Civil Wedding Vows - Am I starting my wedding planning too soon?

Am I starting my wedding planning too soon?

We are getting married in May of 2011 but we have already started planning some of the stuff. Mostly because I love weddings so it is super fun for me but I am worried that I may run into a problem from starting so early. We are paying for the wedding ourselves and we are fairly young so we thought that starting so early would spread out the overall costs. Has anyone experienced problems from starting too early?

Public Comments

From personal experience (I began planning last year and I'm getting married next May) as long as you aren't planning ten years in advance you can almost never start planning too early. You won't believe some of the things you have to plan for. I'd start knocking out the big things like the ceremony and reception venues. Many places require at least 6 months to even 1 1/2 years in advanced notice. We booked the venue for our May 2010 wedding back in January and almost didn't get the day we wanted. I wouldn't work on dresses and decorations until closer to the date. Trends change and by the time the wedding rolls around you could decide you really want to go with something else. Mainly what I suggest you doing is lots of research right now. Go to every website possible, look at the pictures from other weddings, write down what you like, save pictures, think about color schemes and basically get a general idea and what you do and don't want that way it's much easier when you get down to the hardcore wedding planning you'll be doing the year before your wedding. Mostly importantly start saving the cash. You can accumulate a nice chunk of change by the time it comes to pay for things.
Yup,but it was due to hurricane issues.We were planning on getting married March 14,2009 but the hurricane ruined our home and everything I bought for the wedding was destroyed.I would say start planning 9 months ahead.It is kinda early rightnow.
Here are some problems I foresee. Trends change so quickly that something you decide on now might not be what you want in two years, you might finish everything so early that the time will DRAG until the wedding, plans may change (big fight with bridesmaid, etc.), a vendor that you book may go out of business before then and you might lose a deposit. I would wait until a year before the wedding and just start saving now to defray the big expenses when they come around. Congrats on your engagement and good luck with the wedding!
Starting early has it downfalls, like you buy a bunch of stuff and find something else you like, change colors, styles are different, most places will not let you book them more than a year out. But if you know for sure what you want you can buy things and put them away here and there, etc. I bought my dress 8 months before the wedding and although I love it I wish I would have waited.
Unless the reception location is booked up super far in advance I would wait another 3 or 6 months. 2 years is a long time and you can't get deposits back. A lot can happen.
Starting early is totally fine, as long as it doesn't consume your life for the next 2 years... which it easily can! :-P Wedding planning can be consuming... trust me!! What I would do now is start with is a estimated budget and a savings plan so you can save what you will need to make your wedding the way you want it. While planning ahead will give you a chance to shop sales and get the best prices for things, there are certain things that you won't want to start too early. You could get mid way through planning, buy a bunch of stuff and then see something else you like better. There is a such thing as having TOO much time to plan. I started planning a while ago and gave up... it was too much! My fiance and I have been engaged for 2 years now and I can honestly say that if I had started 2 years ago, I would have driven us both nuts! I also would have probably changed my mind when I saw new things. I'd say 12 - 18 months max. is a better time frame... early enough to shop sales and spread out costs, but not too early to go crazy! Good luck and congratulations!!
My fiance and I are getting married in August. We got engaged last June. I had everything planned by Thanksgiving. Now, I'm not as far a head as you are, but I think the sooner you get things done - the less stress you will have when it's the month of your wedding. So many brides put things off till the last minute, this way you can fine tune a budget and really save for it. Plus, you may be able to lock in some prices NOW that will be way more expensive in 2011. Plan now, but make sure you get what you want - It's one of the most important days of your life. Congrats!
I wouldn't start calling places right now. Having a plan and an estimate of how much you'll be spending is great though. Keep tabs on the stuff you both like and might want.
