Get A Rough Guest Count
You dont have to start categorizing your friends and family into A and B lists yet, but at this point youll need to know approximately how many people you plan to invite to the wedding. Since wedding costs increase by number of guests , its best to do this step after youve calculated your rough budget so that you have a clear sense of how many guests you can afford to host. Sit down with your partner and draft a running list of people you know you want to invite, and ask both families for their must-invite lists as well. You can shorten this list as your planning evolves.
Knowing the general size of your wedding guest list helps you move on to other important steps in your planning, such as choosing a venue.
Shop For Wedding Attire
Yessica Cruz
Finding the perfect wedding dress is a process all its own. We recommend starting your search right after you pick your venue and complete the purchase nine months before the big day as this will give you enough time for fittings and alterations. Shopping for wedding party ensembles should begin about seven to eight months before the wedding date, whereas groom and groomsmen attire can be scheduled around the five month mark. Don’t forget that you will also need outfits for any pre-wedding events like brunches, showers, and rehearsals.
Plan Your Wedding Guest List Tactfully
As you begin to build your guest list, you’ll need to consider several factors. If you have a particular ceremony or reception site in mind, for instance, you’re going to be limited by how many people it can accommodate . Would you rather have quality one-on-one time with each guest or throw a once-in-a-lifetime party for all your friends and family? If mom and dad won’t budge about inviting throngs of friends and family, you’ll have to hear them outespecially if they’re footing a major part of the bill. Keep in mind that including more guests in your wedding plans means higher prices, as catering costs are generally calculated on a per-head basis. So, in addition to location, your budget will have a big influence on the size of your guest list.
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Wedding Planning Mistakes To Avoid
There is lots of information and advice on how to plan your perfect wedding day. But there is also some good advice on what not to do when planning your wedding. By knowing some of the major mistakes to avoid when planning you can feel relaxed and confident that your wedding day will be perfect!
10 Donts When Planning Your Wedding:
Sending Destination Wedding Invitations Too Late
According to destination wedding planner Sandy Malone, owner of Weddings in Vieques, destination weddings have entirely different timelines for invitations than weddings at home. “Because literally everybody has to travel to get to a destination wedding, you should send out save the dates and travel information as far out as 18 months prior to the big day. Formal invitations can be mailed at the one-year-out mark, and they should still have an RSVP date of eight weeks from the date you mail them.” Do not delay sending out your invitations or you’ll have trouble planning and budgeting for all of your various events at your wedding destination, she warns.
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Meet With Potential Florists
Much like hiring your other vendors, you want to be simpatico with your florist, as well. In order to do that, we suggest polling friends for recs, scrolling through Instagram inspo, and asking your planner/venue coordinator who they recommend in the area. It’s important that you find someone who is able to deliver on your vision and budget.
Is Wedding Planning Hard
Were not going to liedifferent aspects of planning a wedding can be hard for different people. Maybe you love decor but find creating a guest list nearly impossible. Or perhaps you love charts and numbers but find Pinterest completely bewildering. Fortunately, once youve hired your vendors, youll have a team of people to assist youand you can also delegate tasks to your partner, family members, or friends. If youre feeling completely overwhelmed and finding all of wedding planning too much, it may be time to hire a wedding planner, if you havent already.
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The One Fab Day Wedding Checklist And Planning Timeline
The list is a basic timeline based on a 12 month engagement and planning time, running through the typical timeframes for researching and booking different elements. Although each wedding is different – we’ve shown brides who have organised their whole wedding in just 10 weeks, others take two years – this planning checklist has general guidelines that will be helpful to every couple. You can also get our three-month planning guide here.
Read through our handy guide, then download your own free printable at the bottom of the page, highlight which ones apply to you, your other half and your wedding, and can tick off the tasks as you go .
Photo by Sarah Folega via One Fab Day
Weeks Out From Your Wedding
- Practice walking around in your wedding shoes, as needed
- Communicate any critical information about your rehearsal dinner or wedding to any VIP guests like your wedding party and immediate family
- Put your final dress fitting on the calendar
- Order or make wedding programs
- Confirm and adjust any rental orders youve placed
- Meet with your wedding stage manager or day-of coordinator and walk through all the details for your wedding day
- Pick up your marriage license
- If you want a wedding hashtag, make one up!
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Select The Bridesmaids’ Dresses And Schedule Fittings Within The Month
After browsing Brides.com for initial research, ask your bridesmaids to come shopping with you IRLif they live close by. It will be helpful for you to see them in the dresses, and you could even ask how they feel in the options you’re considering. With that said, we’re all about the trend of selecting a color palettelike yellow, grey, burgundy, or whiteand letting your girls choose what theywant to wear. Even better, check out our guide to perfectly pulling off mismatched dresses.
If Your Wedding Is Three Months Away
You have exactly ten minutes to not think about your weddingJUST KIDDING! If youre planning your big day with a somewhat abbreviated timeline, you may not want to wait too long before starting to plan. But know that you could probably plan your wedding in a week if you wanted to. Take a couple of days to get your bearings and then jump into wedding planning .
