5. Setting The Date

After family and friends have been given the great news, the date of the wedding will need to be set. You may have decided that you want a full-blown wedding that takes extra time to plan or simply want to wait a while to be married after the engagement. Therefore, pushing the date out to a year or more is perfectly fine. On the other hand, after becoming engaged, you might have decided that you want to get married right away.

The great thing about marriage is that there are no hard rules – you choose what works best for you! The only thing to remember is that there are certain things to think about when it comes to setting the wedding date. A few of these would include:

• Geographical location of family and friends.
• Time off from work.
• Time off from school.
• Financial aspects (a large, elaborate wedding would take more money and time to plan than a simple wedding would).
• Preferred season (budget can also be an important factor in determining this, as you will see further in this book).
• Availability of family and friends

Your best course of action is to sit down and start by creating the budget.  This will serve as your best guide for a number of reasons. For instance, if you have your heart set on a large, mid-summer wedding, then you can expect to pay premium prices for everything since this is the most popular time of year for weddings. However, by moving the wedding to autumn or late winter, significant money will be saved, which could be used for a larger wedding, more delectable foods at the reception or a more elaborate honeymoon.

Once all of the above-mentioned factors have been considered, the date for the wedding can be established. Even though you have worked on a draft budget, now you can firm up the financial aspects, which will show you exactly what can and can not be done. The best option is to go through these two steps prior to telling anyone the date. This way, you have time to make changes before people start planning things on their end.

After the date has been determined, the process of organising all facets of the wedding can get underway. For a wedding that will be about one year away, you will obviously have more time. Just keep in mind that if the wedding is large or you are doing something unique, you will need every bit of the year to get things done. However, if the wedding is six months away or less, then changes will probably be made along the way.

With a shorter planned wedding, the future bride and groom might find the church of their choice is scheduled for another wedding, meaning the couple would have to choose another date, time or church. Another example would be finding that the band wanted for the reception is booked. Again, the couple would be required to change the date or time or perhaps even consider a different band or decide to work with a DJ.

The important thing to remember when setting the date is that things will change, regardless of the size or type of wedding. This means that once the date is firm, you should expect to have times when your creativity is put to the test. This is quite typical of all weddings so you will need to remain calm, avoid becoming stressed and try to enjoy the process, realising this is a once in a lifetime opportunity!