to think planning a wedding is doable in 18 months from scratch?

[kiwicatastrophe]

Please don't flame. We haven't planned or decided or thought of a single thing and it's feeling a bit overwhelming. We have Dc2 due in may and I don't want that to be anymore stressful than it will be (lots of other things going on). Anyone that's congratulated us on our engagement has made a huge point of how if we don't book soon they will all be booked up and they all when we say we don't know where we are having it. The thought of thinking of any of it after what people have been saying is making me feel like I've got no idea what I'm doing. It's like our whole families have gone bridezilla asking constantly if so and so can be bridesmaid ect and I just want to scream leave me alone we don't know what we're doing. I know they are all just excited and not trying to be rude at all but am I right in thinking it's just not doable. should we postpone another year or two?

My DSisIL got engaged last Christmas Eve, (it was a complete surprise - so much so that she was still shaking sitting in her Mum's kitchen 3 hours later!! A good surprise, but still a shock!). Their wedding is next June, so almost exactly 18 months. They booked the hotel first, relatively quickly but it still took a couple of months to check out all the local ones and make decisions. She just gets on with bits and pieces for a few weeks and then lets life take over again too. All pretty much organized at this stage except BM and FG dresses (we don't care what DD wears, if SIL can persuade her not to wear a tracksuit, we're happy, but other SIL is very fussy about what her 2 DDs wear and all have to match - BMs it's more a case of SIL and her 2 BMs agreeing, as the FG will be cream dresses with a ribbon sash to match BM colours - so the 2 searches are separate). And of course, MIL still has to get her outfit (and so do I come to think of it! Post Christmas sales were great for the last wedding we had).

One of my DSis's got engaged in July, also a surprise. She is organizing for Sept next year in Rome and has already bought her dress and working away on bits. BM and MoHonor have to agree dresses yet (I have to meet BM - not a clue what I want let alone how to work with her as we are completely different styles), but she has got her own dress. I think DSis has been persuaded (by the various parents involved) to go pretty much no DCs (except stbBIL's DNephew as ringbearer), but she's torn on that and doesn't want to exclude them (we are all more thinking of the reality of bringing them to Rome in school time for 3-4 days, and entertaining them in a hotel and not the most child-friendly city, not trying to exclude them but being realistic). Rome was only decided 10 days ago, so it's basically going to be all done within 10 months.

Lots of stuff is lovely but optional. The things that are important are Bride, Groom, celebrant and 2 witnesses. After that, having your friends and family is nice, and maybe a bit of music (but local music school may have groups, church may have a choir/organist/soloist etc or your iPod can have a playlist on it). A bit of grub doesn't go astray. The wedding party (B, G, BM, BM, etc) can be fussy and formal or relaxed and quite casual - depending on what YOU like. A handful of flowers, or huge bouquet - you could organize those the week before. Sitting down to think of some nice things to say does take time admittedly, especially if you are not used to it. All the rest are extras - which are lovely, but you don't have to have them.

So first of all, you and your Fiancé need to sit down and decide what you both want. Not what others want - you 2. What type of ceremony, and what kind of party afterwards, and how formal you want to be (both in outfits and the day itself). Then work backwords from what takes longest to do, and just do lists of what you would like and ideas of how to achieve it. And start slowly looking and ticking off those items one by one - you eat the elephant best by taking one bite at a time!!

bollocks you need to book now! honestly, unless you want something like easter weekend or Summer bank holiday weekend, you won't need to book 2 years in advance.

Work needed to be done - pick what size of wedding you want (make a list of guests for a starting point), work out what you can afford, go visit a few venues if you want a civil wedding (you can get a list from your local council of places liecenced for weddings), or talk to the vicar of the church you'd like to use, then look at reception venues nearby. This should be a couple of weekend's work. I would recommend you do that now to avoid hard work family going on and on about it.

