short wedding planning anyone?

Bride2BeSoon1

Usually, people on TK talk about how they are planning for a wedding and its usually a year of planning. I'm just wondering is there anyone who planned their wedding in a shorter amount of time?

JoanE2012

We will have had 10 months as well.  There's been alot of downtime, but there's also the fact that the dress I ordered is taking 6 months to come in.  So unless you buy something off the rack or from David's Bridal, that's one factor that often cannot be shortened.  Time of year is another consideration. 

librababy

Around 10 months here too.  Started seriously planning in January... wedding is in November.  I do have lots of time and some downtime as well, and I get to knock off some DIY off my list as I go.  I feel like it's enough time but some days I feel like I am running out of time, especially since I haven't booked a caterer or DJ yet.   LOL.

NcsuPsych

We planned our wedding in 5 months. We were engaged for 8 months though.
As long as you stay on track and focused, you'll be fine

azdancer8

Our engagement was only six months, and we did most of the planning in about 5 months. I also know people who planned in less than 3 months and had wonderful weddings.

kitty02kat

My best friend's mom planned her wedding in 14 days....  it depends what you want, how picky you are (do you HAVE to get married in a specific venue or have your reception at a special place, etc.), and your budget. 

Lynda Kaounis

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amyb140

4 months from proposal to wedding day. I would have gone nuts if it had been any longer. Everything was done in the first few weeks even my dress came in a month although they told me it could be 3 even with a rush.

snr1

I only had a little over 5 months, Christmas Eve proposal and my wedding is next Friday! But it has not been bad at all and is totally do-able especially with a good wedding planner since I have been in school. But if you have the time you could do it all yourself I would think.

Kristin789

We had talked about getting married but made no plans until we could go ring shopping once school was out the second week of June (we're both teachers).
Got the ring June 10.
Got married July 10.
No kidding.

The weekend that we got engaged, we went to four venues.  We wanted a ceremony at 11:30 followed by luncheon reception, so we didn't have problems with places being already booked up.

Week One:

Picked a wedding / reception location, set the contract details and signed it.  

 One day, Mom and I went to David's in the morning and had an awful experience, then went down the street to the most popular local wedding boutique and had a more awful experience, then went to lunch, and then went to Dillards and bought a dress off the rack.

We bought an invitation kit and I drafted up what the invitations should say, then I hired a woman from my work to do the invitations on her home computer system over the weekend.

BFF volunteered her husband, a judge, to do ceremony.
Another friend volunteered her husband, a retired minister, to do the blessing before the meal.

Week Two:
Picked up the invitations, got them addressed and mailed, with a telephone number at the bottom for RSVP (no time for return mail).
Went shopping with Mom for a dress for her.
Met with officiant and retired minister.
Made appointments to meet with bakery, florist, photog the next week.

Week Three:
Made arrangements for wedding cake, flowers, photographer.
Bought wedding bands, cake topper, favors.
Booked honeymoon.

Week Four:
Packed stuff to take to wedding and recep.
Packed for honeymoon.
Got married, had nice reception, left for honeymoon.

Wouldn't change a thing...

QueerFemme

We started planning in February, wedidng is in Sept.  So, about 7 months. But, everything should be basically done by mid July.  So, really... the planning phase is about 4-5 months.

cwaggoner07

Seven months for us. FI's career is such that he can be gone for months at a time, so he's taking a break and we're planning the wedding fast so he can get back to working right after and not have to worry about missing wedding stuff.
The biggest issue for us was that we managed to get a venue for Saturday night, and a LOT of vendors were booked by that point. But we live in a huge metroplex, so we always had plenty of options.

Annas2013

I am so jealous of everyone having short engagements.  A ton of the people my age that are getting engaged are getting married 7-11 months later.  One person got engaged two weeks ago and is getting married in September.  Our engagement will be 17 months total, and it gets old because there's only so much you can do and it doesn't honestly take 17 months to plan a wedding.  Which explains why the only thing we've done so far is book the venue.  It's definitely possible to plan a wedding in less than a year.  

cwaggoner07

I've heard with long engagements it's easy to lose steam and change your mind a lot. Heck, even with 7 months I've changed my mind a LOT.
There's no wrong way... depends on what works for the couple. TBH, I would have like a year-long engagement, so I could slow down sometimes. My weekends are chock full up until the wedding! But we got engaged in December and I always wanted a summer wedding (HATE the cold), and with FI's career it just made no sense to put it off any longer.

rlavach

We had a 9 month engagement. I had every vendor done within 2 months. 

Annas2013

It is easy to change your mind.  Also everyone's right when they tell you to wait and buy your dress later.  My mom convinced me to buy a dress she fell in love with (and I liked but didn't love) right after I got engaged.  I'm selling it now to get a dress I fell in love with.  It's hard when other people around you start getting engaged and married while you're still engaged and nowhere near the actual wedding date.

kimandjosh22

We've been engaged for 24 months...we didn't start really planning 'til about a year ago, but like others have alluded to I/we lost steam several months ago...at the moment I'm past the point of caring on most things, I'm just ready to be married.  Hopefully the week of the wedding I'll get more excited.  And we did change our mind on a lot of things.  Colors, cake, flowers...the wedding we're having is completely different from what we envisioned 2 years ago.

