Wedding Planning Timeline

It's a year until our wedding! 365 days and I'll be a Mrs. It's also my grandparents golden wedding anniversary, so congratulations Granny and Grampy!

Yes we get married on their 51st wedding anniversary, which we didn't know until we booked the wedding but I think it's really nice that we'll share our wedding anniversaries.

This kind of got me thinking about the wedding planning timelines and date booking conundrum people face. We booked ours once we found a venue and let their availability decide the date, but we did have a little bit of disappointment that we couldn't have it this year. Now we have started planning I really appreciate that we have a bit more time as it would have been much more stressful to plan a wedding in 6 months rather then nearly 2 years, but I kind of wanted it this year rather than waiting a whole 12 months more!

So what do you need to think about when booking a wedding date?

Special dates
We had a few dates we didn't want the wedding on (birthdays, anniversaries of deaths, valentines day) but no special date we really wanted it on. It may have been nice to have it on the anniversary of our first date, but that's in September and Tom is in car sales so booking 3 weeks off over September is not going to happen. Are there any special dates you would like to get married on?

Season
We both instantly agreed we wanted a spring or summer wedding, it's just our preference as we prefer warmer weather, so talk about what time of year you prefer. Bear in mind that a lot of venues charge more for the same wedding in July than in March, so look at the season you want to get married in but also how that choice will influence the cost of your wedding. We saved £1000 by booking a week earlier at the end of April rather than the start of May.

Venue
Like I said, we chose the venue then set the date depending on when they were available. So if you have a venue in mind which you love and have to have then go in with an open mind on dates. Also depending on the type of venue what season does it suit better? Are there other factors to think about like traffic on a weekend at peak tourist season in a scenic area?

Mundane things like work and time off
We got engaged in May last year, and Tom originally (like the day after we got engaged) said he wanted to get married in Spring this year. However once we started looking into it we realised this would put a bit of a strain on us both financially and time-wise. We were already into the financial year that we would be getting married in and I had already used up most of my leave so would struggle to get time off for the wedding and honeymoon, let alone time for planning it. With an almost 2 year engagement I can do most of it weekends and evenings and book the occasional day off when needed and not have to push myself to much. However say you have loads of annual leave left, or you have lots of free time then you might want to just go for it!

Money
Everyone will tell you how expensive planning a wedding is, and even if you are planning a budget one there is still going to be some financial outlay. Be realistic about how long you need to pay for this. If you have savings in the bank, or lots of credit which you are willing to use (I'm a credit phobe so not advocating this!), or someone is paying for the wedding for you, then you might be in more of a position to book a wedding date soon. I could have maybe planned a wedding in 6 months, but we couldn't have paid for it in that time unless we had a really budget wedding, and even then it would be tight so we decided to leave it a year longer. We wanted to pay for our wedding as we went, and had offers of help from family as well, so we wanted to leave ourselves breathing room to save and pay for things as we book them. For example we booked and paid for the venue last year, and we have recently booked the caterer and paid their deposit this month. Next up is dress and music and we are saving for those now.

Other commitments
I'm not 100% sure how this happened but we appear to be climbing 2 mountains, raising a target of £4000 each for charity and getting married in the next 365 days. Safe to say this influenced our date booking. Had we gotten engaged 2 years ago we might have been able to plan it in a shorter time as we weren't so busy then, so the benefit of a longer engagement is that we have more time (although I have a rough timeline that I am trying to stick to of what I want booked by when). Although a shorter engagement means you are married sooner and don't have to plan the wedding at all after that...

Relationship style
Not sure what to call it but your relationship style or temperament will have a big effect on how you want to do this, are you a couple who got engaged after 6 months or have you been waiting for that proposal for years? Are you a couple who does things spontaneously or are you both planners? Tom and I are quite laid back, our relationship isn't a dramatic whirlwind romance. Don't get me wrong we are romantic (occasionally) but really we are a team and work together to build our little life in a way that sets us up for a good future. We therefore didn't want to start getting into debt for our wedding, we also aren't in any rush. We will have been together 7 years when we get married. Although saying that Tom wouldn't have proposed if he had no intention of actually getting married, so once we were engaged we were both keen to start planning the wedding but in our own laid back, considered, we'll do it when we're ready style. I sometimes daydream about eloping to an island to get married barefoot on the beach...but that just doesn't seem us somehow.

