Planning a wedding as a teacher

Hi! Newly engaged too (Nov) and also a teacher. We are mainly considering school holidays because we wanted our honeymoon straight after but have also considered any weekend to allow for more flexibility with venues and suppliers.

I think we will still aim for holidays though to allow for less stress and time together after the wedding and final planning and pulling together etc before. I don't want to be worrying about last minute wedding things whilst still planning and delivering lessons the week before!

Good luck with whatever you choose though! Enjoy planning!

I’m a teacher. I’ve always intended to get married during October half term because it means I don’t have to worry about school straight away afterwards. We’re doing it on the Monday so I have the weekend to sort stuff out (life related, not wedding related) and then we have the rest of the week to recover and relax before school starts again.

I always wanted a wedding that wasn’t in the summer holidays because the price is more reasonable. I also wanted October because it fell in a month where my fiancé and I don’t have anything else (e.g. birthdays) and I like the idea of spreading birthdays, anniversary and Christmas through the year. Is this a consideration you could make?

In terms of the limited venue options - I guess you have to consider whether the date or the venue is more important to you. I was lucky to get engaged in April this year and so the two venues I had to choose from were both free on my date. However, if one venue wasn’t available on our date, it would have meant that I didn’t have to choose between them. My date was very important to me, whereas the venues were both nice enough that I wouldn’t have minded either way.

I’m a teacher and choosing the right time of year was so important to me. I didn’t want it to be any of the autumn/winter term-time because for me personally, I’ve always found it the most stressful and tiring time for work without the added stress of a wedding! I think it depends what are your non-negotiables, for me, I really wanted a Saturday, as a teacher I’ve found it so frustrating being invited to weekday weddings that you need to take time off for.


So I was ideally looking for a Saturday date in the Easter or May 2022 but they had already been booked when we were looking last summer! So we are booked for Saturday 16th of July 2022, which for my school is only one more week left of term until the summer holidays so everything is winding down! Not totally ideal, but it was my dream venue and so that was the compromise. I’ll just have to get really organised in the run-up
Best of luck with your hunting!

Hey - fellow teacher here! We got engaged in October 2020 and have booked for the Easter holidays in 2022. We are having it on the middle weekend of the holidays, so we have a week before to prepare (we have a no corkage venue so sorting everything out ourselves) and then some time after to go on a mini moon. We plan on going on our honeymoon during the summer holidays so we can be away for longer and spread out the fun, otherwise we feel it will be over and done with very quickly and I’m dreading the post-wedding blues already!


For me, it was really important to have some time prior to the wedding to sort things out. I also didn’t like the idea of marrying on the Saturday and marking books again on the Monday! But everyone is different.
In terms of marrying out of term time, you could get away with it if it’s pre-booked prior to applying/accepting your NQT post as it’s a pre-booked event. Most schools won’t see this as a barrier but it would most likely be unpaid leave. Having said that, you’re an NQT and too much time out of the classroom could impact your assessments etc. so just consider this. My advice would be, where possible, try and book for in the holidays so you don’t have to worry. Balancing NQT year with wedding planning will already be a lot so leave yourself enough emotional bandwidth to cope with it all.
I’m SLT and an NQT coordinator so any advice please do shout X

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Thanks so much for taking the time to reply! Do you mind me asking if you're primary or secondary?

After the replies from all of you lovely people and a good think, we're going to aim for October 2022 half term. We really like the idea of a barn wedding where we can put our own stamp on a lot of things and trying to do that in term time seems overly ambitious.

Honeymoon wise we're not fussed on going straight away, it's actually the area we're most nonchalant about. With everything so up in the air at the moment with covid and my training 2021 isn't the best fit for us. Add on that my fiance is an ITU doctor so he is (understandably) not in the best frame of mind for planning when he is at home at the moment. If all does sort itself out come spring 2021, I'll have plenty of planning and DIY time!