RamonaFlowers

We were engaged for 20 months ... but the first 15 of that consisted of nothing wedding related other than saving up for the wedding (I refused to plan a single thing until we had a date set in stone because I knew an indefinite time line would drive me nuts).

When we finally were able to afford the wedding we wanted, it was mid July 2009. We went to the venue we wanted and said "Give us the first available Friday night you have in 2010". We got married on 01/01/10.

And honestly, even with the 4.5 months we had between setting the date and the wedding, I still MAYBE only spent about a month total "actively" planning. Most of that time was really spent just hanging out on WP talking to the regs about how bored we all were at work and telling beebees "No, you can't kick out a BM because she got a visible tattoo".

christinamarie325

We have an 8 month engagement, and really have all of the hard stuff done. It helps that the priest is also a friend a mine, and my mom works for our reception venue.

divinemsbee

We'll have been engaged just under a year by the wedding, but planning for about 7 months. And by planning I mean that I  booked the church and the reception venue at the end of Feb., and didn't do anything more until I ordered my dress in May. I've just now got a caterer and am looking at invitations. It's definitely been more of a hurry up and then wait thing, especially since I'm planning long distance. 

I have a friend who got engaged about a week after me and her wedding was last weekend. It was really stunning. I will say that she bought her wedding dress pre-owned because a regularly ordered dress couldn't be guaranteed. Also, all inclusive things become your friend to get a lot done in short amount of time. 

whitneymarie504

The night he asked me to marry him was April 29, 2012. He re-proposed with a ring on May 4, 2012 and our wedding date is June 23, 2012.

Between him asking me & giving me the ring (less than 1 week) we had a venue for our reception (which also offers catering, white linens, bartenders. etc), my dress ordered, wedding party selected, BM dresses ordered for all 6 girls, a florist appt booked (I KNEW what florist I wanted), flower girl dress picked out, a design for invitations selected, tuxes selected and him measured for his tux, an appt with the baker for cake, a photographer, an appt with the dj to go over music. etc.

By the end of week 1 we also have a ceremony venue, chairs for ceremony, a minister, and all details for the ceremony basically worked out.

During week 2 we got the invites ordered and then got them in the mail. We planned our menu with the venu (apps and cocktails type of reception). We ring shopped (my ring was my mothers & we are having the diamond reset). We started our bridal registries. We had a planning meeting with all the parents to figure out what our plan was (arranged by my mother)  and my parents kind of gave us a budget/what they where willing to pay for. At this meeting we also went through the books and selected things like the unity candle, toasting flutes, cake topper, cake server & knife set, etc. We had a set of engagement photos taken.

Week 3 my wedding gown came in, I tried it on and had the seamstress fit me (all I need is a bussle). While I was at the bridal shop I placed my order for all the miscellaneous items (unity candle, etc) that we had selected. Mother of the groom hosted a bridal shower for me. I made appointments for hair and nails the day before and day of.

Week 4 my BM dresses arrived and the one that needs to be shipped to LA was shipped. We had an appointment with the florist to choose arrangements and paid the balance in full. The last of our guys are getting fitted for their tuxes.

First week of June we meet with our baker and dj to let them know what we want. I have another bridal shower hosted by my mom. Most of my BM will have alreeady been fitted prior too the shower and those who havent have an appointment that day. We will put an engagement announcement in the paper.  My step-mom is working on centerpieces and decorations for the hall. We are having a makeshift photo booth since we want a way for our scrapbook to have tons of photos but we couldn't afford that type of expense on short notice.

By the end of next week pretty much everything should be done other than the things you have to wait until the week of to take care of.

whitneymarie504

It's very doable to plan on wedding on short notice but you have to realize some things may not be 100% the way you envisioned them, some things will not be perfect.\

For example, I LOVE my gown but I only chose from dresses that where pre-selected in my sizes off the rack or the store KNEW we could get in time. I didn't want to fall in love with something only to be told "sorry we can't get that in time for you" - same with the bridesmaid dresses. I only looked through the catalog where I knew we would be able to have them shipped here in time.

I won't get an actual photo booth, ice sculptures, or anything "extra" that I might have gotten with more time.

So yes, it can be done and it will be wonderful and beautiful but perhaps not what I had always thought it would be. However, the most important thing is that I am marrying my best friend and the love of my life. The rest is details

erbear84

We'll have a 17 month engagement and I feel like it's too long.  I already have my wedding vendors all picked out.  My dress will be in in August.  It's not going to take me ten more months to pick out decorations.  We have friends that planned their wedding in 6 months and it was one of the coolest weddings I've been to.

Meghannsix

We've been engaged since August 2011, and have been doing little bits of planning here and there.  Our long engagement is mostly due to the need to set aside cash to pay for it all, we definitely could have had this thing wrapped up in a few weeks if we had the funds!

meganmullen99

We are going to be engaged 9 months.  It took us about 2-3 months to do wedding planning.  However, during that time I was going through my first semester of nursing school, so it took a little longer.  

One thing that helped was looking online and a couple of vendors that we wanted gave us suggestions for other vendors.  Ex: our caterer suggested our photographer.

Spunky414

We will be engaged for 13 months, but most of our planning was done in 3 months of being engaged. My dress even came in within three weeks of ordering (5-7months early!) but of course came in the day after we had signed the contract with our venue or else we would have moved up the date. The only benefit for us for waiting this long is that it's easier on our long distance traveling guests and we are getting better rates for our honeymoon booking this far out.