Online Wedding Planning Guide

God knows why June is popular. Sure, there’s not as much rain, but heat, bugs, and suits? Resign yourself to it; no matter what season you hold this shindig, you will not be comfortable because whether it’s Armani or Sears, it’s still a monkey suit.

If you are shooting for summer, and you live near a lake or Disney World, get out of town! Crowds equal lack of facilities and they increase the chance of misunderstandings over bookings. Few things can bring about bridal tears like a last-minute surprise when somebody double-books the Hell’s Angels into your reception hall.

Remember that you can score significant savings by moving the event one or two days in either direction. Now is the time to do it.

You might just cut in half the cost of the honeymoon arrangements (traditionally the groom’s responsibility) by paying special attention to blackout dates and changes of season. We doubled the length of our UK honeymoon by going in October. Weather was still fine, but everything was much cheaper and less crowded. Our accommodations were accordingly more flexible.

Another point on dates involves holidays outside your faith. It’s a real smack-in-the-forehead moment when you realize a friend can’t attend because you forgot to take his Sabbath into account.

Lastly, when your bride turns to you in frustration with the way dates or general planning are going, resist the male reflex to be a problem solver. She might just want to vent. This goes for everything from now on.

Tags: 4. Choose the Season/Month by Mike
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In addition to the questions in the previous online wedding planning guide article, the questions in the table below can help you identify the best month for the wedding of your dreams.

You may not have made the decisions to fill in the parts of the table, below, but if you have (or when you do), these can also affect your decision about the timing of your wedding.

Use this online wedding planning guide table (and the table in the previous article) to identify particularly good or bad months for the different considerations related to your wedding.

Look for patterns in the lists of particularly good or bad months for planning your wedding.

Based on these lists, choose the month/season for your wedding.

When You Consider THIS	Which Are the Good Months	Which Are the Bad Months
A state or part of the country where you’d like to get married	1. _________________ 2. _________________ 3. _________________ 4.	1. _________________ 2. _________________ 3. _________________ 4.
A particular reception or ceremony location you’d like to pursue	1. _________________ 2. _________________ 3. _________________ 4.	1. _________________ 2. _________________ 3. _________________ 4.
A particular officiant you want to perform your ceremony	1. _________________ 2. _________________ 3. _________________ 4.	1. _________________ 2. _________________ 3. _________________ 4.

Tags: 4. Choose the Season/Month by Debbie
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Use this online wedding planning guide table (and the table in the next article) to identify particularly good or bad months for the different considerations related to your wedding.

Look for patterns in the lists of particularly good or bad months for planning your wedding.

Based on these lists, choose the month/season for your wedding.

When You Consider THIS	Which Are the Good Months	Which Are the Bad Months
Important elements of your wedding (such as particular flowers or the desire to be outside)	1. __________________ 2. __________________ 3. __________________ 4.	1. _________________ 2. _________________ 3. _________________ 4.
Which seasons or months would make your honeymoon destination most desirable	1. __________________ 2. __________________ 3. __________________ 4.	1. _________________ 2. _________________ 3. _________________ 4.
Family has plans and commitments	1. __________________ 2. __________________ 3. __________________ 4.	1. _________________ 2. _________________ 3. _________________ 4.
Local scheduled events	1. __________________ 2. __________________ 3. __________________ 4.	1. _________________ 2. _________________ 3. _________________ 4.
Whether you’d like to schedule your wedding around a holiday>	1. __________________ 2. __________________ 3. __________________ 4.	1. _________________ 2. _________________ 3. _________________ 4.

The next article in our online wedding planning guide will include another table, with some additional “time of year” considerations. Combining what you learn from these two tables, you should be able to identify the time of year that will work best for the wedding you really want.

Tags: 4. Choose the Season/Month by Debbie
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This is just another step in your online wedding planning guide to narrowing down the perfect day and place for your wedding. June is obviously a very popular time for weddings (hence the "June bride"), but does that mean that you need to be married in June or that you’d rather die than be married in June?

Maybe you’d rather avoid the crowds and be married at a time when locations and vendors (musicians, photographers, etc.) won’t be quite so booked up and hard to find.

On the other hand, June does have pretty terrific weather . . . .

Obviously there are a number of factors to take into consideration. These are outlined for you in the Exercise below. Take some time and think it through.

Exercise

You know what things are important to you, and you know how much you have to spend overall. Think about how you might best combine these elements.

• If flowers are of particular importance, spring and summer are probably better choices than winter in terms of easy access to what you want.





• If you want candles and evergreen boughs, winter may work perfectly.

For many locations, the desire for an outdoor wedding will help you quickly narrow down your timeframe.

1. Something else to keep in mind when narrowing down your season or month is your honeymoon. If you want to leave for a tour of England the day after your ceremony, do you want to do that in January when it’s cold and rainy (more than usual, I mean)?

Think about where you’d like to go on your honeymoon and which time of year would make that location all you want it to be.



2. Family/location calendars are something else to consider. This aspect of choosing your wedding timeframe overlaps somewhat with the Choosing a General Location exercises in Chapter 4. Think about how the time of year and the location of your wedding will fit together.



Do you have an annual family reunion you’d like to work around (or work your wedding into)?



Does the area you’re thinking about for your wedding host large sporting events or other activities that you’ll need to take into account?

For example, I live in a college town. If I were going to plan a wedding in my town, I’d want to avoid the final weeks of August when parents and returning students have booked every hotel room and fill the streets with twice the normal amount of traffic. The same goes for homecoming weekend, as well as for a few specific rival college football games that occur each season.


3. Holidays are another aspect of your family and friends’ calendars to take into account. If your guests are scattered far and wide from their various hometowns, asking them all to come to your wedding on Christmas Eve may result in a lot fewer guests!

On the other hand, if most of your guests are from the same hometown in which you’ll be holding your wedding, a couple days after Christmas may work perfectly.

One thing to keep in mind is that "lesser" three-day weekend wedding dates can work very well if lots of guests have to travel long distances for your event. People don’t often make big plans for Columbus Day, but maybe you have the day off from work. Thus you’re able to travel home from your wedding while saving one day of vacation time. Guests appreciate that.

In our next article, we’ll start prioritizing your various options and narrowing down your perfect wedding season/month.

Tags: 4. Choose the Season/Month by Debbie
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