Then you can tell family "oh, we've booked the church/hotel and set a date, but beyond that I'm not thinking about details this far in advance! I'll still have a whole year after the baby arrives, I'd rather focus on the baby."

We organised ours in about 3 months because we had to co-incide with my DH's best friend coming over from Australia to be best man. We were very flexible. We didn't want a big wedding, and were not fussy about what we wanted. If we'd had a particular popular venue in mind, or something like that then I suppose it could have been fully booked. We had our wedding in a barn, a meal for about 20 at the attached pub and then bbq for about 100ish people afterwards.

DH proposed one Xmas night and we were married in the April following

4 months to organise.

Country house venue. Big white dress. Matching rings. Made to order cake. Bridesmaids. Very posh. 25 guests. Flew to Italy morning after.

Definitely doable.

YANBU OP. Give yourself at least three years so you can really milk it and annoy people even more than necessary. Make sure you constantly update your Facebook status with titbits about how hard writing invites is, how awful table planning is etc. Agonise over every detail and make people question why they're even still friends with you. Don't forget to ask people to pay for your honeymoon after declaring you've spent £3,000 on a dress and now can't afford the business class flights you wanted. And no, you can't afford any children at your wedding either.

ENJOY.

18 months is loads of time.

Did mine no problem is less than 10 months

Oops I meant YABU!

SIL got her dress as the sample dress in a shop (they were taking it out in 3 weeks anyway and fitted her perfectly). DSis got her dress in a charity shop (mostly samples, and almost all were new and not worn to a wedding before, although a couple were samples) - Barnardos in Ireland has 2 stores specializing in wedding dresses, and I think Oxfam do it too. And there are some lovely shops like Coast and Monsoon who do dresses that are lovely for Brides if a little less formal - but still beautiful wedding dresses.

If anyone in the family has a nice car, ask them can it be used, just get it valeted beforehand and tie on some ribbon.

Your first choice option for some things may be booked up, but there will almost always be some way to do everything you want to. Think outside the box.

And have fun!!

Easily. It's not that hard. It's as hard as you make it.

Mind you, if you want to postpone it till the coming baby is 1 or 2 then do that.

Take no notice of family. We did a hurried wedding because we were just very excited once he'd proposed. We'd already lived together 4 years.

I disagree with some posters saying you don't need to book too far in advance. When we found the venue we wanted in spring 2007 they only had 2 dates left for the whole of 2008! So yes we booked our venue 18 months before the actual day. The rest was easy to organise, but just be prepared that you might need to wait if you are set on a particular venue.

Booked and married in 16ish weeks here registry office not a church but small family do and a reception in the evening with about 200 people of course you can do it,

We did ours in 9 months. We chose venue first and they drove the date based on availability. Then photographer and band. The rest we did over time. Also, most of the stuff we chose ourselves and only delegated the things which were less important to us or which someone else would do better with, eg flowers and cake.

It really is as complicated as you want to make it. I'm pretty organised and just created a list of things to work through and every now and then would have a session doing stuff.

I think it depends when you want to get married we were March so not many weddings happening iyswim.

We planned ours in six weeks. We were engaged but I fell pregnant with DS - the only thing we didn't have our original plan for was the invitations...they had to be sent out ASAP so I bought a load from Smiths.

We were engaged for 10 months. Got married on a May Bank Holiday Saturday, in London.
They key things to fix are the venue (and catering if it doesn't come as a package) and photographer - they will be booked up the furthest in advance.
I'd suggest you organise what you can now, just as once your DC2 arrives I think it will be much harder to dedicate the time to organising it!

Thank you for all of the responses. quite mixed in a very helpful way and the advice is much appreciated as I really don't have a clue. It has to be in the summer holidays. Not sure if that affects thing being booked earlier? I've seen a church I would love but that's about it. This is a very stressful year for us both and next year when Dc2 arrives I really want to enjoy it. I know with dc1 it took around 6 months to loose the weight so I don't really want to be looking at dresses ect until I am nearer the size I will be (I go from slim to whopping huge and then fairly slowly back to very slim again). I think the stress of everything is just getting to me. I don't want anything huge. Intimate is what we would both prefer but we both have huge and persistent (not in an unbearable way) families that all get on really well and I know would be so disappointed if they weren't a part of it.

