Planning a wedding can feel overwhelming when you look at everything that needs to happen between getting engaged and walking down the aisle. But you don’t have to tackle every decision at once. Following a thoughtful wedding planning timeline can help you determine what needs your attention now—and what can wait until later.
As a wedding invitation designer, I often meet couples once they’re ready to start thinking about their stationery. But several important planning decisions need to happen before your save-the-dates or wedding invitations ever go into the mail.
To help couples understand what those early steps should look like, I asked Kathryn, owner of Enchanted Me Weddings & Events, a Central Florida wedding and event planning company, to share some of her professional advice.
Here’s what she recommends.
When to Hire a Wedding Planner
So, when should you hire a wedding planner? According to Kathryn, a planner should ideally be one of the first wedding professionals you consider booking.
For couples interested in full-service wedding planning, she recommends bringing a planner on board near the beginning of the planning process. This allows your planner to help guide many of the decisions that come next.
That timeline can be different if you’re looking for partial planning or wedding coordination.
Kathryn explains that partial planning services can often begin further into the planning process, while coordination services may be booked closer to the wedding. However, she cautions couples against waiting too long because experienced wedding professionals can book well in advance.
If you already know that professional planning assistance is important to you, starting the conversation early gives you more options.
Start With Your Wedding Budget and Guest List
Before you start booking vendors, Kathryn recommends establishing two things: your wedding budget and an approximate guest count.
These two decisions affect almost everything else on your wedding planning timeline.
Your guest count can influence the size of venue you need, catering costs and even the number of wedding invitations you’ll eventually order. Your budget helps establish priorities and gives you a framework for making decisions as you begin comparing venues and wedding professionals.
Your guest list doesn’t necessarily need to be completely finalized at this stage, but having a realistic estimate gives you a much better starting point.
Book Your Wedding Venue Before Sending Save-the-Dates
This is one area where Kathryn has particularly strong advice: do not send save-the-dates or wedding invitations until your venue and wedding date are officially confirmed.
And “confirmed” means more than finding a venue you love.
Kathryn recommends waiting until you have a signed contract and have paid the required deposit before announcing the date to your guests.
Before sending your stationery, she also recommends having other important information finalized or well underway, including your guest list, wedding attire expectations, wedding website, ceremony or event time, and travel information your guests may need, such as hotel and flight details.
This is particularly important for a destination wedding or a celebration where many guests will be traveling.
When to Send Save-the-Dates and Wedding Invitations
Once your venue and date are secured, your wedding stationery can begin taking its place in your overall wedding planning timeline.
Kathryn recommends sending save-the-dates once your date and venue are confirmed so guests can reserve the date on their calendars.
For wedding invitations, she recommends working backward from an important date that couples sometimes overlook: the deadline your venue or caterer gives you for your final guest count.
Kathryn suggests setting your RSVP deadline at least two weeks before your venue or catering deadline. That gives you some breathing room to contact guests who haven’t responded rather than finding yourself chasing RSVPs the day your final numbers are due.
From there, she recommends mailing wedding invitations approximately two to three months before your RSVP deadline. Destination weddings may require an earlier timeline to give guests additional time to make travel arrangements.
A Note From Your Wedding Invitation Designer
There is one additional date I encourage couples to add to their wedding planning timeline: when to order your wedding invitations.
The date you mail your invitations and the date you begin designing them are two very different things.
You’ll need time for personalization, proofs, revisions, printing, assembly and addressing before your invitations are ready to mail. Custom wedding stationery that includes original artwork or more elaborate finishing techniques will generally require even more lead time.
If you love the look of custom stationery but don’t need a completely bespoke design, semi-custom wedding invitation suites can offer a beautiful middle ground. Couples can choose an existing design and personalize it for their wedding while still enjoying professionally designed stationery with an artistic, elevated feel.
Break Your Wedding Planning Timeline Into Manageable Pieces
Perhaps Kathryn’s most reassuring piece of advice is not about a particular deadline at all.
Looking at the entire wedding planning process at once can become overwhelming. Instead, she recommends breaking the process into smaller, manageable pieces.
Keep the bigger picture in mind, but focus your attention on the decisions that need to happen during the stage you’re currently in.
That might mean establishing your budget and guest count first, followed by hiring your planner and securing your venue. Once your date and location are confirmed, you can move on to the next group of decisions—including your wedding website, save-the-dates and eventually your wedding invitations.
A good wedding planning timeline isn’t simply a long list of deadlines. It’s a way of putting those decisions into an order that makes the entire process easier to manage.
Meet Kathryn of Enchanted Me Weddings & Events
Kathryn is the owner of Enchanted Me Weddings & Events, providing wedding and event planning services in Central Florida. Whether couples are looking for support throughout the planning process or assistance closer to their wedding day, Kathryn helps couples break the planning process into manageable steps while keeping the overall vision for their celebration in mind.
Visit Enchanted Me Weddings & Events to learn more about Kathryn and her wedding planning services.
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