancouver 9 to 12 months in advance to avoid the shortage in service.