When is too soon to plan the wedding?

Literally everything you can get done early will help so much! Even the makeup artist I had wanted initially i tried booking over 10 months out and it wasn't early enough she was already booked solid! Covid especially has affected a lot of planning. The earlier the better girl! and you'll feel better having it done too

Never too early!!!

Thank you everyone! We ended up booking our venue, photographer, wedding planner and are in the works for our DJ as the venue we chose is a smaller town so they all have to travel. Also I’m very new to this site so hopefully everyone that replied can see this so I don’t have to reply to every single person as I left this thank you for very long

It’s never too early to start planning and putting everything together to see how it works for you. You can always decide on your favours and floral a little bit closer to the time.


Take into consideration since a lot of wedding were pushed back because of Covid, that some vendors will be rented out.
Wishing you all the best in the planning process. Also, make sure to take a break and destress at times. 🍾🥂🎉

We are getting married April 20 2024 and have already started planning.. we booked our venue but are saving up some money before we book a dj and photographer (hoping to get his buddy to do the photos for us) we have looked into a lot of things mostly so we have any idea what we are looking at cost wise. We came uo with a saving plan to help us pay for everything and if we really stick with it then we should have almost 10k saved a year prior to our wedding and almost 20k by our wedding so we won't have to stress about paying everything off. ( I've estimated it will be about 12,500 for everything) still hoping I can cut costs somewhere though

I am already planning my wedding and actually booked most of the vendors and have a venue already and my wedding isn’t until June 25th 2023!

View quoted message Agree with this, 2000%! We booked our venue, photographer and DJ first (catering supplied by the venue), more than a year ahead. We have slowly been booking other expenses (officiant, limousine etc) as we get closer. Also suggest booking formal wear for men well in advance to get the right suits/styles (final fitting is done closer to the wedding, similar to bridesmaids dresses).

View quoted message

Also engaged Jan 15, 2022 but we're squeezing in the wedding this year

It took a lot of digging and being flexible with time of year, but we found a venue that had Saturday October 1st open so we're going with it! I agree with booking venue & photographers asap. There's a lot of photographers, but I had a particular style in mind which made it a little harder. A lot of photographers were fully booked for all of 2022 back in 2021.

Totally agree with what others have said! I got engaged January 15th of this year and we are planning a July 2023 wedding. First thing we did was come up with a high level budget and guest list. Once we had that, we researched venues as I wanted one that came with the ability to have ceremony and reception on site, catering and open bar and event coordinator as part of their packages. We found a few that fit into our budget and toured them. The venue that was top of our list was already fully booked for Saturdays in 2023 with the backlog of delayed weddings the last 2 years - so we opted for a Friday date. I also booked our photographer this week as I had worked with her in the past (I was a bridesmaid at the wedding she was the photographer at and I LOVED her style) and because I knew I wanted her as my photographer I decided not to wait to secure her for our wedding and engagement pictures. Now that those are done - I'm taking a bit of a break to just enjoy the time being engaged before planning more things

Book your food, photographer and venue out far! Other vendors can wait a few months out but I booked all the vendors right away and then things like decoration and the little details come later. I also highly recommend a day of coordinator!

I’m getting married July of 2023 and So far I have booked my planner/ venue/ church and photographer.
Everything else I’ll do in the next few months!
Ge the big things done. Then work out the small details.

Congrats and welcome to the community!

Planning your wedding can start as soon as you want to get all the vendor team together done. First to get started for the guest count is the guest list and to know what venue would be your ideal setting and cost wise to compare for all the services provided. Open bar times and extra cost for the hours to keep guests drinking. Toonie bar is a good way not go over your budget.

Get an idea of what you concept will be along with colour choices to get decor considering rental options if it helps to cut on the costs as well as invitations style.

He proposed on 22nd Jan 2022, we are having our engagement party on 06-March-2022. We were positive we wanted to get married this summer so we started calling aroujd for venues; most places weren’t available on Saturdays and were advising us to get a day in the week but we kept the phone ringing. We finally got an awesome venue and on a Saturday! Our wedding is set for 06-August-2022. We have been contacting vendors each second we get and we are half way through the list. Next week is for florals and decoration and everything will be ticked off! We will then start skin routines and keeping healthy for the engagement party and happily wait for the big day!


