How long do you really need to plan a wedding?

• ladyartichoke
• 3 years ago

• Wedding: September 2018

favflamingo :  getting married in September. Decided to get married in December but we haven’t announced it to anyone other than family yet, waiting until at least March. If you have a specific wedding vision it’s probably harder. But I don’t really mind. My SIL and my Future Sister-In-Law who is marrying my brother in July can’t get their head around why I seem relaxed about it. I think the difference is that I’ve known Fiance for 9 years but neither of my brothers knew their partners for more than a few months – the vision is/was important to them.

• laura1206
• 3 years ago

We’ll be engaged for about 1.5 years by the time we have the wedding (due to needing the time to save) , but will only need a few months to plan really as we are “eloping” to Vegas so no guests, vendors etc to arrange. 

• jessiebear85
• 3 years ago

favflamingo :  under six months. I’ve seen plenty of people go from engaged to married in that time frame. My engagement will be 9.5 months. It comes around quickly. 

• dreamreve1
• 3 years ago

It really depends where you are and what kind of wedding you want. 

Our venue booked up 1.5 years in advance. I had to book my photographer a year in advance. I’m in a big city and details mattered to me so I needed to book vendors a year out. But the planning itself doesn’t take very long. We were engaged for a year but didn’t spend that entire year planning. 

• elliebee357
• 3 years ago

• Wedding: August 2017

We planned our wedding in 6 months and felt it was the perfect amount of time. It was enough time not to feel rushed and stressed out, but short enough to keep it simple and not get carried away with too many changes etc. It was also a decent amount of time to mentally and emotionally prepare for marriage – we did a six week (one eve per week) marriage course with a trusted life coach and we loved it.

We only had one “disappointment” in that we couldn’t get our first choice photographer but our second choice turned out even better – slightly more affordable and we absolutely loooove our photos. 

I should mention that our wedding was right at the end of the “off season” – a week later and we might have struggled a lot more to get our preferred vendors etc, so time of year will definitely play a role. 

Good luck! 

• 12_Elle
• 3 years ago

We planned it in 6 days so it can definitely be done. My day was absolutely perfect and I had everything I wanted, but we also only wanted immediate family at our wedding.

I think the only real limitation is how much notice your guests will require- are they flying for your wedding? And also whether you are willing to consider nontraditional venues and photographers, as they tend to book a year out. 

• bluecutie00
• 3 years ago

• Wedding: October 2017

favflamingo :  My parents planned a 200 person wedding that was out of state in 6 months. It can be done!

• eurasianbee
• 3 years ago

• Wedding: May 2018

I think the first few months (booking all the vendors) and the last few months (invitations, seating chart, final details) are the busiest times so even though my engagement is 1.5 years, I could have done it in under 6 easily.

However, vendors selection will probably be a lot tougher with a short engagement. Like if you find a date opening with your favorite venue you might have to use your forth choice for photographer to make it work. Good luck!

• ladybee135
• 3 years ago

• Wedding: May 2018 - Farm

favflamingo :  We are planning an 8 month wedding. We’ve been engaged for 3 years. We booked the venue this past September. Once we picked the venue and had a date we contacted all the vendors that we wanted and booked them as well. So we had all our vendors booked in September. Keep in mind we did a lot of research on various vendors and venues before setting the date in September. 

I pretty much had everything planned and layed out.  I already have a dress, accessories, veil and the bridemaids have their dresses and I have their accessories as well. We also have all the decor, officiant has given us a copy of the ceremony to go over.  We’ve already finalized the menu for catering, as I contacted them at the end of September for tasting and booking. We are in the process of finding the groom and groomsmen attire. The only thing we have to worry about right now is the groom and groomsmen attire, as everything else is done. We already booked our honeymoon and put a down payment on it.

• cjm18
• 3 years ago

• Wedding: September 2018

Wedding planning can be as long or as short as you want it to be.  If you go with a longer engagement you have more time to pay for things, open availability of vendors, and generally less stress, but you could get more elaborate with your plans or change your mind a million times.  If you go with a short engagement you could keep things simpler, just know that you can’t be as picky with vendors and a lot will be going on in a short amount of time.  Whatever suits you!

• mrsjoseph
• 3 years ago

• Wedding: October 2020 - New York, New York

I think this really depends on what your budget is, where you’re getting married, and whether your venue is all-inclusive. If you have a tight budget, wedding planning is going to take much longer because you need to find the best deals and shopping around takes time. Also, if you’re getting married in your small hometown, wedding planning will probably be quick and easy, but a destination wedding would be a ton of work. Plus, if you’re a DIY bride, you might need a longer engagement to pull off your DIY projects, but planning would be easy at an all-inclusive venue because they typically take care of most of the things that you need (alcohol and dinner, the place cards, linens and chairs/tables, the cake, etc.)

For me, I’m on a tight budget, we’re getting married in Mr. Joseph’s hometown, which is one of the most expensive places to get married in the U.S., and I really didn’t want an all-inclusive venue (seems too much like a wedding factory to me). Plus, we’re both in grad school so we don’t have a lot of free time. Based on all of these things, we chose a 2-year engagement so we would have plenty of time to plan. If we had more money or more time, we could do the wedding planning in less time.

• pinkbubbles18
• 3 years ago

• Wedding: January 2019

We got engaged in August and we’re getting married next January. We’ve decided to take it slow to help pay everything off. We’ve got our venue, and photographer booked so far! 

• socalgirl1689
• 3 years ago

favflamingo :  Not me but I think the shortest engagement I know of is the daughter of a family friend. Groom is in the military that’s why they needed to rush. It took them to plan 2 weeks from engagement date to wedding day. But then again it was a courthouse wedding during a weekday. The only thing they needed to take care of were the marriage license, rings, a buttoneire and bouquet, a small round cake and their outfits. Her dress was nothing bridal. It was a regular floral sundress and he was wearing a regular suit and tie. Also, they just made dinner reservations At a simple restaurant. No decorations what so ever. We were invited and there was a total of about 15 guests. It actually felt very intimate and nice. I believe they plan to do a second ceremony in front of more family and friends later on with more of the traditional wedding/reception customs. 

• cyan
• 3 years ago

• Wedding: Backyard

We did ours in 8 months (we were also house hunting and bought a new house in that same time period). It was completely doable for us, but we were fairly flexible about most of the details.

• almax
• 3 years ago

I think it depends what month of the year you want to get married.. some months book up faster than others and so it’s harder to plan something quickly. For me, it’s 7 months. Venue is booked, but that’s it.. it took about a month to email everyone in the city and a couple neighbouring cities. Most places were already booked or totally out of our price range.