You
Really this is down to you, are you the kind of people who can plan a wedding in 3 months? Are you organised and efficient? Or would you prefer longer to let yourself book things at your leisure and to have lots of time to think things over? Really think about how long you want to take to plan your wedding. Don't feel pressured to do it all in 6 months if you think it will stress you out just so you can get married this year, why not wait until next year and really enjoy it? Or vice versa, if you're sure you will be able to plan a wedding in a few months, and you have the funds available, then go for it!

Family
Not sure how to word this, but if you have old or sick family members you really want at your wedding then that might influence your decision on how soon to get married. Also if your family are difficult or maybe not so supportive of you getting married then you may not want to prolong the agony of dealing with it, or you might want to leave it a while so they have time to get used to the idea before the wedding...

The best quote I've heard is that a task expands to fill the time you have, so if you have 3 months it will take 3 months, if you have 3 years it will take 3 years...but as long as you are happy with the end result that's all that matters.

Don't forget to enter my easter giveaway over on the main blog, and have a lovely weekend :)

Now we will try to do...

Moany post last week (can you tell it was getting a bit much?) so positive post today! The ideas and tips we have been given that are really great and we will try to remember! I might do this as a semi regular post once we get a build up of good tips as it’s great to have somewhere to record them all and they are really handy. These are just general tips we have picked up not specific to our wedding so many of them may not actually get done they’re just really useful things to think about.

Saving Money

• Use the bouquets for flowers on the top table to save having more flowers.
• If you do a meal then a buffet later always do the evening buffet for less people than you think, don’t cater for the whole evening do otherwise it will cost a fortune – most people having eaten a 3 course meal earlier won’t want anything else.
• Free printable invites  
• Free printable place cards 
• Free printable signs.
• Pretty much free printables of any sort…cheap way to do a few personal touches

 Decoration and DIY’s

• Other options than a guest book – Polaroid photos, signing a canvas or photo, advice or joke cards. 
• DIY chalk board for the table plan or timetable, or a charity shop large mirror.
• Centrepieces – DIY discussions like growing pots of spring flowers, making candles, arranging our own flowers. 
• To make flowers float in water (Like in a bowl with some floating candles) put them on a little bubble wrap raft, just cut a hole in a small square of bubble wrap to poke the stalk through and make sure you can’t see it under the flower  – the most epic tip I have ever had! 
• Make favours something that guests take away from the table décor – like a candle holder or their name card holder. This way you don’t have to double up on work and can incorporate the favours into the décor. Trying to think of something to do as this is genius.
• Don’t stress about the décor too much, if people are snarky on the day about the napkins not matching the table cloths then you've invited the wrong people.

 Hair, beauty and dress

• Get some flat shoes for the evening (I actually thought about these before the main shoes for the daytime) even if you don’t end up wearing them it’s better to be able to change if needed. 
• Don’t take too many people dress shopping, 2 or 3 at the most otherwise it gets too confusing, and if you go to numerous shops have at least one person who has been to all of them with you so they have seen all the options. 

