Planning a garden wedding to celebrate your forthcoming marriage, whether with a help from a wedding coordinator or simply by yourself, involves a lot of decisions to make.  Before you feel helpless, you need to sort out the issues you need to resolve.  Here are the major decisions that you need to decide first when planning for a garden wedding ceremony.

Style and formality

You need to make sure early in the planning process on what style you want your garden wedding.  Would you want it strictly formal with men wearing three-piece suits, or a little casual to complement the outdoorsy feel of the garden?  Do you want a quaint country wedding or a sophisticated society bash? 

Deciding on the formality and style of the wedding sets the tone for the rest of the celebration, from the food to be offered for catering, to the wedding invitations to send.

Type of reception

You need to decide on what type of food service as well as reception style you want to have after the ceremony. 

Would you like to have the reception indoors or outdoors?  Do you think a sit-down dinner would be great, or a buffet would do wonders to your reception?  Do you like to have cocktails?  How about some dances?  You can also include other unusual activities such as playing croquet on a lawn or a volleyball match.

Number of guests

Determine the number of guests who will attend to your wedding.  In that way, you can determine a rough estimate on how much your wedding would cost. 

How much you pay for food, for instance, involves the number of guests catered.  Start by the largest number possible, and slowly dwindle down until you have come up with a list of important guests.

Budget  

Talk to the groom’s and bride’s families to determine who will pay.  Traditionally, the bride’s family shoulders the reception, but the groom’s family or even both families can shoulder the expenses depending on their bank account. 

If one set of parents would pay most of the budget, ask them how much they are will to shell out and able to spend overall.  Remember that part of a wedding plan is to make a budget and allocate the money as you see fit.

Time of year

The seasons may affect how your garden wedding would be held.  Do you visualize a garden wedding surrounded with fresh flowers in bloom during spring or underneath the crisp foliage during fall?  Do you like your bridesmaid to wear velvet red, or champagne to fit the season? 

Determining when your wedding would be held also gives you enough time to plan for your wedding.