Kim Forrest
Kim Forrest has been writing about weddings for over a decade, specializing in etiquette and… planning advice. Kim writes and edits much of the content youll read on WeddingWire, and also manages our team of freelance writers. Kims love of the wedding space first blossomed when she was an assistant editor at Washingtonian magazine in the mid-2000s . She became WeddingWires first full-time editor in 2012. Kim is originally from Long Island, New York and currently lives in Bethesda, Maryland with her husband and two children. She loves baking, yoga, ballet, theater, trying out the latest skincare fads, and listening to podcasts on a variety of random topics.
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How Long Does It Take To Plan A Wedding
No amount of time couples spend planning their wedding is truly the same. Some elope after just a few weeks of preparing, while other couples spend years getting their big day just right. But, on average, how long does it really take to plan a wedding? Experts say about one year.
I would say the general consensus is one year in advance is enough time to plan your standard, local wedding,” says award-winning planner Nicole-Natassha Goulding. This timeframe gives couples an ample window to book a venue, hire necessary vendors, find a wedding dress, and more.
Meet the Expert
Nicole-Natassha Goulding is the owner of luxury wedding planning service Chic by Nicole. She has been planning weddings in Montreal since 2015 and has won multiple awards for her events.
Ahead, Goulding outlines when couples should start wedding planning, how much time to allot for major to-dos, and what to consider if you’re planning a destination eventall so you can say “I do” a year after you said “yes!”
Set Your Wedding Date:
The reason we recommend waiting to set your wedding date until after choosing your wedding venue is because it leaves more options open. If you see a space you love, you will likely find it easier to consider all of their open dates in a month or season rather than having your heart set on one particular date. While setting your date, keep travel, holidays , and weather patterns in mind. Once you have a date, you can start announcing it, particularly to your wedding party and additional wedding vendors.
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I Want To Do It All Diy
A wedding is usually a huge event with up to several hundred guests. Do not underestimate the planning and hard work that goes into planning a wedding.
It may seem simple when you are pinning ideas to your inspiration board, but writing out custom signs, doing custom projects for decoration, and being a bride is hard to handle alone. We recommend hiring a wedding planner to help with bringing your DIY dreams to reality!
Take Advantage Of Modern Software Tools And Cloud Computing
Try getting a Dropbox account , which is an online folder stored in the cloud, meaning you and your partner will be able to access it from any computer or mobile device. You can also download a copy of the folder onto your desktop so youll have the files saved to your computer too which will be automatically kept in sync when changes are made or documents are added. Once it is set up you can use it to quickly save and store anything useful you come across on the web, such as these essential eventjuice wedding planning guides!
Set up a dedicated wedding folder in your email account too and you can use this to save all the important emails relating to the wedding, especially things like quotes and confirmations from suppliers.
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Select The Groomsmen’s Attire And Schedule Fittings Within The Month
Do you want the groom and his guys to be matchy-matchy? How can you ensure the entire entourage gets fitted on time if they live all over the place? What else could go wrong? Breathe. Youve got this, and dont be afraid to get the groom involved. He may be able to easily pull rank and get his men in linea very neat, orderly, and well-dressed one, at that.
What Do You Need To Know Before Planning A Wedding
The answers to these four questions are a good starting point as you figure out how to plan a wedding. Once youve discussed these questions with your partner, you can move forward with other wedding-planning steps:
- Around how much do we have to spend on a wedding?
- Where do we want to get married?
- When do we want to get married?
- Do we want a big or small wedding?
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Where To Start Planning Your Big Day
First of all, congratulations! If you havent started basking in the glow of being engaged yet, we highly recommend it. And while friends and family members will definitely want to know all the details and plans , dont be afraid to tell them youre just enjoying this special time together for now. Things may seem overwhelming at first because there are lots of things to consider. Like how long to be engaged before getting married, and how long does it take to plan a wedding. However, when you feel like your ready to start making wedding plans, allow us to help you figure things out! Now the question is, where to start?
Pick Invitations And Save The Dates
Erich McVey Event Planning by Paper Diamonds Paper Products by Kartoe & Veronica Halim Calligraphy
Start planning your wedding stationary as soon as you know your wedding style and have confirmed the venue. Save-the-date cards typically go out nine months before the wedding date for a destination wedding and four to six months prior for local nuptials. Invitation suites follow at six to eight weeks before the big day. You should request that RSVPs be returned no later than one month before the celebration so there are no last-minute hiccups.
Juan Manuel Núñez Méndez Photography
Finding the right officiant to preside over your nuptials can be a deeply personal journey for couples. Whomever you choose will not only dictate the event but also usher you into your union, setting the tone for the rest of your lives together. If booking a clergy member or justice of the peace , it’s important to thoroughly do your research, obtain reviews or recommendations, and ask the right questions like if personalizations are allowed, how disruptions would be handled, and if they are involved in obtaining a marriage license.
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Create A Wedding Website
Setting up a wedding website is the easiest way to do keep your guests in the loop, and one of the most important steps to planning a wedding. Make sure to include all of the important information about your big day on your websitedate, location, travel information, room block details, and more. Nows also the time to create your wedding hashtag to use on social media leading up to your wedding day.
