A wedding checklist, month by month
The checklist that helps is not the longest one — it is the one in the right order. Some things cannot happen before others: you cannot choose the menu without a caterer, and you cannot finish the seating plan before you know who is coming.
This is the list of sixteen tasks nearly every wedding goes through, grouped by how much time is left.
A year out
- Set the budget together
- Draft the guest list
- Visit and book the venue
Three decisions, and all three govern everything else. The budget sets the guest count, the guest count sets the venue, and the venue sets which dates are left. Once these are done, half the wedding is decided.
Six months out
- Book the photographer
- Choose the caterer
Photographer and caterer are the two suppliers that book out first, especially in high season. Lock them in before anything else — you can change the flowers in April, you cannot change the photographer.
Three months out
- Order the stationery
- Send the invitations
- Book hair and make-up
- Choose the rings
This is the paperwork quarter. Stationery takes time to print and more time to arrive, and rings, if they are made to measure, take weeks. Book hair and make-up now, while the diaries are still open.
A month out
- Confirm the final guest count
- Choose the menu
- Confirm music and set times
Decisions stop here and confirmations begin. The caterer will ask for the final number, and that number sets the final price. Music and timings are agreed with the venue, so nobody turns up at the wrong hour.
A week out
- Finalise the seating plan
- Pay the outstanding balances
- Pack the emergency kit
The week of details. The seating plan is only finished now, when no more RSVPs are going to move. Pay what is outstanding before the day — nobody wants to be making transfers on Saturday morning.
On the day
- Hand the rings to the witness
Only one thing, but it is the one you cannot forget.
This list is already in Vowly
When you open the account and give the wedding date, Vowly builds this checklist for you, with each task at the right moment counting backwards.
You can add your own, move the dates and cross off what is done. And because the rest of the wedding lives in the same place, the task “confirm the final guest count” already knows how many have replied.