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?

I hadn't met my groom 18 months before I got married!

We did it in 6 months. Saturday wedding in July, Church and then reception for 120 with sit down meal. Flowers, rings, bridesmaids, the lot. Granted I hadn't had any children then, but I worked full time and DH worked 12 days out of 14, so only alternate weekends available to "do" stuff.

It's only as big a deal as you make it. Good luck OP.

It depends on how picky you are. If you want a specific church, with a specific reception venue on a specific date then you might have issues, but if you are flexible on one or 2 of those, then it should be perfectly fine. I planned mine in around 15 months, while living abroad! It didn't feel stressful at all in terms of time. If anything the opposite, as I was running around thinking 'should I actually be planning more?'. I didn't have kids though!

I think 18 months should be perfectly doable. Once the church/venue/date have been selected the rest is all 'optional'. Find what is the priority and book around that.

Congratulations! This day is for you and DH-to-be, so don't worry about what the rest of your families say, do what will make you and dh happy. I think it is do-able but factor in how much time you'll need for newborn dc2 - congratulations there too! If you go ahead, lots of PP advice re venue is spot on, once you've found a venue /date you're happy with then the rest is fairly straight-forward. If you really are feeling overwhelmed and you sound like you've got a lot on your plate at the moment then postponing it will give you time to manage everything else ok. I think you need to talk to your DP about what you'd both like the wedding to be, then you will be better able to deal with the pressure from your families. I hope DP is helping with this.
We organised ours in eight weeks, both wanted to keep it very simple, not spend loads. We had a civil ceremony at a lovely country venue on a summer sunday over a bank holiday weekend. Having it on the Sunday made a huge difference to the availability of many things - venue, car, photographer, even registrar. I was very lucky to find a fantastic dress-maker who appreciated my crazy challenge and managed to fit me in to her workload. Pressure from families wasn't too bad, but we were very clear with everybody that we were keeping it as simple as possible, everybody was great and offerred all sorts of useful help. We had a lovely day with our family and friends around us and created memories to treasure, but it didn't cost too much or take months of preparation and stress. It can be done!

As previous posters have said, it's the popular venues that get booked up a long time in advance especially if you want a Sat in summer. The same for registrars / churches to a certain extent. If you're having a dress made that can also take a while, but as you're having a baby in the meantime it's probably more practicle to buy one ready made nearer the time when you know what shape/size you've ended up as!

My advice is to sit down with DP & make separate lists of all the people you'd want to invite to the wedding, all the people you think you ought to invite (or your parents will want) and all the less close friends you'd want at the party but not necessarily the reception. Then when you've got a feel for numbers, you can think about what sort of day you want - ie church or registry office, reception, evening do, restaurant meal, party in the village hall etc. Have a look online for venues that you might like & look at their prices. Decide it's an extravagant waste of money & slash the guest list, work out your budget & go from there.

IME friends who have 18 months fill it obsessing over tiny details and will often be quite stressed out about these small details on the day itself and exhausted from worry in the lead up.

We did 8 months, would have preferred 6 as you get bored of thinking and talking about it.

It is about getting married and the marriage itself, everything else is nice but shouldn't be the main focus. I will always cringe when you hear a bride/motb saying 'it's all about the dress'

I got married on Saturday, just like you I was pregnant when we got engaged and so didn't want to think about it then. ds was born last October, we started planning the wedding in April and got married in November. It was perfect, 130 guests there. everything we wanted and we did it all for £5k (that was the budget we had and I stuck to exactly, but could have gone cheaper if we needed!) it is totally doable. Our venue wasn't perfect in some ways, but it was cheap and once we were there on the day I wouldn't have noticed if it had been a pig sty!! I got married and my family and friends were there, that was all I wanted!!

a wedding can be done in a few weeks: book registry office, fill in forms, take a couple of mates to witness, job done. Actual work less than an hour but you have to give notice.

if you want a party (which is what all the other stuff is) then that takes as much time as you want to devote to it.

Depend on your attitude. We got engaged in dec, married in August. I didn't have very particular ideas about what I wanted but it's really easy for things to get out of hand if your family start a lot of sentences with "it's traditional to have...." Drove me mental ??

I did mine in 6 weeks - and did all the catering myself, also had two children aged 18 months and 10 weeks (at time of wedding) (Is this a competition?)

Ah - I sort of understand where your guests are coming from. If the wedding has to be in summer school holidays and they would really like to be there to celebrate with you, that means that ideally they would like to know a date possibly by Sept/Oct this year. As that's when the super organised people seem to book in summer holidays for the next year?

In order to give them a date, you just need a tentative guest list for numbers, a budget and a venue booked. You need to be fairly sure you can afford it as there are plenty of threads on here from people sent save the date cards who booked flights and accommodation to be then sent invites to the evening do.