I know just how you feel- when I got engaged last January, I wanted to run right out and do everything to get ready for it- never mind that I'm not getting married until this September! You have literally got two years of planning time ahead of you, and while it is still much too early to book florists and cake, there are some things you can start doing. First of all, hammer out a rough-draft guest list, just to get a good idea of the approximate size of your wedding. This is very important because you don't want to fall in love with a venue that holds 50 people max, only to realize your guest list tops 200. On the other hand, if you book a huge hotel ballroom and then only end up with 75 guests, that could be bad in the opposite way. The second thing you can, and should, do right away is create a wedding budget and savings plan. Between the two of you, and maybe your parents if they offer to help, figure out how much total your can budget for the wedding, and then use that total to figure out how much you can comfortably spend on food, music, alcohol, your dress, the cake, flowers, transportation, venues, photography, favors, and the honeymoon. Once you have a realistic budget in place, start a savings account (if you don't have one already) and have whatever money you can afford to part with direct-deposited right into the savings when you get your paycheck. If you never see it, you're less likely to miss it, and saving gets easy. Make sure you make a pact not to touch that money for anything that is not wedding-related. Here are the things I've learned you don't do too early: Buy wedding bubbles, disposable cameras, chocolate favors, or anything else with a shelf life, or it will have expired by your big day. Wait to buy that stuff until at least three months before. (Well, try to get the edible stuff the week before, if you can.) Don't buy your dress right now. Not only are they hard to store if you don't have a lot of closet space, but there is a very good chance you will gain/lose at least a bit of weight before your wedding, which will lead to unnecessary alteration expenses. Also, don't ever buy your dress until you have determined the size, venue, and overall vibe of the wedding- you don't want to be stuck with a 50-pound beaded ballgown after you've gone and decided to get married on the beach in Jamaica! (Then again, you also probably don't want to be stuck with a cool hippie sundress like mine if you've decided on a huge, formal white-tie wedding.) Also, and I cannot stress this enough- DO NOT pick your bridal party yet, or make any promises to any friends. I was so excited the night I got engaged that I asked two of my friends who were there to be my bridesmaids. They are friends of mine, and one of them has gotten particularly close over the past year, but the other one I barely ever see, so I don't even know if that was a good idea after all. And then I ended up getting back in touch with my two best friends from high scholl via Facebook, and I really would have liked to have them in the wedding. So definitely wait at least another year before even bringing it up to your girls. One more piece of advice I wanted to pass along to you- when you tell people you're engaged, you will find that a lot of them, even the very remote acquaintances, will either subtly hint or come right out and ask if they'll be invited to the wedding. This is extremely bad form, but you'd be surprised how many people don't know that. When people did that to me early on in my engagement, I didn't know you could say "no," and I was put on the spot, so I always said, "Well, of course!" Next thing you know, my sweet little tiny 50-guest wedding has blown up into a 120-guest thing, still not huge, but more than double my original estimate! Here's what you say to avoid this: "Well, we wish we could invite everybody we know, but since we're trying to keep costs down we're going to keep it very intimate, childhood friends and relatives only." If you don't want to mention cost, you could just say, "Oh, I always wanted a really small wedding with relatives and childhood friends only, so I think we're going to keep the guest list very short." They might get miffed, but so what? What are you supposed to do, tack on another couple grand to your budget so you can spare the feelings of someone you barely know? They'll get over it.
Save for a year and begin the planning phase next May. It gives you a year to save and a year to plan. Also, trends change and you may not like what you purchase later if you do it so far ahead of time.
I would imagine you would only run into problems if you misplace things you buy now or if you get clothing too early and people grow out of it. Stuff like your wedding dress, tuxes, wedding party attire (especially kids) should wait for awhile- maybe start looking for your own dress six months to a year before and other things three to six months before. However, stuff like the location and officiant, etc wouldn't be a problem to start planning early on especially if you are wanting to get married in at a popular location that could be booked for several months even years in advance. I say as long as you having fun and not getting burned out plan away!
Coincidentally, you are getting married in the same month and year that I am!!! So congrats to you, first! Also, I love weddings and have been dreaming about planning my own for years. I think that its a good idea to start planning now, especially since you are paying for it yourselves. (Like we are!) I would suggest though not to go full throttle into planning like cake tasting and dress fittings because you have almost 2 years before your day. A lot can change in that time frame. I personally have had to slow down and remember that. What I do is, research the trends and prices of things that we like so that we have a general idea of what to expect. Good Luck!
We started planning as soon as we got engaged in 2007, and let me tell you, we changed our plan quite a few times. By the time we REALLY started planning it was probably about a year and a half before the wedding. We wanted to make sure that we had as much done NOW as possible, so we wouldn't have to worry about everything at the last minute.