Short timeframe, overwhelmed—where to start?

We started planning ours about 7 months out, so a little more time but all we did at that point was find a venue. Honestly we kind of worked backwards on how long things may take and tried to get them handled with that amount of time left before the wedding. Like the dress alterations would take a month, so I took it in a month and a half before the wedding. It can be stressful, but if you can get started on some things, others fall into place. Sorry I don't have an actual timeline for you, but we had like a 2-3 month gap where we didn't really have to do much wedding planning. I think it's totally doable in a shorter time frame and I wish you the best of luck!

Hi! Congratulations. First I would establish a guest list with your fiancé. (I was set on 50 people, but then when I spoke to my fiancé he wanted to invite all these other people, it took a while to compromise but we ended up with 80 people invited.)


Second, establish a budget. You can do this by getting quotes from local caterers and venues. If you decide to have 50 guests, get a quote from a caterer and find out how much they will charge. Just a heads up, it is probably triple $ what you’d be expecting!

Then I would pick a venue and secure it.

After that, all you need to do is figure out little details. Does your venue include food? If not, then you’ll have to hire a caterer.

Do you want flower centerpieces? Hire a florist.

Do you want a DJ or a live band? Hire entertainment.


Hire a photographer! December is a slow month so I don’t think you’ll have issues with availability.

Get a dress that you can buy right on the spotX not one you have to wait for. David’s bridal, BHLdN, Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, etc. it can be a ivory gown, doesn’t have to necessarily be a wedding gown.

Get paper invitations from an inexpensive website like zazzle.com or send out digital invitations.

All the rest are little details. I think you can most definitely plan it with your amount of time.

Also, all those timelines and checklists you found online, I would suggest you still use them but just at an accelerated pace! And you can skip some of the things on the checklists too if you’re not into ALL of the traditions.

Gooood luck, and let us know what you decide!

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much! I'm glad it seems doable and not something that's just set up for disaster. I appreciate the reply.

View Quoted Comment Wow, this is really helpful. Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to me! I'll definitely keep updating as things progress (hopefully.) I'm scared something will go wrong but I'm also incredibly excited.

Bird gave awesome advice. I second starting with budget. Truly if you're short on time think about having the reception at a restaurant maybe? A lot of them have private rooms. You don't need STD's or even formal invitations, when a text or phone call to your guests will do. Consider what's important to you (music? florals? stationary? attire?) and focus on that.

Deeeeeeep breath! Wedding planning is overwhelming whether you have 2 years or 2 days to plan, and 4 months is definitely do-able!

I recommend starting by figuring out how much you're willing to spend overall. Then write out what things you want, what you don't want, things that you kind of want but aren't as important, and things that you'd only bother with if you had extra money but aren't worth it if you can't afford it (Photographer, Videographer, DJ, Band, Flowers, etc.). From there, figure out how you want to allocate your budget on the different things. There's a bunch of tools online that can help you determine the average costs for things in your area!

Next put together your guest list. That'll be the driving factor on what kind of reception space you'll need/ want. If you only have 50 guests, a ballroom for 500 people will look super empty, but you will probably need more than a booth at a restaurant. The headcount will also factor in for things like catering and bar service.

Next, you'll want to find a venue. WW and The Knot both have tools that let you filter based on location, headcount, price, etc. Note whether the venue is all-inclusive (meaning they offer catering, bar service, linens, etc.) or a blank slate venue. This is where having the breakdown for different parts of your budget is helpful because you're able to weigh whether the all-inclusive venues are a better deal than blank slates. Given your timeline, an all-inclusive would probably be a really good idea so you don't have to vet tons of different vendors and deal with people being all booked up.

From there, start knocking out different items/ vendors by the order of what's most important to you. You'll sleep way better at night knowing you got a great photographer than if you picked out a ventriloquist to work the reception lol.

Just wanted to write and thank you guys for your advice! Everything came together beautifully and we are now happily married. It was a bit of a scramble but we made things work. Thanks to everyone that gave us a place to get started with planning.