Help - Booking dates - where to start?

Congratulations on your engagement Paige!

I am fairly new to this too and found it daunting lining up dates. I would suggest asking your church for a selection of dates they can do, and then view some venues and ask them about availability on these dates, then pick the best one that matches up.

We have recently booked our wedding for next April. It will be a civil ceremony but there was some anxiety as to whether a registrar would be available. I think having it on a Friday will massively work in your favour though!

Let us know how you get on and best of luck,

P

Personally I would suggest you book the date before you place any more deposits on suppliers like venue, photographer etc.

Most things will revolve completely around your date and in fact some venues won't even accept a booking until you've confirmed a ceremony date.

Have you got a particular venue in mind and worried it will go? Or are you planning to visit a few?

Thank you! Ahh thats amazing that's so soon! I bet you are really excited!!

It's so hard not being able to do anything for a few weeks - i'm normally a super organised person and I just want to get booking!! How far in advance did you do other things? Dress/Photographer/Cake etc? x

Yes definitely want to sort the church and venue before booking photographers etc - have a few venues in mind so I think we might try and see them so we can narrow those down a little bit - it's all very exciting haha!

Hi!

Just make sure you explore your options and when you find the right place you'll know, as everything will fall into place.

Good luck with your wedding ?

It's so exciting Paige. In a way I'm glad that we don't have too long to wait but on the other hand I'm enjoying every minute and don't want it to be over too soon!

Have you had any progress this weekend with the venue search?

I found my dress last weekend on visiting my fifth boutique. It's funny to look at my initial pins and how my preferences changed as I tried more on. Haven't yet booked the photographer but my H2B is in charge of that.. though need to give him a gently nudge. Like you, we are having a Friday wedding so hoping there will be some availability. I am browsing cakes right now... and get majorly hungry! x

We got married on a Saturday in July. We booked our church the January before - so 18 months - and there was already another wedding booked so we couldn't have our preferred date. So I would definitely recommend waiting until you have confirmed your date with the church before paying deposits anywhere else.

However I would still recommend looking at venues - you may struggle to find somewhere you like, so it's always worth looking. Our reception venue let us hold the date without paying a deposit until we had confirmed the church, so that might be an option.

We booked our venue for our June 2017 wedding in Feb this year, so about 15 months before, then we found photographer quite soon after that. Sorted the dress in June this year, & most other things are also booked now (separate caterer / videographer etc).

We're not having a church wedding so can't help on that one, but most venues I spoke to said we could reserve a date for up to a month whilst we put other things in place such as booking registrar etc. I don't think it would hurt to start looking at venues now - are you hoping to marry next year?

Good luck with it all & enjoy! xx

Hi Paige,

Congratulations on your engagement!

I would definitely book the church/set the date first before you put money down on anything else. I think most churches do more than one wedding a day so I would say there's still a good chance you would get the date you had in mind does your church have a website? Ours actually puts its diary online so you can see when other weddings are. I keep having a cheeky look at our date and so far, we're the only ones ?

As you mentioned you wanted to get married in September, you could approach a few reception venues and ask them what their availability is next year as you already have a month in mind.

We booked our church/reception in January so 18 months in advance and I've just finished booking photographer/cake/flowers etc. Only found my dress last month after about 6 visits to different bridal shops!And I thought that would be the easiest bit to decide on!