Just engaged, are we crazy to consider summer 2012?

Jenny_H_2

Thanks all, I'm finding that there are so many questions and I don't have answers to them all. Who am I going to ask to be my bridesmaids? Do I even want bridesmaids? What about my dress? and the venue? I looked at a few wedding magazines in Tesco this morning and the stuff on the covers seem so far removed from where i'm at. I'm not the type of bride who had planned her wedding right from being a little girl, and my fiance literally has no clue of what to do and hoped that I would sort it.

We also both work full time in jobs that don't usually offer the chance to have a proper lunch break, nevermind some downtime to think about planning. This is going to be fun! At least we have something approaching a budget now, that's the one thing we've got, I just need to work out how to allocate it to various things.

Jenny

bertie200

firstly congratulations!

my Daughter and her partner got engaged at the very end of September (roughly 6 weeks ago).

within the past 2 weeks the venue is booked and her dress ordered, make-up person, photographer, DJ and suit hire booked all for early June 2012 !

she just has the bridesmaids dresses to sort and the flowers and favours and invitations left to do.

this is for 50 people at ceremony, sit down meal for 50 and evening do for total of around 100.

so yes all perfectly possible!

good luck!

sugarwalsh

I suspect Roaxanne1 also served her guests a big can of spam too.

Megan

Idiophreak

We were engaged in September and married the following July - but we didn't do anything for the first 2 or 3 months anyway...Don't see you need much more than 6 months, as long as everywhere you want for venues is available and you're relatively well organised.

minerva_windsong

My sister got engaged in February 2008 and was married by that December - granted she had slightly longer than you do but it's definitely possible to organise a big do at a busy time of year with what seems like not much time. I come from quite a big family and my brother-in-law is one of seven kids (although his family are from New Zealand but around 30 of them all told made the effort to fly over for the wedding), so even with big numbers it's possible; I think there were about 100-120 people at the wedding.

The main thing I would say is get in there as quickly as possible with the ceremony/reception venue(s) as popular places will be booked up quickly, and with letting the people you want to be there know you're getting married especially if they've got to travel a long way. It may also be worth taking a look at websites like offbeatbride.com, rockmywedding.co.uk and rocknrollbride.com if the wedding magazines seem a bit offputting.

But otherwise, best of luck and congratulations on your engagement!

duchy

I've never understood why (apart from having to wait for a date for a specific venue) it takes two years to plan a wedding if you already have the money saved.

In your situation I'd sort of the venue/s and if that works everything else can be done in plenty of time. Try adding a day before or after bank holidays to use as "planning/shopping etc days" means you won't eat into honeymoon vacation time too.

I organized my own wedding with a sit down dinner for fifty in six weeks from the day I booked the venue to the wedding day so to me you have oodles of time

Dekazer

Only certain things are time bound. I reckon you have 3 key things to decide.

Style. The type of wedding you want will dictate every other decision you make. We actually took a long time to decide what type of wedding we wanted, but then everything fell into place easily. (E.g. what traditions, if any, do you like? What can you do without? Would you be using typical 'wedding' services, or could you get by with more generic stuff and off the peg clothes? Etc)

Budget. You know how you want to pay for your wedding (cash or credit) and therefore if you need any time to save up. I would really recommend doing some sums as soon as possible - you might well find this dictates when you marry.

Venue. You will need to book a registrar and a venue, and these may get booked up a long way in advance, depending on what day of the week you want, and what sort of venue you like. If you get the date booked soon, then you have plenty of time to sort out everything else, no problem

If your style, budget and venue are all feasible to do in the time you'll be grand! If you want a very elaborate, detail heavy wedding, or if you need time to save lots of money, or if you want a very popular Saturday at a very popular venue on an August Saturday, you might need to wait longer...

continualdiamond

Perfectly do-able...

My wedding was in Aug this year, we decided in Feb to get married as my parents were coming to visit from Australia. They'd told us Dec 2010 that they were coming over.

So we'd talked and talked and decided getting married when they were over was the perfect time. (I'm from Australia, have no family here).

First thing we did was find a venue, we looked at one place, but location wasn't good with parking. I had information come through the post for another venue, too expensive. Then I found a venue not far away and convinced husband to be at the time for us to take a drive out one day after work.

We fell in love with it and the people were lovely, gave us all the dates that were available for August and it was just a matter of making sure the registrar was available. We did get married on a Friday so that made photographer and make up lady instantly available, as soon as I mentioned Aug 11 wedding to them, they all said they were fully booked for the weekends.

I enjoyed doing it in a shorter space of time. For me it just made it more fun, if I found something I liked, I got it, no going from place/place umming/argghhing of if something else was better somewhere else.

Worked with my dress, only tried on the '1' and that was it, had it.

CupcakeLisa

my cousin got engaged in march this year and was married in august. her brother was emigrating so wanted him to see her married. they had 100 odd guests so it can be done.