It’s engagment season, Amie Seal Photography

5 tips for newly engaged couples from an experienced Celebrant

In the journal today I’m sharing with you 5 top tips for newly engaged couples.

Finding yourself newly engaged can be exciting but a bit of a shock. Suddenly you are bombarded with choices, decisions and people marketing to you from every angle. The perfect venue Open Day for a newly engaged couple. Engagement photo shoots, bridal fairs, sharing your proposal story, tiktok, instagram, facebook. There are advertisements in every magazine and on every social platform.

If you are a newly engaged couple, you need to know that you are in control of your wedding day. Your choices are what matter, not what people are trying to sell you or telling you that you need. 

For my newly engaged couples I want to be here as a safe pair of hands offering 5 tips for newly engaged couples based on what I have learned since 2013 in the wedding industry.

Engagement parties are a thing, but you don’t have to have one.

Start by writing a list if you are a newly engaged couple. Try a wedding planner journal like this one by Yop & Tom.

If you are newly engaged and thinking that it all looks overwhelming and you don’t know where to start with planning your wedding, a list is always a good place to start. We are getting ahead of ourselves but get yourself a pen and paper anyway as I have 5 things I’d like to see on that list…

I hope it will be helpful to sit down here with me and look at that blank page you’ve been staring at and have somewhere to start from.

My 5 top tips for newly engaged couples are very simple but aim to bring the joy back within all the stress.

So why getting engaged so stressful and overwhelming? What makes it so hard to know where to start and who to talk to first? Why are you feeling ‘frozen’ ? As an experienced Wedding Celebrant creating wedding ceremonies for lovely couples like you I have a few ideas about that and what to do about it.

Let’s start to unpack what needs to be done and what absolutely doesn’t need to be done. 

You and your engagement story is unique and special and intimate and personal. Deciding to get married and go public about it is a huge deal. Start with knowing that it is not a small thing that you are doing and a) you may not have done it before and b) if you have done it before this may feel difficult or weird in a whole other way.

I want you to know that feeling overwhelmed around being newly engaged is totally normal and is not a permanent state. 

I’ve tried to put myself in your bridal shoes as I’ve thought about my top 5 tips for newly engaged couples.

Newly engaged couple Charlotte and Brad

Of the 265.000 couples who get married in the UK every year, most will end up spending £25-30k, which means that you, my lovely newly engaged couple are facing a financially costly commitment. You are also investing emotionally in a way that you haven’t before.

This can make you feel vulnerable and it is easy to feel confused about decision making when you feel that you are doing something you’ve never done before with this person which is permanent and is the only time you intend to do it.

You only ever are going to be newly engaged to this person once. You are only then going to move from engaged to married with this person once. This means that your wedding day is a once in a lifetime experience.

That unique ‘once in a lifetime’ phrase is a huge pressure for engaged couples who are being told that they need it to be a ‘perfect day’, that you can ‘never do again’ and even worse: that it has to be ‘the best day of your life’.

So, in my experience the central issues that newly engaged couples face are in fact emotional, psychological and financial. You, my lovely newly engaged couple are facing change. Often these moments when we get engaged to be married signal huge changes, like a plan to have a baby or to move house and to change the nature of your relationship to a legal status. This alters your financial and legal status in lots of ways. Sometimes it even changes your name or even your nationality.

Change always involves loss, loss and change go hand in hand. You are letting go of one phase of your relationship and personal identitities in order to move into the next one. As exciting as this is it takes some processing.

The issue here for you as an engaged couple is that you, at that exact moment of shock, vulnerability and potential looming change, is that hundreds of suppliers will approach you to tell you the answer to all your problems. 

Most of these problems will be things you had no idea were problems and most of them aren’t actually problems for you at all.  At this stage in your transition from ‘partners’ to ‘engaged to be married’ you are not in need of spreadsheets you are in need of emotional support from friends and family.

So, with this in mind, what are my 5 tips for newly engaged couples? What can you learn from me as a seasoned Wedding Celebrant?

As a Wedding Celebrant I’m here for newly engaged couples and your whole journey to the altar

Planning a wedding as a newly engaged couple can look like a nightmare. The logistics, the family dynamics, the extra shifts to meet the budgets, the cost of living, the expectations of others…all of this can leave you feeling exhausted before you’ve begun.