Depends how particular you are about a venue and your dress. They are usually the things that need to be done way in advance.

We sorted everything in 12 months, we got married in church on a Saturday in June which is a popular time for weddings.

We couldn't book the church or reception more than 12 months in advance. I did everything at once, booked the reception, church, photographer, car, cake and got my dress. I made my own invitations and sent them out a few months before the wedding. A couple of months before the wedding I sorted the flowers and bought the bridesmaids dresses. The only panic we had was for the cake as the original cake fell through and most places want you to book the cake 6 months in advance but I managed to sort it with a few weeks to go.

Weddings aren't that hard to sort unless you have hundreds of guests or do everything yourself which is still doable in 18 months. We had the reception at a hotel so they sorted food, drinks, decoration etc. which saved lots of time.

As long as you've got the money to start booking things now then you'll be fine.

Planned ours in 18 months. To be honest that's loads of time - a lot of the stuff didn't get done until the last 6 months.

We planned ours in 3 months and got married when I was 6 1/2 months pregnant. Top tip: keep things as simple as you want them to be. We decided on a small wedding for 25 because we wanted to pay for everything so our guests wanted for nothing on the day. Spent £4500 in total. Each week we did had a little list of tasks to complete and we had a fab day! Lots of fun, chilled out and everyone well fed, watered and happy. It's the simple things!!!

First of all, calm down. You're in the very early stages of pregnancy and need to be staying nice and zen. Yes, it's DC2, so no, you don't a minute to think, but try to!

Second, sit down with your DP and decide what sort of wedding you want - that doesn't need to be a long conversation!! Then decide TOGETHER how your are going to handle the interferers. My mother, whom I love very much and with whom I have a very good relationship, turned into the mother of the bridezilla from HELL. I took to either putting the phone down, or laughing at her. 5.5 years on, we're still speaking to each other. You decide who is going to be a bridesmaid/page boy/flowergirl/usher and TELL people once you asked them. Then it's a fait accompli - and you just smile sweetly and shrug if people kick up a fuss.

Third, find a venue, and decide on a church/registry office/stately country pile and set the date.

Fourth, then, having decided on your budget, just do it! Wedding websites and google are a font of information for ideas and budgets. If people can't come, hard cheese. Decide on the absolute essential guests and work from there. We've just planned our daughters' baptism and I said to DH, us, godparents and grandparents were the essentials. Anyone else was a bonus. It's worked well, DH's sister can't come which is a shame but we were NEVER going to find a date which would suit everyone. A really good friend couldn't come to our wedding as she'd given birth three weeks before. A shame, but you know what? In the great scheme of things, it didn't really matter.

But above all, calm down, this is a wedding - it's joyful, it really shouldn't be a chore.

We had a big white wedding, Church, sit down meal for 150, evening do with buffet for 200 odd. Got engaged Christmas Eve and married on a Saturday in August (8.5ish months later). I planned pretty much everything myself (DH away with the army).

We did have to compromise on venue for the evening do, but it turned out amazingly and two and a half years on people still tell us what a great day it was. We didn't want to wait too long as my mum had terminal cancer and we wanted her to be there.

Totally do-able, it's plenty of time, some of the posher and more well-known venues might be booked up but if you look around ther'll still be plenty to choose from.

We did it with less time than this, and got a saturday in summer, it was a beautiful countryside venue in a little village we love, very close to where we live. It wasn't a glamorous castle with chandeliers and giant staircases. But it was exactly what we wanted.

18 months is plenty of time.

YABRU (R = ridiculously)

From agreeing to get married to the event itself took us 5 weeks. That's weeks, not months.