How To Start Planning A Wedding Checklist?
The planning of a wedding can feel daunting with too many duties and specifics to arrange. However, if you have enough time, you can sort out all the tasks with the help of the wedding checklist.
Below you can find a printable wedding schedule template, which you can easily use as a checklist for a wedding planning timeline. All the information given in the list includes a step-by-step to-do list that helps you to make careful research of vendors, terms and conditions, and as well as venues.
With a marriage program at hand, all the activities and research are sorted month by month, which makes the process more fun and less frustrating.
You are dividing the marriage planning process into bite-size bits and it is far less daunting if you break down month by month.
The wedding timetable in 2020 is not tender. Perhaps you had organized the thing previously, or you were part of the preparations and had to pause and leave it, or you had just engaged and remembered immediately that this would be a little different than what you might have expected.
Let’s stand back and look at the entire picture before we get into a big checklist. This flowchart has been designed—to help you find out how the wedding planning process actually works.
Checklist For Wedding Planning Timeline
14 to 12 Months Before the Wedding
- Gather some creativity and inspiration
Check the social media, and some bridal magazines, and scroll through well-known fashion sites and bridal magazines to get some inspiration. You may always come up with a new design idea: so take a look around at your room or home, and of course closet.
- Determine your budget accordingly
Decide the amount you want to spare for your wedding and reception, depending on your own budget and the support from your relatives.
- Pick out who’s going to be at the wedding party
People might start asking who’s in it as soon as you’re engaged.
- Make the list of your visitors
Create a spreadsheet template that can be used in the preparation process, with contact information columns, emails, RSVPs, presents, and all other related information. (Are you planning a budget party? It might be tough, but the easiest way to cut expenses is to eliminate the guest list.)
- If possible, employ a planner
A good wedding planner will always have a partnership with top suppliers.
- Reserve your venue and lock the date of your wedding
Start deciding whether to have separate ceremonial and reception venues, taking into account travel time between two locations.
- Hire a photographer, florist, caterer, choir
Bear in mind that the best event professionals prefer to book the venue for more than a year in advance.
9 Months Before the Wedding
- Book all the rest of the entertainment
Attend concerts with prospective artists to see if they perform in front of crowds, and reserve your chosen one.
- Determine the menu for your drinks or dinner
If your wedding venue doesn’t have its own catering company, look for one right now and contract the provider this month or early next.
- Find a suit, a suit, a jumpsuit, or a wedding outfit of your preference
You’re likely to need to arrange a time for at least 3 fittings. Veil shopping may be delayed for the next 2 to 3 months.
- Book a block of hotel rooms for visitors outside the city
Choose three hotels at various price points near the reception center.
- Registration for gifts
Sign up to a minimum of three stores across a variety of expenses.
- Build a website for a wedding
Build a profile website with the date of your wedding, travel dates, lodging, and registration details.
6 Months Before the Wedding
- Pick and order your invitations
If needed, employ a calligrapher. Addressing your cards is time-consuming, but you ought to budget properly.
- Start preparing for your honeymoon
Making sure your passports are up to date and arrange medical appointments for any vaccinations you will require.
- Look for the bridesmaid’s dresses
Enable the dresses to be shipped and sized for at least 6 months.
- Meet the officiant
Label the ceremony and ensure that you get all the official wedding papers (depending on the county and religious belief).
- Send the save-dates
- Arrange structural and electrical specifications
Book mobile outdoor restrooms, extra seats if you need them, lighting parts, and so on.
- Arrange the transportation
Think limos, private cars, trolleys, and commuter taxis.
- Create a timeline day
Prepare the event schedule and the slot for each part (the cake-cutting, the first dance). If you’re a planner, he/she will help you with all of this.
5 Months Before the Wedding
- Book the location for the rehearsal-dinner
Negotiate the rate and the menu, please. If you’re going to hold a brunch day for the guests, book the spot as well.
- Check out the wedding invites
Ask the stationer and calligrapher for copies of the completed invitations and modify them to match your requirements.
- Taste the wedding cake and order it
Any on-demand bakers need a longer lead time. Take part in several tastings before you agree to just one dessert pro.
- Buy wedding shoes and start outfitting
Bring your shoes along to the first fit so that the tailor will select the best length for your look.
- Schedule hair and make-up designers
Create a couple of visits with area professionals to check them out. Snap a snapshot of both of them so you can compare the results.
3 Months Before the Wedding
- Complete the menu and the flowers
You’ll want to wait before you see what’s going to be available because food and flowers are influenced by the season.
- Order the favors, if that’s your concern
Any crowd-pleasing ideas: a monogram of cookies or a treat that reflects your town or country. If you’re going to have the welcoming baskets for out-of-town visitors, schedule them now too.
- Create a list of those who are giving toasts
What kind of loved ones would you like to see at the reception? Tell them right now.
- Finalize the readings
Determine what you’d like to learn at the wedding how you’d like to read.
- Purchase your socks
Then you plan the second fitting.
- Complete the order for the ceremony and the reception.
- Print menu cards and programs
You don’t need to go to a specialist printer if this isn’t part of your budget: you can comfortably make it at home.
- Consider purchasing the rings
This is going to give you time for resizing and engraving.
2 Months Before the Wedding
- Contact the base again for all the pros recruited
Be sure that all wedding questions you or they asked about your first script have been addressed.
- Meet the photographer
Discuss individual shots, then stroll around the locations to see the areas that matter to you.
- Check out the playlist with the band or the DJ
Although you’re obviously not going to be able to dictate any single song played, you should be ready for a wish list.
- Send out the invites
The general rule: e-mail invites six to eight weeks well before the ceremony, setting the RSVP cut-off at 3 weeks just after the postmark date.
A Month Before the Wedding
- Enter the RSVPs in your trustworthy guest list spreadsheet
Ask people who haven’t replied yet.
- Get a marriage license
The procedure will take four to 6 days, so it’s a smart idea to allow yourself some flexibility. If you change your name, order a few copies.
- Mail the invites to the rehearsal-dinner
- Visit the tailor for the final fitting of your dress
For reassurance, you might want to prepare your wedding week for fitting. You should still cancel your appointment if you try a dress and it suits you well.
- Give as many final payments to the pros as you can
- Classify the seats
Draw the outlines of the table on the design of the area to help you visualize the settings. Put the names of the lady friends on the pink sticky notes and the details of the male guests on the blue sticky notes so that you can switch guests about without rewriting the whole environment.
Wedding Week
- Confirm the time of arrival with the vendors
- Assign small activities for the wedding day
Choose someone who will bustle your clothing, someone who will bring your things, somebody who will be in control of presents (particularly the enveloped kind), someone who will provide tips, and someone who will be the point person for each vendor.
- Give a timeline to the wedding guests
Have contact details for each participant, along with the point that the people you requested to communicate with the vendors should issue occur.
- Pick up a dress or a suit
- Or make plans for distribution of the items
- Check with the photographer one more time
Provide them with a list of the occasions you want to be filmed.
- Set aside the vendors’ checks
And put the tips in the envelopes for the case to be handed out.
- Give the final list of guests to the caterer and all the venues that hold the wedding-related activities
- Assemble and deliver your welcoming baskets.
- Get prepared for the honeymoon.