This is why having a wedding celebrant or a trusted friend on your side can be really helpful and that is really what I’m aiming to be for you in this post about my 5 tips for newly engaged couples.

You might be newly engaged and in the middle of some kind of crisis at the same time. On the other hand life might be plain sailing and chilled and you will have more time to enjoy being newly engaged.

Perhaps you are planning to have a long engagement.  You might, on the other hand be on of the 54% of couples who get married in 6 months or less. So perhaps time constraints are also a thing for you to consider which adds considerable stress.

Do you want a

• long engagment 18 months to 2 years?
• a 6 month engagment?
• Lots of people involved in the planning?
• A DIY wedding?
• A very private planning process?

These are not even decisions you have to make right now but they do lead on nicely as we start to think about my main concern which is YOU, your NEEDS, your MENTAL WELLBEING and your wedding being exactly what a newly engaged couple hopes for.

This blog is concerned with the emotional aspects of being newly engaged and the ways in which focusing on that can help with the more practical elements. In other words my top 5 tips for newly engaged couples is about emotional support and feeling ‘grounded’ and aware of who you are in the midst of all that noise.

In this first tip of my 5 tips for newly engaged couples we are going to talk about calming down your nervous system. It isn’t exciting, it isn’t about gowns, venues, florists or make up artists. But it will help you to make those decisions in the long run.

You all have the meditation apps and you’ve all done a bit of yoga, you probably know a bit about ‘box breathing’.

Considering that Anxiety Statistics issued by the Priory show that 37.1% of women and 29.9% of men report high levels of anxiety the chances are that many newly engaged couples have some knowledge of anxiety and the things that you find helpful in managing it.

Many of my couples come to me with social anxiety, are ‘neurospicy’ or just finding themselves faced with a task they don’t feel equipped to carry out. I hate that for you and I want you to enjoy your wedding planning and your newly engaged status. 

I am passionate about your mental health and your wellbeing in your ‘engagement era’. Check out this blog here about engagement anxiety, it’s really good and is written by a photographer who is also an engagment anxiety coach.

Think about the techniques you usually rely upon to manage your anxiety, because even if you are not someone who is diagnosed with or officially identifies as someone who lives with anxiety, the chances are that it might show up. 

Go for walks, exercise, try to eat well, sleep well, meditate if that is your jam, yoga, sound baths, forest bathing…whatever works for you to bring you to a calm nervous state, I want you to start here before you even start to search for venues.

Gathering your people as a newly engaged couple does NOT mean ‘TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW’ or ‘INVOLVE EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO BE INVOLVED’. 

NO! it is the opposite of this that we are striving for here. I need you to take that pen and piece of paper and think:

“who makes me feel totally safe?”; “what kind of person do I need to help me with this project?” It might surprise you.

Perhaps as a newly engaged couple who knows nothing about the wedding industry there is someone in your life who has done it before.

Alternatively you might want someone who has no experience of weddings at all but is a calm presence is objective and knows you really well.

Others of you will want a paid professional; a Wedding planner like Kate Hirons at Foil Events who is totally objective and not involved on a personal level. I highly recommend this as they are not as expensive as you imagine and take a percentage of your budget rather than a fixed fee.

Only you know the answer to what you need in this and this leads me neatly on to my tip number 3 for newly engaged couples.

Knowing what and who you need is a process of discernment which takes time, energy and space. You will need to dedicate some intentional time and prioritise that time as a moment to work out WHAT YOU NEED.

I would choose to call it trusting your gut…or a ‘full body yes’ to things, others will call it intuition but many people have learned to trust others before themselves. I don’t want that for you my newly engaged couples. I want you to know who you are and what you need before anyone starts trying to convince you that you need a champagne tower more than you need a planner.

For working out what your gut is telling you, I think, personally that you need to journal.

Journalling may not be for you, or at least you may think that it is not for you. But there is so much evidence that writing with pen and paper or even online just to empty our heads and get everything ‘out’ of us is really healthy and brings us clarity.

This article about journalling features some research from The University of Liverpool providing evidence for the power of it.

Start simply by finding something beautiful. Get a nice pen, a quiet spot and start a ‘brain dump’! a ‘download’ a total emptying of what is in your brain.

All the wedding things, the thoughts, the tasks, the ‘to do’ list, the concerns about your Mum being too controlling, about who will walk you down the aisle. ALL OF IT.

