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Planning a wedding on short notice

dave oc

Hi,

I'm looking for a bit of advice/guidance/help. I need to explore how feasible or possible it is to plan a wedding on very short notice. Brief background, I've a parent seriously ill and want to see if we can plan a wedding before the end of the summer. I'm engaged to my partner and had been putting the wedding plans off until 2019/2020 up to now.

Now, myself and my partner are trying to put together a rough plan of whats possible in the immediate future and then discuss the plan with my parents. We're open to having a wedding at home or abroad (within Europe, and in a sunny climate). I'm leaning towards abroad, as my parents always enjoyed sun holidays and want to plan another trip away anyway. The numbers would be small if going abroad, approx 20 but could go to 50 if venue allows. For now, numbers aren't critical as it would be at least immediate family, and more depending on where.

I guess my main questions are:
- are there things that would take longer than this timeframe to complete? such as paperwork, etc?
- does having the wedding at home or abroad make more/less sense in my situation?
- I'm already starting to contact a wedding planner to discuss, is this the best way to do something like this on short notice?

I understand that some of these questions (and this situation in general) will be down to personal preference and what type of wedding we want. I guess I'm just looking for any guidance anyone has, if anyone has gone through something similar.

We're fairly open to venues and overall plans, and money is not much of an issue (within reason).

Any help here is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Dave

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Peregrinus

The best way to do this at short notice is to plan the simplest possible wedding, and to have the fewest possible "red lines" about what you will or won't accept for your wedding. If you want a wedding in a prestige location for 200 guests on a Saturday, you're likely to find that everywhere suitable is already fully booked for the next five months. If you're happy with a registry office wedding on a weekday, all kinds of options open up.

The first choice you need to make is what country the wedding is going to be in, because that will determine the legal requirements, notice periods, etc, that you are facing. If your wedding is to be in Ireland, there's a legal requirement for three months' notice to the registrar, so even if you start today, late-July is your earliest possible wedding date. If your wedding is to be abroad, you have to reckon that organising from a remote distance is a challenge, unless you buy a complete wedding package - travel, accommodation, ceremony, the works - from somebody that provides such things, in which case you are back to the problem of whether a package is available at such short notice.

Basically, your very tight deadline simplifies things a lot; to meet the deadline, you're going to have to take what you can get. Work out what you want, wedding-wise; simplify it as much as possible; start looking for something that fits your bill; and be prepared to compromise further in order to make your deadline.

Victor

Peregrinus wrote: »

If your wedding is to be in Ireland, there's a legal requirement for three months' notice to the registrar, so even if you start today, late-July is your earliest possible wedding date.

It may be possible to shorten this, but you would need to discuss it with the registrar. It might mean going to court.

stargazer 68

Op sorry to hear this. As others have said yes it is possible but you need to pare away the fancy stuff - big hotel, top rated band, MUA etc as most of them are already booked into 2019 - going by other social media sites.

With regards to home or away, not knowing the situation but your parent may not be able to travel when it comes to it which may be something you need to bear in mind.

LirW

Generally easy enough to plan if you're a bit flexible and are willing to compromise. I went to two weddings that had an engagement time of 5 months, one was a modern city wedding in Dublin with 80, another one a quite traditional country house thing with 120.
Also maybe consider not having a Saturday wedding, if you decide to stay in Ireland, you'll sometimes get better prices and more importantly venues are more likely to have the date free still.

If it is quite urgent, because of all the legal paperwork you might consider staying home or go abroad and get a blessing and do the paperwork once back.
As far as I know if you consider a Civil ceremony in Ireland the minimum notice time of 3 months can be shortened for cases like terminal illness, sick immediate relative or similar.

Best of luck!

EDIT: Money not being an issue is quite a dangerous statement when it comes to weddings, the things can add up. You can do it very cheap for 20 people but you can also go full out fancy and splash out a few grand easily. That's really personal preference and I'd establish straight away what your priorities are.
With a very ill parent I might take into consideration if their health might decline and won't be able to travel, personally I wouldn't gamble and stay home for the big day.

marvin80

Peregrinus wrote: »

If your wedding is to be in Ireland, there's a legal requirement for three months' notice to the registrar, so even if you start today, late-July is your earliest possible wedding date.

As far as I know it's one month's notice in the North - worth looking into.

jlm29

marvin80 wrote: »

Peregrinus wrote: »

If your wedding is to be in Ireland, there's a legal requirement for three months' notice to the registrar, so even if you start today, late-July is your earliest possible wedding date.

As far as I know it's one month's notice in the North - worth looking into.

