How far in advance did you book your venue?

[springsummerautumnwinter]

How far in advance did you book your venue?

Just checking if I am being completely over ambitious to get married with in a year.

I am after a barn conversion style, but interested to hear about any style wedding venues.

I married in church and only needed a few months notice BUT the venue wasn't open to all (military church) and we were very flexible with dates.

However, I later worked in the wedding industry and know from friends and family that have married in the last few years that it's far harder now.

Of course it depends on the type of venue and how flexible you are with dates. But it's not just the main venue, it's all the other vendors too get booked up very quickly if they're any good.

So it's the co-ordination factor.

Caterers, celebrant, florist, entertainment, photographer...

Then there's clothes, wedding and bridesmaid dresses in particular. Unless you're willing to wear "off the peg" (which severely limits choices in both style and colour) it takes around 6 months from order date to the dresses being ready, depending also of course on how many bridesmaids and if they're easy to get together for looking and fitting.

Plus of course there are peak wedding seasons, mainly summer but also Easter and Christmas.

Lots to consider.

It's why most couples allow 2-3 years now.

It IS possible to do within a few months but you would need to be really flexible on dates, venue and quality of vendors.

Booked in the September for June. Tricky bit was getting reception venue and church on same day. We had very little choice on dates and had to get married at 11am. No issues with anything else.

We got engaged 11m before we got married. I think we booked the venue about 8/9m before. We got married in Central London during a weekend in the summer, so fairly peak time.

We're planning on getting married at the end of July 2019 and every venue we contacted said it was a good job we were looking at 2019 as they had no availability for 2018.

We live in a very picturesque, touristy area so I'm sure that had a lot to do with the lack of availability but I was surprised that there weren't any dates available for 2018.

Depends where you venue is and how big the wedding.

Two weddings we have been to this year, engaged Autumn 2016 and married July/June this year.

Going to a wedding over Christmas who got engaged last Christmas.

All are at the venues etc that they wanted.

I wouldn't say anyone I knew took more than 18m start to finish, and that was more to achieve the desired season than to specifically save/prepare. So December engagements for example that wanted Spring/Summer weddings waited up to 18m.

My fiance and I are doing October 17 to October 18ish. A lot of the wedding venues are already booked up for summer, but we're looking for something different in the autumn anyway, and whilst specific dates are tricky (half term for example), there's generally quite a lot still available.

Tip for finding venues - search your local council website for new applications for wedding venue licencing. You can get in before the venue start to advertise wedding availability.

It depends on where you're thinking and how popular it is/ how far in advance it gets booked up I'd say.
We got married in one of the rooms in the registry office. We booked it in February 2015 and got married April 2015.
But I'm sure for different venues you'd need much longer.

7 weeks depends on how fussy you are you about the date.
We knew we wanted a Saturday, asked what Saturdays they had available ASAP and picked the date which suited us the most.

It depends on when you want the wedding and what sort of thing you are going for. Fancy hotel/big house in the height of wedding season? No chance. A bit off-piste mid- or out of season, then do-able. If you are willing to do all the organising yourself then probably even more likely to be able to make it work.

We booked the church 5 or 6 months before the date, and the reception site venue 4 months before. Things like caterers came after that. We chose a date at the end of September so it wasn't too difficult to book each element, and we didn't have a particularly 'traditional' reception.

Oh - there's a tip for an unbelievably grim site for wedding planning too. Something like 'cancelledweddings.com'. They sell whole weddings cancelled at short notice for cut prices - posted either by the couple or by the venues.

10 months. Got married on a Sunday in the autumn. Four star country house who arranged most stuff. It was easy peasy to be honest!

9 months but we were offered dates about 5 months ahead but we listened to everyone who said 'you need at least a year to plan and book' then I sat waiting impatiently for 6 months as I had sorted everything within 3 months

We got engaged in September and are getting married in January. Had a good choice of venues at that time of year so planning it in four and a bit months was no problem.

Engaged April, wedding is next May- so 13 months. We were originally planning to go for sooner, but our venue had availability in May and we thought it would be nice to have a chance at good weather. Even with nearly a year's notice, the registrar only had two available time slots that day though. And I found booking the photographer difficult. I really like the one we've found, and she's very good value, but several of the ones I spoke to were already booked up. Same with music/DJ.

Totally depends on so many different things. You can do it in a couple of weeks, or, if you want a specific venue on one particular day (birthday or anniversary or whatever) then you might have to book years and years in advance.

Posted too soon - can you be a bit more specific about what you are wanting.

About 15 months out (smallish licensed venue for wedding plus party). Couldn't have a Saturday because they wanted a minimum of 200 guests, and on peak Fridays they also had minimum numbers.

Thank you for all of the responses. We are not after a particular date which is helpful. We are thinking September to early December next year. Looking to have a farmhouse or barn conversation style with no more than 30-50 guests in the day going to 80 in the evening. Venue must be able to do the wedding service as we want it all under 1 roof. In the Bristol and Bath area. We are going to look at venues after Christmas. Dosnt need accommodation as most guests are fairly local.

You are all making me feel hopeful that we can be married this time next year!

OP I know a great place in Somerset that friends of mine married in if you want me to PM you?

We got engaged in July this year and were hoping to get married between May and September 2018. We quickly realised that wasn't going to be possible for any of the barns near to us, so we've now booked for July 2019. I'm actually glad we've got more time as it's going to be less stressful for us to find vendors we like for everything else. We got full choice of our registrar time slot and we've been able to choose our favourite caterer too. Next step is photographer!

We got engaged in December and hot married the following June. Was perfect and easy to arrange all suppliers as we chose a Sunday rather than a Saturday, which is more popular.

14 months but they could have accommodated us closer than that as we had a winter wedding.

Proposal 3rd March, wedding 29th April (same year), booked reception about 5 weeks beforehand.

Really depends on the venue.. ours is a barn and we booked a year ago for our wedding this coming June and could only get a Sunday or Friday through all summer months as is v popular. If you don't mind which day you should be ok

5 months as I wanted a short engagement. We did get married on a Friday in April though, so you may gave to compromise on the day of the week to get your favourite venue.