HOW TO PICK THE BEST DATE FOR YOUR WEDDING DAY

WEDDING PLANNING HELP SERIES 4

This is the forth in our series of blogs that will help with your planning if you are new to your wedding journey. So do come and delve in….

So far in this series you have discovered

· How to make a wedding budget

· How to spend your wedding budget

· How to create your perfect guest list

Now we are going to cover

HOW TO PICK THE BEST DATE FOR YOUR WEDDING DAY

So now you have to consider what kind of wedding you would like and when. Would you like a summer, winter, autumn or spring wedding?

There are many reason why we pick dates for our wedding. Some may be because you got engaged on that date, or started to date, or something specific that makes you want “that” one date but you have to be mindful of other factors too that may scupper your plans and that actually may wish you push it to another year, so let’s just delve into some things you may wish to consider.

Now that you have carried out a guest list review and have it noted what you want on your wedding day, do you have any school teachers in your “must have” guests?. If so, the wedding may have to be on a Saturday if you want them to attend your wedding day. Are any of your guests getting married themselves?

It will often be impossible to fit in with everyone, but it is worth just checking to see if you have any other family expecting to marry so you can make sure you don’t clash your wedding dates, leaving all your family the really tough decision which wedding to attend. Or it may be that they have a big milestone birthday that would mean losing guests.

If your dreams were set on an outdoor wedding, then you want to consider a summer wedding to give yourself half the chance of a nice day, but bearing in mind English weather, there is never any gaurantee, but my personal choice would be June. However, just make sure you have a back up plan for bad weather for your wedding day.

SO HERE ARE SOME DATES TO AVOID

You may also want to check what is going on around the time that you wish to marry and avoid (if you want to) all the major big sporting events.

I recently had a wedding in July where we lost most of the guests to an ipad watching the football and some even left to go home and watch it on TV… this is not what you want on your wedding day. The only way you can tackle this is to have a screen up at your wedding day but who wants the extra expense of that? The day should be about the happy couple.

Bank holiday Mondays will be classed as a weekend date and whilst you may wish to consider marrying on a day before a bank holiday i.e. Thursday before Good Friday, do consider that accommodation in general will be way more expensive for you and your guests due to the demand.

If you choose a week day, your guests will have to take a day off from work, so you may lose some of your invites, but I know some do this to keep headcount to a minimum.

So do look at the national/bank holidays in the year you wish to marry. So for example, The Government have just announced an extra bank holiday in 2022 to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee; so we have a four day weekend from 2nd - 5th June 2022, but have moved the late May bank holiday from the 30th May.

You may have major events such as the FA Cup Final, or even local events like the London Marathon, Cambridge Boat Race, Wimbledon Champions, Pride Weekend.. or festivals

Not only will these events drive up the cost of all the local accommodation, they also drive up the sheer traffic on the roads at these given times that can make you late, your guests late and your suppliers maybe late too.

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One other thing to consider is that if you the time of year. The three peaks for flowers are Christmas, Valentine’s Day or Mothering Sunday. You could expect pay double or even triple for your flowers so if you have a fixed budget, you will get way less florals than away from these times.

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Another tip would be to choose seasonal flowers. If you have the luxury of time on your side (12 months plus), visit your (or any) florist and see what flowers are in season that best suit your colour theme. You will get more for your budget.

Finally, if you are on a budget here are some ways that you can save on your wedding venue when choosing your dates

1. Avoid Friday-Sundays in peak summer wedding season which are charged at a premium

2. If you choose a Monday to Thursday it will be much more cost effective (although you may lose some guests if they can’t get the time off, so give plenty of notice)

3. Get booked in off peak wedding season, that will be October through to March

4. Book off peak and avoid weekends for the biggest deals

5. Also consider a twilight wedding so you only have to feed your guests once and works better if you have a venue that charge by the hour or half day

6. Pick up a late availability deal

This sounds like an exhaustive list of things to consider, but it’s not really, but better to plan for the best possible outcome.

This is a nice thing to do over a nice bottle of wine and a night in and go through the calendar of events and family events and make a date or choosing your date!

If you can make planning fun at every given opportunity, then you are on for a fabulous wedding journey

Next in our series is showing you the type of venue hires to help you pick the right style of venue for you.