Planning a wedding in less than 6 months?

[1woodpecker]

What’s your experience of doing this?

I really want a nice wedding with all the people we love, but really don’t want huge amounts of stress and forever planning.
i guess the less time, the less notice guests have? But otherwise, is it do-able?
I guess it’s deciding what we actually want - there’s a lot of extras etc that I just don’t think I want to spend time researching/planning/sorting…

Mainly its the venue that needs booked far in advance. We did a wedding in 8 months planning. Depends on the wedding you going for. We did a lot of DIY or 2nd hand stuff apart from my dress which I got 1 month before the wedding 😅 due to baby

Did mine in 3. Based it around the village we lived in. I had a string quartet for the service and then a jazz band in the evening. No bridesmaids, No official photographer, no cars, sit down meal for 30 family in one pub ( that was their max capacity) and a big buffet in the other pub three doors down for the friends. All together for the evening.
It's not everyone's cup of tea but I detail it to demonstrate that it can be done very easily if you aren't fussed about frills.
In England, If you have a humanist celebrant you can get married anywhere you like with all your friends there but you ( currently) have to do the legal registry office bit another time. If you're in Scotland or N. Ireland where the rules are different, a humanist celebrant can marry you legally too.
If you are further afield, a local person will have better info for you.
Whatever the location, low stress weddings can be really lovely, as can low cost ones. You just have to let go of the wedding hype that surrounds these events. All the best.

25 years ago we did ours in 6 months, it was ample time. I have no idea why people decide to take longer, except funding reasons.

Did it in 5 but it was a village hall wedding and we weren't fussy about the caterers etc. If you're chilled then it's more than possible..

Yeah totally doable, you’ll have fewer venues to pick from but if you’re flexible on that it’s absolutely fine.

Some bridal shops get melodramatic about how long they need to order too, but there’s plenty of places to buy a dress there & then :)

Time scale is based entirely on your venue availability. My advice is build your guest list first and then start looking at venues that would accommodate your numbers at your chosen date.

Also if you aren't bothered about getting married at the weekend, mid week weddings have better availability and are generally cheaper too

Because in the main private schools are better than public schools and people that can afford it will send their children to the best local school. .
This isn't about royals it's about rich people who have access to the best of everything because they can afford it . If I could afford it I'd send my kids to private school so I can't get worked up about this.

It's easy! Just need to check availability of venues and your key guests.

Everything else can be done at shorter notice, much shorter as long as you are realistic about what choices you have eg you'll need an off the shelf dress if under about 6 months, you will need to ring around to get availability for a photographer and cake baker as they get booked up - but neither are essential, I'm baking my own cake and my friends dd is taking photos.

I would suggest you sit down and write a list of non negotiables including guests you must have there, cross check diaries then seek a venue that can accommodate you. I found 6 months out every single place I enquired at was free, admittedly it's in autumn not summer but is a Saturday.

Thanks all - this is helpful and reassuring! ☺️

We did ours in 6 weeks.

We did ours in 5 months, 2 years ago. My dad was really ill at the age of 91 so time was of the essence, he’s just celebrated his 93rd birthday 😂 it’s easily do-able, as other people have said, get the dates available from key people then the venue. I found there was no time to dither over decisions which made it easier

Not a problem, did mine in 6 weeks but I did hold the reception at my own property and did all the catering myself. Just needed to book the church and buy everything and make all the food/decorations/etc.

As long as you're able to compromise on date and venue then no problem! You may also need to get a sample dress or off the peg as they can take 9 months. We organised my sisters in a month and it was fab!

Yes, it's easier in a lot of ways as reduced availability of venues & guest diaries means often you don't have bags of choice.

Just make sure your guests are adequately fed!

Yes you can do it but be prepared for some compromises such as not your first choice of venue or getting married on a Friday instead of a Saturday.
Book your venue asap and ideally somewhere you can do the ceremony and reception all in one place so there's no need to find a free date in two different places.

We did ours in around 6. It was fine. The venue is the difficult part as they get booked up in advance. We weren't too bothered about any details so we're just happy to use who was available and made decisions quickly as a result of this. It's easily doable.

Did anyone else experience shock from literally everyone they told regarding timescale? We’ve not formally set a date but everyone we’ve mentioned were thinking of a date in approx 6 months there is a comment or something about how soon that is. I guess some people might already have plans if not giving a long period of notice but it is what it is?!

I think the whole wedding industry has managed to convince everyone that you have to book weddings ridiculously far in advance, mostly to encourage people to spend more (unnecessary) money on it.

In reality you’re just as married if you book the registry office with minimum notice and rock up in your jeans.

People are shocked because they’ve been brainwashed into thinking it takes forever to organise, it doesn’t :)

I planned our budget wedding in just 3 months (with a 1 year old baby!). But we had been engaged for a while before so we had already decided the venue, I had already thought of the dress, etc... And it was definitely a simple-ish celebration: no ceremony, a drink then meal in a reception hall in a middle of an outdoor centre. Also I was unemployed at that time so I had more time to do it all. I have to admit it was a bit stressful, but in the end I'm glad we did it; since I got pregnant we kept delaying the wedding, I'm glad we finally did it.
People were definitely shocked at the short delay, but many were helpful.
As others have said, it's possible if you are happy to compromise on several things. Good luck!

Because venues, person to perform the service, photographer are booked up in advance.

Depends how fussy you are about venue. If you can get that lined up then everything else is doable. Guests don't need six months notice unless travelling a long way, three is plenty.
Venue, officiant, catering, flowers, entertainment, dress. Sorted!

You'll be fine as long as you're prepared not to be picky about specific suppliers tbh.

We were picky about venue, so we "planned" our wedding for 12 months, because that was the slot the venue had availability. But in reality, we spent very little time in that 12 months actually planning. We also had a laid back day and it was fab.

Only thing to be aware of, with a short timescale, is being on top of the legal processes for giving notice etc if it's a civil ceremony.

We booked ours in the February and was married in the July.

I didn't want the stress of 2 years worth of planning etc, we booked the venue (which luckily was available) everything else was fine including the dress, however make that a priority once the venue is sorted as seamstresses are really busy if you need any alterations.

I did most things myself, invites, favours, decorations. Outsourced flowers and cake etc.

Nobody was shocked, just like "ohhh best get looking for an outfit for the wedding".

Congratulations x

If you do it in November or January it's very likely you'll be able to get people to come

Yes did one in about 6 weeks for my (shotgun) wedding. Sorted out the reception venue first - who had availability on the day we wanted to be married by (13 weeks, my mother didn't want me "showing" We ended up somewhere lovely and not a regular local reception venue, so they were actually pleased to have us there.
Didn't spend much at all on the dress, asked favours of friends and friends of friends for wedding cars, they were delighted to be asked.

In some ways I think it was quite good because there wasn't time to fret over minor details, it had to be make a decision then move onto the next thing.