 Timing and organisation

• Make a wedding website with all the info on, to save you being asked the same question over and over. 
• Make it so people can RSVP via the website as well, nobody posts anything any more so it will encourage people to RSVP quicker. 
• Number the RSVP cards as someone will send one back without a name on. 
• Put all the suppliers, what they are supplying, the quantity (i.e. caterers - how many of each dish), where it needs to be set up at the venue and when, and their contact information on one sheet of paper. Give this to the staff at the venue, your bridesmaids, your maid of honour, ushers and best man, keep one in your room as well. Then everyone knows what is meant to be arriving when, from where and where it is meant to go so most little queries or problems can be resolved without people having to ask you. 
• Put someone in charge other than you or your fiancé on the day. Most likely your maid of honour or best man, or both. Meet with them before the day and run through what is happening when, where and with who so they can be in control of rounding people up for photos, asking people to move on to a different area, initiating speeches and generally being the person guests can ask for directions to the loos etc. 
• Don’t worry too much about entertaining your guests at all times, they will be happy to go to the bar or just chat between themselves before the music or after the ceremony for a little while, obviously hours of nothing to do and no music might be a bit dull but you don’t need to fill every minute of the day.
• Allow a few minutes after the ceremony for you and your husband to have some time to yourselves, just to have a glass of champagne or a quiet few minutes before starting the photos or going out to the drinks reception.
• Plan your wedding as if it is a week earlier. Don’t actually book things for a week before the date like flowers of course but aim to be done with the planning, have all the bills paid, finish DIY projects, have all the RSVPs and table plan completed etc a week before. You then have a week buffer for any last minute issues (late RSVPs, room changes, supplier queries etc) so they are hopefully all out of your system by the day. Also you have a week to spend time with your fiancé, family and friends to relax, unwind and get pampered ready for the day!
• Allow more time than you think you need for everything on the day! You don’t want things to be rushed or cut short. Getting ready will take longer if you want photographs taken, if you have to book the church or registrar for a certain amount of time then allow a little bit longer than you think it will take, photos might take longer if the weather or light isn’t great and you need to allow time to round up everyone who needs to be in the photos. Allow enough time for the food to be served and for a bit of time between courses.
• Allow a bit of time after the food before the evening celebrations for people to go touch up their make up, go to the loo, check in with the babysitter, park the car etc. Otherwise you will lose people for the first part of the evening and people might miss the first dance.

General genius ideas

• The bride and/or maid of honour can make a speech if they want to…undecided if I want to yet! 
• Emergency kits – have one or 2 bags made up with plasters, spare buttons, sewing kit, chalk (for dress smudges), spare makeup, deodorant, hairspray, hair accessories, pain killers and heartburn and indigestion tablets, any medication you take and anything else you can think of. Have one of these left out somewhere obvious in your room and one in the maid of honours room on the day so that it is all easy access and you don’t have to send someone rummaging through all your bags to find a hair grip or a paracetamol. 
• Get some nice umbrellas in case it rains, you can return them/sell them after if they aren’t used.
• Don’t worry about the drinks – people mostly don’t know the difference between expensive and cheap champagne and if people don’t drink wine they can get a drink at the bar.
• Simple is key – don’t make it unnecessarily complicated!
• Take some money with you on the day – sounds silly but a lot of people apparently forget to take their purse and you end up having to pay for your room on checkout or paying for breakfast etc if it’s not included! You can obviously leave it in the hotel room as it’s just in case really, you won’t need to buy any drinks at the bar!

What Next?

OK so we have the venue booked, what now?

Well we have to pay for it first which we will hopefully do by the end of this year, but I thought I’d get our rough plan after this in writing. We actually booked the photographer already, we were planning to look around a bit and book one early next year but we found one sooner than we thought we would.

This will probably change over the course of the year but this is the rough order we’re planning to do everything in:

Early 2014

Firstly we will sort catering – Start of 2014 we want to be going around the 4 caterers tasting food (looking forward to that!) and hopefully choosing one and getting a menu put together. We’ll look at adding a drinks package as well with the venue.

Spring 2014

Then we get onto the official ins and outs of the day, like paying the registrar and declaring our ‘intention to marry’ with our local council. In England you book the registrar in the area you are getting married to actually do the ceremony and you sign the register of that area, but you must also inform your local registrar where you live of your wedding date and the registrar who will be marrying you so they can record it there, you cannot do this longer than one year before your wedding date so we’ll do that spring next year.

Music and entertainment. We want music in the evening (undecided still on band or DJ but leaning toward DJ) and something for the ceremony, the venue also has an iPod system so between the ceremony and meal and also after hours (the amplified music has to stop at midnight) we can have background music, so we’ll need to get going on some playlists and get someone booked. We also like the idea of some entertainment in the day like games (We loved the duck race idea back here) so will be trying to come up with something and looking into options with the venue.

