Wedding planning can be one of the most exciting yet stressful times of your life. You’re excited to marry your favorite person, but if you have never planned a wedding before, it can get overwhelming pretty quickly. Where do you start? With decades of experience in the wedding industry, Complete Weddings + Events has created a timeline of when to start booking things.
When to Book Wedding DJ
As a company that initially started out with just the DJ service, we definitely recommend booking your wedding DJ at least nine to ten months out from your wedding day. DJs can make or break your wedding reception, so selecting the professionals can be highly sought-after. Beyond playing music, DJs host the evening festivities to take the stress away from you, ensuring you can enjoy the party!
When to Book Wedding Photographer & Videographer
One of the first services you want to book is your wedding photographer, then your videographer. They tend to be some of the most sought services when it comes to weddings. For that reason, you want to make sure you book them at least a year in advance.
Odds are, if you have a specific photographer in mind and you’re two months from your wedding date, they are most likely booked. Do yourself a favor and book them well in advance so it’s one less thing to check off your to-do list.
When To Order & Send Invites
Your guests’ location is the most important thing to keep in mind when mailing your wedding invitations and save the dates. Two to three months out is a safe bet for sending invites, if your guests live in the same country. Save the dates are best to send six months out for these guests as well.
Now, it’s much different if your guests live internationally. You want to send save the dates to international guests as soon as you know your wedding date. Yes, that means a year or more in advance. This would give your guests plenty of time to save up money and look for plane tickets.
That goes along with invitations. If you have international guests, your timeline speeds up. You’ll also want to send those six months out. This gives plenty of time for them to receive the invite in the mail and for you to receive their RSVP back if you’re not doing online RSVPs.
When to Buy Your Wedding Dress
The dress. This is one of the topmost important parts of the wedding day that you’ll absolutely need. No matter what type of dress style you’re going for, you’ll want to buy a wedding dress ahead of time. If you have the privilege of being engaged more than a year from your wedding date, start researching what kind of style you’d like. Then go ahead and book appointments for the first fittings. Once you’ve decided, you want to actually buy the dress at least a year ahead of your wedding.
With lots of variables of what could keep your dress from arriving on time, including the pandemic, this will give you plenty of time. Once the dress arrives, you’ll also have to make time for alterations (possibly multiple rounds) if need be. To avoid the stress of rush orders, ahead of time is the name of the game!
When to Reserve a Hotel Block
It’s a good idea to ask the manager for suggestions on nearby hotels when touring and booking your wedding venue (unless your venue is a hotel). You’d want to reserve your hotel block right after reserving your wedding venue or at least one year before the big day.
This twelve-month guideline is especially true if your venue is in a popular location or a part of the town that draws in tourists. You may have more flexibility and availability with nearby lodging otherwise. However, you’ll still want the hotel block booked at least seven months ahead of time to be able to share the information with your save the dates and wedding website.
Complete Weddings + Events Detroit, Michigan
Complete Weddings + Events offers multiple services to make it easy to reserve your wedding date for the vendors you still need! Contact Complete for availability on needs for your wedding day! Complete Weddings + Events photo booth, photography, videography, coordination, lighting, or DJ services, and contact us to get started!