Slowly it will emerge that you do, in fact, know who you are and what you need and what you want. There will be a deep intuition, I know it sounds ‘woo’, but honestly it will be there and then you can work out exactly what you DON’T WANT.

THIS IS ESSENTIAL to find out WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU NEED. Because it is likely that you are being told that you want all kinds of things that in your heart of hearts you don’t actually want at all.  Knowing what you don’t want is the next tip!

There are some beautiful journals here: VOGUE WEDDING JOURNALS

I know, I know, as a newly engaged couple thinking about what you ‘don’t want’ doesn’t sound like much fun. It sounds counter-intuitive but I promise you it will help you so much.

Focusing on what you do want can overwhelm you with choices but knowing what you really don’t want, the things that really give you the ‘ick’ as a newly engaged couple can be so valuable. It immediately removes things from the overlong list of options. It gives you mental clarity.

You have followed my top 5 tips for newly engaged couples so far and calmed your nervous system, called your bestie, bought a journal and emptied your wedding brain and now you are writing out a list of things you don’t want ready to pin it to the wall or stick on the fridge.

Take a long look at that list. What is the theme here? Perhaps it looks like this:

1 We don’t want a formal seating plan.

2 We don’t want a religious or serious ceremony.

3 We don’t want a colour theme.

4 We don’t want a sit down meal

5 We don’t want oysters or champagne.

If this is your list the theme is that you don’t favour high end or very serious, traditional weddings.

If you are interested in 2026 wedding trends you can find out more here: 

I hear you! This one is a bit controversial I admit. Other blogs about ‘newly engaged couples’ will be focused on wall planners…but I am telling you the things that I know will help you more than any directories.

However weird this suggestion sounds, I have become convinced that it could be one of the best uses of your budget. It could even save you money helping you to work out why you are getting married at this point, what the purpose of the wedding is and how to manage that transition. Helping you to work out what you need as a newly engaged couple, and not only for the wedding but for your future marriage.

Couples therapy for couples getting married in Church used to be called ‘pre-marital counselling’ and it was dire. In my experience it was patronising and more about dogma and power than it was about you as a couple. This is not the kind of thing I’m suggesting!

A Wedding Celebrant friend of mine once told me that the best thing she ever did was to have couples therapy before she married her now wife. They’ve now been married for years and are very happy. They didn’t have any ‘problems’ but they wanted to put to bed any niggling behaviours and patterns that may have impacted former relationships. As newly engaged couples you may well have things you’d like to ‘iron out’ ahead of your big day. Or perhaps you would like to get to know each other more deeply.

I could go on and on about the benefits of therapy and specifically couples work but for the purposes of my top 5 tips for newly engaged couples I will stick to my brief! For me, the main reason why I think you should book a therapist is because it will give you an hour a week or every two weeks where you are totally heard, supported and championed. A place where your relationship is yours and not under the control of your families.

As a newly engaged couple you are going to be beseiged by other people’s agendas. This could look like wedding vendors needing to up their profit margins, venues trying to stay open through the winter. Small businesses desperate for income or your future Mother-in-law weighing in with unwanted advice.

At this point in your life everyone feels they have a stake in it. Everyone is projecting onto you things that aren’t yours to carry. You need to remain firmly yourselves, and you need to maintain boundaries for yourselves. A therapist will be there for you and is paid to totally commit to listening to you and your needs, to understanding what the impact of your family dynamics might be and to offer helpful suggestions for maintaining your relationship under intense stress.

Wedding can be stressful and the irony is that can impact upon the one thing that matters most about your wedding day…your relationship and each other. CHECK OUT COUPLEWORKS HERE for more info about couples therapy.

I hope you enjoyed my top 5 tips for newly engaged couples. 

In summary

1 DON’T PANIC

2 GATHER YOUR PEOPLE

3 WRITE A JOURNAL

4 WRITE DOWN WHAT YOU DON’T WANT

5 BOOK A COUPLES THERAPIST

I’m passionate about my couples getting the most out of their ceremonies and feeling supported as they go.

THANKS FOR JOINING ME FOR MY TOP 5 TIPS FOR NEWLY ENGAGED COUPLES 

photo by Alex MacEachern at https://alexmaccreation.co.uk/