Wedding Planning Timeline

August 30, 2023

If you new here, I got married on May 27th of this year to the love of my life. Throughout the process I made quite a few lists ( I really love a good checklist ) and I wanted to share them with you to make your wedding planning process a little smoother.

My sweet sister is getting married next summer and asked me to make a timeline of my planning process and I was so excited to share with her how I spent my time in the year and a half leading up to my wedding. In the timeline I am sharing here I start at 12 months. If you have more than that adjust a bit, if you have less than that adjust a bit. This is just a rough guideline of how to space it out so that you are not feeling overwhelmed with the long list of things you need to accomplish in order for your day to run smoothly.

12 months

• Make a list of priority budget items ( ex: my top priority was a good photographer and that meant that we were willing to cut corners in other areas in order to have a good photographer. This also meant that we booked our photographer as one of our first vendors and budgeted the rest accordingly. This can be different for you and your partner as long as you both agree in the areas that you are willing to cut corners. ) this can be anything from the guest count to the date to the venue to the food to the clothing to the rings to the DJ – anything. You just need to make sure you communicate with each other what your top priorities are.

• Rough big picture budget of what you want to spend on the whole day 

• Rough guest list 

• Venue tours 

• Decide on a date

• Start looking into creatives

  • Photographer 

  • Videographer 

  • Any other artists you want for the day 

  • Band 

  • DJ

• Start looking into food and drink

  • Catering 

  • Cake/desserts 

  • Alcohol 

• Start talking about who you want in your wedding party 

• Create a vision board or mood board for how you imagine your day to look and feel

  • Create one that is completely budget free ( you can look back on this if there is extra room in the budget to add things that seem a little more luxe – or, upon showing someone, maybe someone can help out with making some of those reaching dreams come true either by gifting it to you or by being able to make things similar ) 

• Decide on color/theme for the wedding

• Take engagement pictures 

• Start attending premarital counseling 

9 months

• Book venue 

• Book food and drink

  • Catering 

  • Cake/desserts 

  • Alcohol 

• Book Creatives

  • Photographer 

  • Videographer 

  • Any other artists you want for the day 

  • Band 

  • DJ

• Book officant 

• Start registry

• Ask your wedding party to be part of your wedding

• Start looking into what you want your wedding party to wear

  • Go shopping with them if you are not sure 

• Go dress shopping 

6 months

• Buy attire ( sometimes it takes very long to come in ) 

• Send save the dates ( this is a little early, but better to do early rather than late with how the mail system has been ) 

• Tell wedding party what you would like them to wear and have them start ordering 

• Book florist or make floral plans 

• Book any rentals you may need ( uplighting, seating, linens, PhotoBooth etc. ) 

• Start vision board of what you want you to look like ( how do you want to your hair to look, how do you want your make up to look, do you want a veil, do you want to wear heals or tennies or be barefoot )

  • Schedule make up trials 

  • Schedule hair trials 

• Start on your must-play list for your DJ

  • Processional 

  • Recessional 

  • In between music

  • First dance 

  • Parent dances 

• Start purchasing decorations 

• Share your vision with people who are going to be helping you complete that vision 

• Update website with wedding party, engagement pictures, things to do in the area, places to stay and your story 

4 months

• Schedule dress alterations 

• Book wedding night hotel

• Make send off plan ( or how you are going to leave ) 

• Make a shot list for your photographer 

• Decide on centerpieces for the reception

• Plan out honeymoon if you plan to take one  

• Go shopping for rings 

• Make rehearsal dinner plans ( is someone else going to plan it for you, are you going to plan it, who all do you want to be there – just wedding party or do you want anyone who is there early for the wedding, do you want it to be fancy or do you want it to be chill ) 

3 months

• Send out invitations

  • Make sure there is a RSVP-by date on them 

• Finalize food menus 

• Finalize shotlist 

• Finalize playlists 

• Order any gifts you plan on giving to your bridal party, parents or each other on the day of the wedding 

• Choose readings ( if you want any ) 

• Purchase wedding rings 

• Purchase party favors 

2 months

• Check in with the vendors to make sure they don’t have any questions 

• Finalize registry 

• Bridal showers

• Purchase any final things you need to add to your look 

• Check in with your photographer, videographer and DJ and make sure they have the final shotlist and playlist 

1 month

• Final dress fittings

  • This is also for the bridal parties 

• Final decoration purchases

• Get marriage license

1-2 weeks

• Give vendors final numbers 

• Confirm arrival times with vendors 

• Send out timeline for the weekend to your bridal party so they know where they need to be when 

• Pack for honeymoon

• Brake in your dancing shoes 

• Relax

Congratulations and good luck in your wedding planning journey! Take your time and enjoy it.