Your special day

1 Above all, allow yourself plenty of time. You’ll find that there is so much to do and so many decisions to make that you could easily be panicking if you didn’t get started early enough 2 Decide what sort of venue you want. Would you like a modern hotel where everyone can stay on-site or would you like an unusual venue that could add something to the event? 3 Arrange a site visit as soon as possible and go along armed with as many questions as you need. Don’t worry about sounding stupid, the venue stalf are there to help and, after all, they want your business 4 Catering – look at what the venue’s in-house caterer has to offer, start discussing meal options early. If the venue doesn’t have its own caterer it will usually have a list of outside firms that have work there before 5 Licensing – make sure you know what you can and can’t do with drinks. If you can bring your own booze, ask if you’ll need to pay corkage. Establish exactly what’s included in the deal, you don’t want to agree a price and then find out later that this didn’t include glasses or bar staff 6 Timetable – very important to get a precise timetable of events put together. You’ll need to know when caterers, entertainers and other suppliers can start arriving. Also, you need to agree a finishing time, you don’t want to be charge another fee because the disco went on too long 7 Suppliers – as with caterers, the venue will probably have a list of firms that have worked on other weddings and events at the facility. The venue may even have an agreement with some of these that may help reduce your costs 8 Insurance – many venues require you to take out events insurance because they are not necessarily covered. It may sound like an extra expense but for the sake of £150 you will be covered if you caterer burns the place down or one of your guests stubs a fag out on the carpet 9 Appoint an event manager – it may cost you more but an event manager’s job is to make sure that everything runs smoothly leaving you to enjoy your day. They should have wide experience of running events like yours and will be able to offer help and advice through the planning process 10 Don’t worry! There’s an old maxim in events that says that no matter how chaotic things seem in the lead up, they always open on time and are just fine. You’ll naturally be concerned that everything goes according to plan but if you’ve taken time to put it all together there’s no reason why there should be any serious hiccups