Suppliers crazy busy for bookings?!

We booked everything within a couple of weeks of the venue, mainly because we had specific vendors we wanted but same as you, they are getting booked up die to all the cancellations. If you can do the deposits financially now then there is no harm in doing it, if you leave it the options will be a smaller pool so best to do now and a year in advance is not that far out to be honest

I thought that but got engaged in Sep now getting married April and all fine

The normal for peak dates has been 1 year in advance and for the bank holiday dates it can be up to 1.5 years in advance. Other off peak dates can be shorter notice.

But covid has skewed things and there is no normal yet as there is a backlog of all those people who would of got married in 2020 - 2021.

We booked our venue and photographer about 29 months in advance. The cake maker and registrar I booked January, so 20 months in advance. If they'll accept the booking and you're certain its who you want, do it. Don't risk missing out cos you're worried about the etiquette. We're booking our Honeymoon this week so we don't miss out on exactly what we want! (we get married on 21/10/23 and go away on the 23/10/23) xx

View quoted message Thank you! See for us it’s like 2 years in advance, but my venue was heavily booked up already and so is my photographer. It just made me worry things are busier than normal!

View quoted message Yep definitely seeing the back log! Thank you!

View quoted message Thank you! I worried I was booking things too early at one point but the venue was 100% what we wanted and seemingly very busy! I think I’ll just have to keep playing it by ear with other suppliers xx

View quoted message Everyone is busier so I absolutely do not think it is an issue to book in earlier to get who you want, also I found it less stressful knowing things were booked and I had lots of time to do all the little bits x

We have booked everything except for a photo booth which we are still deciding on and we don't get married until August 2023. I'm an organised person and like to have things booked so I don't stress. Book what you can afford when you can afford it 😊 and do what feels right for you even if that means booking everything well in advance to make you feel better! X

It must depend on location. We're getting married in March 2023 and everyone we've spoken to has been available. We were doing it 'off-season' for that very reason. Many of the vendors got our date wrong and assumed we were getting married in two months and were available, so it seems that at least in London the wedding industry hasn't recovered too well just yet.

It may be location or venue type specific.


We went venue hunting in January for a mid-week July 2023 wedding across North Wales/Cheshire/Shropshire/Staffordshire area. One venue had 2 Tuesdays left, another had about half the weekdays left, and then two others had most of the weekdays still available, apart from a couple of Fridays. There were other venues we didn’t enquire about availability that much, as we didn’t fancy them in the end, but broadly most could do what we want except that one with only 2x Tuesdays left.
We’ve now booked our preferred venue, caterers, registrar and photographers all as our first choice, on our preferred date & time though.

I've had to have an absolute flurry of decision making for this reason! Wedding is in July 2023, thought I'd be able to leave most things until this summer (booked the venue first week of Jan) but when I started phoning around a few suppliers just to get an idea of rough quotes for the kinds of things we thought we might want, a substantial majority of them said that they'd really advise booking now because they've been booking up a 18months to 2 years in advance (and some were already booked!).

As an example, the florist we wound up going for had FOUR other phone calls booked in that week with people who were also interested in our date. She was actually really helpful, as she explained that a lot of this is due to COVID delays meaning many brides have been pushed into 2022 and 2023, but people who only got engaged more recently are also aiming for 2023 as this is a pretty standard engagement -> wedding turnaround time - so demand is far higher than supply for these years.

Our food and drinks are all part of our venue package, but the other crucial supplier that was booking up very fast was the photographer - so we've picked one and paid a small deposit. A good chunk of the bridal boutiques I've spoken to were recommending no later than a year in advance to order your dress too (so not quite so manic but still much earlier than I'd initially expected - I'm booked in for this weekend as a result of being in "wedding mode" though!).

I don't want this all to sound super scary, so the good news is that very few suppliers have required a hefty deposit and exact details - so, while I've needed to make some decisions on who I want to go for, the money doesn't need to be spent until much later. Going back to the florist, I decided on artificial flowers and so far I've booked a moongate arch, bouquets and buttonholes, but have told her I'm undecided about whether I want top table flowers or whether I'm going to do something else, she said that's absolutely fine to decide in a few months or so. I've picked my colour scheme and general wildflower vibe, as these details fed in to the price I was quoted but I can decide the exact details much later now it's booked. She's not requiring the deposit until a few months time, but our agreement is in writing so she is officially booked.

Hope that helps!

View quoted message This is really helpful thank you! You’re so right about the backlog, I didn’t think of it like that but still so many people are postponing from last year and so people recently engaged are pushed to book further out!
I booked my photographer not long after the venue, but only because the one I wanted only had a handful of dates left and luckily it included our date!
I may have to rethink waiting until next year for a florist, I’m worried I’ll be left with very little choice by then!x

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Glad it was helpful!

I'd definitely recommend phoning around a few florists after thinking about what you want and how much you want those things. With ours, because we really really wanted the moongate arch we needed to move quite fast - a lot of florists do multiple weddings in one day, but only have one type of each arch that you can affix the flowers to, so part of the need for speed depends on what you want from your florist too I think. It might be a similar situation with table decor flowers and the stands they use, but we're erring towards other decorations than flowers.

FYI it absolutely blew my mind how expensive florists are so definitely get a lot of quotes and think about how much you want what you want! This was a factor in why we went for artificial which are much cheaper (and also more able to withstand a potentially blustery beach!)

Our wedding is March 2023 and we booked all the important suppliers right after we booked the venue in May 2021.