Date vs Saving up

I was between April 2024 and April 2025 for similar reasons, although picked 2025 in the end because we'll be together 10 years then on the day we get married! Although, budget and saving did also come into it, we properly sat down, done out a spreadsheet of everything we wanted and roughly how much it would cost by doing some quick Googles of suppliers and their costs, and then worked out how much we could realistically save. Although worth keeping in mind, you do spend a lot of money well before the big day, we have depoist on venue already paid out, and deposits for photography, videographer, and band all coming in the new year!
Also worth remembering, Saturday's can be more expensive, our venue required minimum 120 people on a Saturday, that was another reason we went for 2025, we'll be getting married on a Sunday.
All comes down to your budget and how much you can put away each month! Sitting down with a spreadsheet in the beginning can help you and your partner realise what things are must haves and what others you can do without to help save on costs

Just to add to Kathryn's comment, the flipside of Saturday vs Sunday is that Saturdays - while often cheaper for you - are generally seen as more considerate to your guests. If guests are travelling, a Saturday wedding means they have Sunday to travel home without taking annual leave. Even for local guests, a Saturday wedding means they have Sunday to recover and recharge before work on Monday.

For us, because the majority of my guests aren't local and we know our crowd can run out of annual leave easily, a Saturday was an absolute must when picking our date - we opted for the more expensive Saturday and the smaller guest number package to even out the costs because I'd rather less guests have a stress free time than more guests who are slightly grumpy they had to take AL for my wedding

Remember that while a wedding is a huge expense, a wedding is for you. Your guests are attending for you, and being a guest is expensive - gifts, outfits, annual leave, accommodation, taxis.. that's all money they've worked hard for and are spending because they care about you. If you can afford the Saturday, I think it's well worth it.

I’m booked for October 2024, and I’m not in a rush but it does seem ages away still. Your only having 50 people, so that’s on the small side. What I would suggest is actually having a look at venues first, gathering quotes and prices. This will give you more of an idea. We’re getting married at a hotel, we’ve got a 3 course dinner with drinks and an evening buffet. That’s the biggest expenditure for our wedding so has given us some idea. What type of wedding are you looking for? I am leaning more towards 2024 because I do think 2025 could be too long. None of us have loads of money given the current climate so will it all be savings or some on credit card? Xx

View quoted message It will probably end up being a mixture of payment methods to be honest, just down to what makes us able to afford everything. If it were up to me and me alone we would be “eloping” with his immediate family and a close friend or two each and that would be it, I’d always wanted to elope, but I’m not the best socially and don’t speak to my family, whereas my partner is the opposite. The main issue as well is our best friend (who’ve we jokingly bickered over who’s side she’ll be stood on at the wedding) is moving to the states with her fiancé in the next year and she can’t then leave for a year after they’ve married, so we’d chosen a date that’s further away in hopes she’d be able to come over and that my family in the states would have time to save for it as well, but 3 years just feels like a long time to wait, especially when I’d spent years thinking I was essentially just going to go on holiday and come back married. As far as aesthetic I’m looking for a more moody dark energy, I’ve found a couple smaller venues in Scotland I like that I’ve requested Information from that look like they match what I’m looking for. We’ve had a couple hits recently with our car being vandalised, and then both our tv and his Xbox breaking today 🤦🏼‍♀️ So I’m trying to argue the corner of a smaller more informal wedding in like November 2023/24 and then maybe doing something bigger in a couple years time if we still want to or a intimate thing in the states with our friend and my family as part of our honeymoon. But I don’t actively have anyone but my partner to talk all this out with atm which is why I feel like I’m doing cartwheels trying to work everything out x

View quoted message November 2024 seems more than reasonable, plus it’s out of “season” so will be cheaper. However, prices are continuously going up at this rate. Ours is a mixture of payment methods too. It is difficult, but on the flip side in a couple of years time you might have other problems, you may be better or worse off! Go with your gut, but whatever you do have the wedding that you both want. Plus there are plenty of compromises that can be made over different aspects of the wedding.

Firstly, congratulations! It is so exciting ad all you want to do is get planning and set your date ASAP, but from experience, i would say to take your time and really thig about what you want. There are things we booked fairly quickly but as we went through the process, we kind of wished we had waited or at least researched a bit better and been a bit more pragmatic in our decision making as there are so many factors such as location, logistics for your guests etc

I think you are best to enquire and get idea of costs in first and go from there. Remember a lot of places and suppliers will require a deposit now and then full payment around 3 months before the date and a lot won't take credit cards so bear in mind you will need to have the cash available. Once you have an idea of the costs for each element put it in a spreadsheet with the due date. You can then calculate how much you will need to save each month to have the money available, and if that is doable for 2024, or if you need to push out to 2025. As Crystal says a lot can change in 2-3 years so make sure you are not overstretching financially. Wishing you all the best, just take your time and plan what you want

My advice would be to go for the earliest date possible, but I'm possibly slightly biased because we moved our date from February 2020 to June 2020 so that one of my overseas friends could come...and then of course, Covid meant cancelling our original date and she still wasn't able to attend our rescheduled date. Plus, in the meantime, my OHs father had died.

Bottom line is, you never know what the future is going to throw at you. So if you are more concerned with having a celebration with close family & friends than a big extravaganza, as long as you can afford the earlier date without going into debt, then I'd go early.

Congratulations!!! I think go with what you can afford and bare in mind that Saturdays are a lot more expensive than Sundays. I would get quotes from different venues and see what works for your budget best! X

I was also deciding between 2024 and 2025. I looked at some different venues (some expensive and some more reasonable) and decided that I would rather have a less expensive wedding at one of the cheaper venues I looked at (still beautiful, though!) than wait another year so booked for 2024