I know of two couples who forgot to give the three months notice. Just forgot, or didn’t know of the requirement. In both cases, they went to court and got it waived, with no difficulties. So in this case I’d say it would be highly unlikely that It wouldn’t be waived, since there’s a much better reason than “we forgot”.
OP, my friends brother is getting married in September. A full bells and whistles Irish wedding, with 350 on the guest list. They only got engaged about 6-8 weeks ago, so it’s totally doable.
Best of luck!

Citygirl1

Definitely advise staying in Ireland. And even avoid several hours of a journey from your parent's home.

From personal experience, when someone is seriously ill things can change unexpectedly, and there would be a risk they might not be able to travel in the Summer, or travelling might just add extra stress to them. After all, you are speeding up the plans for their sake, so priority should be to ensure they get there and enjoy themselves!

In this type of situation it is better to book any holiday at short notice, when they are well, and just go.

PhoenixParker

If you were planning any other party, you’d think 3 months was tons of time. We had the full shebang planned in 6 months, no reason it can’t be that or less.

The first thing to do is ring the registrar/priest/humanist and get availability.
Pick the best date then line up the court exception.
Once that’s in progress pin down a venue and start outfit hunting.
After that Keep It Simple Stupid.
There’s always some availability if you hunt around.
You can often get a great deal because at this point it’s an unsold date and anything they can get is a bonus.

dave oc

Thanks all for replies, lots of great info and help.

As many of you mention, yes we fully understand that we need to be flexible and possibly compromise. The main reason we were thinking of going abroad is that my parents have a holiday planned in 2 weeks. So at the moment (and depending how that one goes) abroad would still seem an option as currently travel is still possible. Obviously the situation could change quickly, so its something we will be considering. Good to know that while there is minimum notice, there can be exemptions.

We're meeting a wedding planner on Monday, so we'll get more ideas of whats possible. I guess when I said money isn't an issue, its not that I want to throw money at this and it has to be over the top... More like if money was needed to get a venue/package/etc that would work then I would do it. We were thinking about mid week already, as this should open up more dates/venues. We would like a religious ceremony, so for now we any plan would include this and a reception as normal.I understand the general feeling of staying in Ireland. Yes in ways this would simply things, but I think it would also mean that more family would then 'need' to be included. But travel is not longer an issue.

Overall its good to hear of others doing a wedding on short notice. For now I'm trying to get enough info to go to my parents with 2 proposals, one home and abroad and see what they think. Hopefully I'll have more clarity on Monday, maybe there'll be more questions. Thanks everyone for the help so far, its really appreciated!

SheepGoHere

Stay in Ireland, apply to family court to minimise time needed for intent to marry - shorten your time frame again to remove the stress of your poor parent becoming more unwell. It's awful that one of your loved ones is so unwell. If you can have your wedding midweek you'll find a lot more options open to you. Do let vendors, dress makers etc know the reason for your short timeline, I am positive that your situation will be well received. I heard of a similar situation recently and everyone was so accommodating. Best of luck with it.

TG1

Was at a fabulous wedding that was planned in 4 months. The bride and groom went around all the usual wedding venues in their area, and told them they were not picky about a date. Some had multiple dates free due to cancelation. Apparently some couple's will book at a few venues until they decide which to go with!

Once they got a venue with a free date, they went with everything as standard that the hotel offered. They opted for a simple humanist ceremony, admittedly there was a bit of luck there with availability... They had simple flowers, had a family member do the cake, and she bought an off the shelf dress that a friend altered.

All in all it was a lovely day, the bride was super relaxed as the hotel just handled everything, and the only one stressed was the family member doing the cake as it happened to be the hottest day of the year... :pac:

So if you are willing to keep everything simple and go with fairly standard packages offered by venues you should be fine...

Teyla Emmagan

If you are planning a religious service and happy to go mid week then you should have no problems, at least with the service and reception. It's all doable by the end of the summer. The next hardest part will be getting a band! But the dress/cake/flowers can all be done without much fuss.

I think you would be better to stay in Ireland from a management point of view, you will have more options. And in case your parent needs to have tests done, or deteriorates suddenly. Sorry to hear they are ill, that's very tough.

heretothere

I also think I'd stay at home. 1 in case your parents condition changes and they cannot fly and 2 I know you said only about 20 would be invited abroad so presumably this would be next of kin family. Even for such close family I would struggle to be able to pull together the money to go abroad together so quickly also it would mean more time off of work etc. If you don't want to invite the other people simply don't! Say you want a small intimate wedding.
Everything should be totally do-able. Just get going on the HSE part as soon as you can. Not sure where you are based I know some offices have long waiting times for appointments it doesn't matter where you go so try other counties