Alternatively you can leave it as late as possible before telling them in the hope that they are away and you can keep numbers manageable that way.

go for it its exciting we planned our whole wedding in under 6 months and enjoyed the whole experience.

Easily!

We booked in April for a July Saturday. Done and dusted in 4 months tops.

loads of time.
we booked our venue and catering 18 months before (no Saturday left during the summer though! ) we are getting married next summer and will start properly sorting stuff out in the new year.

You could get it all sorted in a long weekend if you put your mind to it!
18 months is loads of time. So much time that if it was me, I'd get bored halfway through and need some time out. There is no way to could stay focused on wedding things for that long...

Draw up a shortlist of venues, go and see some, pick one and secure a date. The rest of it just falls into place after that, unless you are planning to dye doves to match the bridesmaids and have a trained owl as ring bearer...

Book the venue and church or registrar ASAP then forget about it all for about a year.

Whatever causes you less stress, either do it all pre-baby arrival or leave the rest till after. If you don't want a made to measure dress and are flexible about photographers, florists etc. then it can all wait except the venue/date.

I could have planned my wedding in about 18 minutes. In fact I probably did. Plus a couple of hours of phone calls and an afternoon of shopping.

I can't imagine what could possibly take a year and a half, tbh.

Flexibility is the only thing you need to worry about. If you're flexible you can most probably have everything you want.

Yes if you want a particular (popular) venue for a wedding breakfast/evening and a Particular (popular) church early afternoon on a Saturday in July/August you may need to think about booking now. (Although cancellations happen so this may not always be the case.)

If you don't mind what day/date/time you get married you can leave it until a few weeks before if you want. It's your choice how your day is planned.

There are some advantages to booking the reception venue and other big things early. For example my venue did everything (food, room hire, hotel room hire for guests etc) at the price when I booked not the price 2 years later. Also my photographer and venue dress held their prices at the time of booking so I saved nearly £700 on these by booking early. Think I saved about £800-£1000 on food prices as the cost of meals had gone up significantly. The advantage I felt by booking the big expensive things early meant for me that I could budget a lot better especially as in that 2 year time frame I lost my job and retrained.

I got married three and a half weeks after DH proposed. We had a proper wedding with 130 guests, bridesmaids in dresses, wedding cars, favours, the lot. It can easily be done

my DM and DF are getting married next year abroad and my mum is panicking that she can't do it, she wants a reception, cake, everything, and doesn't know what she's doing. but I think it'll be fantastic whatever she does, and i think the same for you, too.

We needed it to be at a time for summer holidays in 2 parts of the world so family from overseas with kids could come if they wanted to. That dictated the timing. Had a registry office wedding with a party afterwards (about a 100 people) in a nice restaurant with a garden. Got engaged in November - booked the restaurant and registry office in March - sent out invites - got married in July. All rather stress free...

we booked the registry office in march, without evem thinking about anything else, then had the wedding (sit down meal for 40, and an extra 25 guests for a disco in the evening) in the middle of july.

Kiwi your family etc are looking at it from the wrong POV. Yes, if you want to be married in Xyz specific place, you may need to book months or years in advance. But if you look around at what's available in March2015 (or whenever it is you want to get married), and then choose from that list, of course you can do it within your timescale. The same with any aspect of your wedding: dress, shoes, cake, photographer, etc. see what's available, then choose. Choosing first will only add to the stress.

One warning, though: the hardest things to organise for my wedding-at-six-weeks'-notice (my very lovely wedding-at-six-weeks'-notice) were my shoes. They all had six week delivery, even when bought in person, to allow for dying. But I didn't want them dyed! I found a pair eventually, but, again, I chose from what was available, rather than deciding first. They were perfect.

Have a lovely wedding, your way.

We've just organised my dd's wedding in 9 weeks so can be done!
If you want specific location that's popular then yes, booking ages in advance isn't unusual.
But we've got church, reception at home and flowers, dress, bridesmaids, kilts etc etc all sorted and got a month to go. Just make lists and tick things off. Honestly it's not that hard and my dd hasn't been that stressed.

I think it depends if you are going to do the whole meringue thing... if you are looking for a particular venue or not. but I think once you have the venue/church booked, a couple of months should be ample... (& assuming that your guests are not flying in from faraway places)
Mine was very low key, so I'm probably not the expert, we decided to invite our kids, mil, brothers & sis on both sides & each of us invited our 2 top besties & their partners.
A Civil wedding, champagne, & more champagne, excellent Michelin guide meal in private room, with big sofas & chimney lit. then home to more champagne & dancing & everyone said it was the best wedding they had ever been to !
Anyway, its your day, don't be bullied into anything you don't want !

It depends how much of a bridezilla you want to be. I did it in 6m. First get in touch with the vicar (they sometimes get put out when couples demand particular days "because we've booked the hotel and honeymoon" and the church bit is an afterthought. Vicars have weddings all summer and if they have school age children they may also want a holiday in the summer. )