Summer 2014

We will get our invites printed and sent out around this point as I want to get the invites out with plenty of notice as we have to allocate the bedrooms ourselves before the venue will start taking payments from our guests for their rooms, so we need plenty of time to sort that out! We also won't be bothering with save the date cards or anything so we'll just get the invites out early. 

I’ll start shopping around for my dress, and dependent on the state of my bridesmaids (there are possible baby plans) we will start looking for dresses for them and the flower girls. I might choose the dresses so we can start planning flowers, accessories etc but have them on standby so we can get them nearer the time dependent on everyone’s size! We will start looking for suits for Tom and his best men (he has 2) and the ushers. I'm not overly keen on the rented morning suits, mostly because everyone around here gets them from the same place and they’re really old fashioned with cravats and cummerbunds etc so we might look into a nice tuxedo or suit but will shop around and see what Tom likes. We said he wants a cape, top hat and cane last time we discussed it so you can see how serious he is about it. This could all run on into autumn as there isn't any rush to get all this done in summer, I’d just like to make a start on it.

We will be getting to less than a year before the wedding so once we have the colour scheme and the dresses we'll look for the cake (more tasting – yay!). 

Autumn 2014

I’ll want to start looking at flowers, decorations, table settings and favours (He’s currently really into all the planning but I think Tom may lose interest once we start talking flowers and napkins so I’ll draft in the bridesmaids and mothers to help) and will hopefully be getting some RSVP’s from the invites so can start allocating the rooms out (I might give this to Tom to do if he’s not helping with the rest).

Winter 2014/15

In winter next year and over into 2015 we should be working on the extras and finishing touches, I want to have a dress either bought and having alterations or on order and be shopping for shoes, underwear, accessories, makeup etc. We will buy Toms ring (My Nanny left me her wedding ring when she died, so I won’t need to buy one), and book any hairdressers or beauticians. We should probably start looking at the order of the day and the details like the first dance song (seriously the hardest part to decide?!), who will do readings (so we can ask them and give them time to practice), the layout of the tables for the meal and the chairs for the ceremony, any extras we want to add like photo montages, canapés or activities for the guests.

Hopefully at this point our wedding party will also be working away on the hen and stag do’s :)

2015

Once we get into the start of 2015 we’ll be on the home stretch, we can then start on the seating chart, last minute logistics for people coming from further away and last dress and suit fittings for everyone. We’ll also have meetings with the venue, photographer, hairdressers, caterers etc to get everything finalised with them. We’ll also be doing any DIY stuff like centrepieces and decorations in the run up to the day. Luckily the venue has large tables and we only have 60 planned for the meal so we won’t need loads of table decorations.

I'm sure there are millions more things to add to this list, but that’s the kind of general idea of how we’ll progress. Really the gist is that we want to get the big and expensive stuff booked and paid for first before we start on all the little things. I want to try and DIY as much of the decoration as possible, like the centrepieces and table settings, because I enjoy that kind of thing and to save a bit of money, so the longer we have for this the better. We are hoping to have a beautiful day but not planning to go to over the top on having loads of extras and make more work for ourselves. Although there is still so much to do, and looking at this list I'm actually starting to appreciate having it booked in 2015 even though it wasn't our first choice!

We’re trying to keep the budget as low as possible, we've already allocated a huge chunk of it (more than half) for the venue and catering which is why we want to get that booked first so we can pay it off before we start on the rest. I’ll do a post on our budget at some point. We do have the offer of help from family, which we are immensely grateful for and will add to our initial budget. We are trying to allocate the money that we have from other people to specific things as it makes it easier to work out the budget. I really want to have as much paid off at the time of booking as possible as I'm such a credit phobic, so through autumn and winter this year we will be paying off the venue and saving up the catering money and hopefully can start next year with a good chunk of it paid. After this we will just keep saving throughout next year and be able to pay things off as we go.

Phew it's a lot to do but looking forward to getting my teeth into it, the hardest part at the moment is keeping myself reigned in as I keep trying to get ahead of myself and have been looking online for dresses already!