Where to start, 2016 wedding?

Keane2baMused

Hi all :-)

Myself and himself are newly engaged (at the weekend woop). Complete shock even though we have a new baby, so still on cloud 9, but we would like to get cracking on planning :-D

We are hoping to get married in September/October 2016 and wondering is that leaving things way to tight to organise? It seems alot of people have up to 2 years ahead with venues etc booked!

Would be really greatful on some advice as to where to start also. Is the venue the first port of call?

Bit clueless but will have fun (and hopefully not too much stress) learning

Cheers!

andreac

Congrats! !
No its Def enough time but you just might find a lot of suppliers are already booked up but you will get sorted no prob.
Firstly decide on church or civil ceremony and book your date for that. Then decide on venue and everything else will fall in to place after that.
Band and photographer would be next ones to book. They are the main things to be booked.

fits

I got married on a friday in july. I booked our celebrant first. ( she only had two fridays left so that decided the date). Then venue. That was last august.

I only booked the photographer and band around february. The only one i had trouble getting was makeup artist ( got siobhan mcdonnell of letsmakeup in the end, highly recommend).

Put deposit on dress in november.

People can get wound up about booking things years in advance but it might not be a problem unless you want a popular date.

An Bhanríon

Started planning our wedding in June and wedding took place in November, so time is no problem. You may have slightly less choice in venues and services. But that might make decisions a bit easier too!

I'm not sure how other people found it, but I found that the celebrant, venue for ceremony and venue for reception all had to be sorted at the same time, i.e. there is no point booking a venue for a ceremony if you are not sure you have a celebrant available on that date and, likewise, there is no point in booking a reception venue without having the ceremony venue sorted so that you can be sure they are not too far away from each other. As far as I remember the hotel let us provisionally book a date for two weeks before we had to pay a deposit. So that gave us enough time to confirm dates with the celebrant and with the ceremony venue.

Before all that, of course, you need to have a think about how much money you have to spend, what kind of wedding you would like and how many people will attend. But you have probably been thinking about that already!

Enjoy!

Keane2baMused

Great thank you all for taking the time to reply!

That makes sense about booking the celebrant & venue around the same time. I guess I should getting cracking on checking our dates are free with the celebrant and booking and then the venue.

Our numbers are around 80-90 so not enormous and we are possibly looking at a Sunday wedding so that might give us some options I hope!

PhoenixParker

Started planning a wedding last December and I'm nearly three months married. It's not a problem provided you're not overly fussy and are willing to work with what's available. There will always be great vendors who just happen not to be booked that weekend/who have had a cancellation, it's just you might not get to debate between ten different vendors. In a lot of ways, a short time line makes things easier.

As others have said, celebrant is your key bottle neck in Ireland. Unless you're going the religious route, civil only work Monday - Friday and non-religious (+ assorted flexible religious) are few in number and book out fast.

westernlass

Keane2baMused wrote: »

Great thank you all for taking the time to reply!

That makes sense about booking the celebrant & venue around the same time. I guess I should getting cracking on checking our dates are free with the celebrant and booking and then the venue.

Our numbers are around 80-90 so not enormous and we are possibly looking at a Sunday wedding so that might give us some options I hope!

Sunday can be a tricky day unless it's a bank holiday. I'm pretty sure most priest won't do it and you'll need a celebrant like a humanist.

If you go later in the year i.e. towards end of October you'll get better value.

For a small wedding you should check out One Fab Day as they have a lot of cool wedding venues that would work. It can be hard to find place for that number. Restaurants are another option. Some are amazing and you can get them almost ready made with decor with saves you money.

The list to think about to get sorted intitally is:
1.Venue
2.Celebrant
3.Band - don't panic book, go and see anyone you are interested in.
4.Photographer - really think carefully about this as you tastes will change the more research you do. Don't panic book as people will say dates are booked but honestly good photographers will take a wedding later and often hold some free dates. You need to explain your wedding thoughts to get the really good ones excited and interested so figure out your thoughts first.
5.Videographer - again you don't have to book this until later but do think about it in your budget. Watch a good few as there's a difference between a cinemographer and a videographer i.e. price and quality.

The rest can generally be booked in a shorter lead time. Dresses need to be bought six or nine months in advance. Do research on the types you like then start making appointments. We are engaged a year in November for wedding in March and it's going to fly in. You have plenty of time.

alpha2

Congratulations on your engagement! Hope you'll have lots of fun with planning and with the whole time leading up to the big day. I don't think you'll have many problems in booking - the best advice i got is to be flexible and don't set your heart on anything except your groom ;-)

We'd been thinking about getting married for a while, bit got officially engaged on the 1st August, and so far have booked church, hotel, band, photographer and flowers for July 2016.

Admittedly it's in a rural area - things are probably very different in Dublin - but I had no problems with places or people being booked out. Congrats again!