You can do anything you put your mind to😊

If you know 100% that a vendor is a must have book them asap. I would take the time to make sure you know what you want your wedding day to look like. Get your list of must haves, make your guest list and have your budget. I booked my venue back in 2018 for what I thought was going to be a 2020 wedding. (They have been incredible.) Our officiant we booked within the last six months (thinking our Jan date would be available), right now so many people are still postponing and canceling wedding that I find there is still quite a lot of vendors available for dates. Not sure what it will be like by 2023 though. If you have your heart set on a certain vendor book them if you aren't sure I would wait....

It’s never to early to book your vendors!! Get those big things out of the way and everything will fall into place. That being said, and this was only for me .. I started planning like decor and dresses and colour schemes like the day after I got engaged lol and I changed my mind on everything.. like three times 😅 soo definitely get big vendors out of the way start looking now because it gets booked so fast!! but in my opinion take your time with colours, decor and that kind of stuff really research and Pinterest all the styles and themes so you know what you do and don’t like!
I thought I loved rustic when I first started planning and now it’s completely different I love simple/boho elegance lol confusing but just what I like 🤷🏼‍♀️😁
I went from I want bridesmaids in pink to I want bridesmaids in terracotta, nude, eucalyptus green and cinnamon 😆

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here: most things do not need to be done ASAP.

Things you can do: plan how many people you want and come up with a budget so you can narrow your venue. There are a lot of planning tasks that don't involve sinking any money into someone's pocket. This is the time to do that.

As for the locking in pricing argument, most venues have been factoring in inflation in their year to year planning for a while now, especially with covid. People booking last year for this year's dates are often paying this year's rates, not last year's. There are even news stories of couples paying increases for postponing to future years.

Though not all vendors are doing that and booking some vendors now can save you some money, it also means locking in your cash for 18 months. Depending on your financial situation, that might not be feasible. And if you're unlucky that the vendor shuts down/goes bankrupt, you're not getting that money back.

Since you're in a major city, you won't have that big a shortage of vendors. Unless you're super picky, it's unlikely that everyone will be booked. And to be completely honest, a lot of people post "almost all booked up for this year" on social media as a scare tactic to get people signing with them ASAP. I got married on the Sept long weekend, still considered a prime date and I was able to find a ton of vendors with availability within three months. That included florists, DJs, videographers, decorators, etc.

TLDR - my suggestion is, don't rush into booking vendors and take the time to properly plan your wedding.

As others have said, I'd be booking asap. I know many vendors have been posting they're almost booked for 2023. 2023 is not far away. We booked precovid in summer 2019 for December 31, 2020. That was even tight. We booked venue (which had a deal with floral, DJ, and cake so all of that and food was done), then photographer, then officiant, then slowly booked the rest. If you're picky about who you have for things, book ASAP.

I am having my wedding August of 2024 and to lock in a rate before it goes up, I reserved my venue with alcohol, bartending and also a caterer.

If I would of waited the venue fee would of been an additional $2,000. So it is never too early to get into wedding planning!

I agree with Amanda, NEVER too early. And I think these next two years are going to be busy ones with all postponed weddings and those who have waited for restrictions to lift.

I actually just had lunch with a gf who got engaged in 2020, and is planning her wedding for 2023. I got engaged in 2021, planning for 2022. She just laughed that I got engaged after her and my wedding will be before hers. BUT she didn't want to stress about planning, so shes giving herself time.

Some things you can put off: flowers, cakes/desserts (I was told 6ish months prior to start planning that) wedding bands.

Now is the perfect time to start planning! There is a big wedding boom right now (due to the backlog of covid postponements) I would start by getting a venue secured then start booking other important vendors (photographer, cater, officiant, etc)
But before booking anything I'd make sure you and your partner have a conversation about budget and what's important to each of you for the wedding.

It is never to early to plan and get things together!
Sometimes you can lock in a good deal if you sign early enough with a venue or a vendor before the new prices come into effect! Since couples have been moving their weddings around into 2023 and also the new couples looking into 2023 as well you never know how much availability everyone has