Hello Friends!
As promised some days ago, here the second part of the perfect timing for preparing the best wedding day. The closest months before the wedding are the most intense but also the most pleasant. The big choices (like the dress, the ceremony location, the party’s location, the catering services and the guests list) are made and you can move to the next steps, maybe little compare to the previous ones but absolutely fascinating and important!
Three Months Before
Save the date (invitation cards): at this point you have the full list of guests and you have the wedding’s style as well, and these are enough for choosing the invitation cards. Choose carefully between the different options, the one perfect for your wedding style, decide the best quotes and sentences, ask for some drafts. Before accepting the draft, check carefully the name, time, and possible mistakes. Remember also that there are much more that the invitation cards: the little book for the ceremony, the possible maps for arrive to the different places, the tableau marriage, and also some accessories like the rice containers. Maybe the supplier who provides the invitation card can take care of all these things.
Photographer and Video Maker: these are really important because they are responsible to eternalize your most important day! Remember to contact more than one professionals and ask to see previous jobs for evaluating his/her job and choose the one who best fits your needs. Usually there are two types of wedding shooting: Reportage (less formal, it supposes to catch the single moments and emotion, it is composed by a lot of spontaneous pics “stolen” to the couple) and traditional (more formal, it is almost completely composed by pics with posed subjects).
In the very same time, you should start to select the music and the musicians: music for the ceremony and for the party. When you find the best musician for you, choose together the songs especially for some topic moments like the entrance and the exit from the church, the arrive at the party and the wedding cake moment.
If the chosen catering don’t provide the wedding cake, or if you want a specific wedding cake, 3 months before the wedding date, you should find the supplier for the cake. As usual I suggest to contact more than one pastry chefs and ask to see the previous cakes.
Don’t forget he transportations! This is the right time to find also the car (or the desired means of transport like motorbike, sidecar or carriage) which carries the bride, and to talk with the floral design about the decoration of that important car.
After all this hard work… it’s time to think about some pleasure! Let’s think about the gifts! It is time to decide the items to insert in the gift list and to choose the travel agency and the destination for your honeymoon.
Two Months Before:
It is time to choose the party favor, the makeup artist and the hair stylist for the bride and if needed for choosing the bridesmaids and honor men dresses. The groom as well have to choose two months before the date his own dress.
At this time you should send the invitation cards to the guests.
If you want to do some DIY works for your wedding, you should start soon to have enough time to make everything without stress.
One Month Before
The couple choose the wedding bands and, if desired, the quote to write inside the ring.
Although one months before you don’t have yet the final list of the guests, it’s a good idea starting to think about the combinations between tables and guests.
Don’t forget to check that everything goes well with the suppliers, it’s a good idea to have a phone call with each of them, just to be sure…
Two Weeks Before
You should have all the RSVP from the guests, so you can confirm the number to the catering. At the very same time you can choose the guest’s sits at the tables (the placé).
Do you remember the dresses? It’s time to the last try on!
One Week Before
This is the time for collect the dresses, the party favor, the documentation for the honey moon, and to check with each supplier the timetable.
Take a look also of the weather forecast!
And please remember to wash and dry carefully the rice (remember that the normal rice can stain the dresses, and here I showed how to avoid this).
Two Days Before
Ensure that all the stuff that should be delivered in advance (like party flavors, menus, tableau marriage…) are correctly delivered.
The Day Before
The only thing you should do is… to relax!
What about the days after the wedding?
If you decided to send the thanksgiving cards, they should be send within two weeks after the wedding. Of course someone else can take care of it if you are on your honeymoon!
For my own wedding I decided to make a lot of things by myself because I had enough time and a lot of original ideas for a super customized wedding. Me and my husband made: the rice containers (here the tutorial), the ceremony’s books, the maps, our website, some sugared almond’s containers, the tableau marriage, the menus (for adults and kids)….. a lot of work, but a lot of satisfactions as well!
This are the “to do list” and the “when to do list” for having a no stress wedding.
As you can see, I skipped to talk about the bureaucratic aspects because they depend from the country in which you are going to marry.
To manage a wedding requires from 100 to 200 hours of work but the time depends from how many things you want to do by yourself as well.
These are my DIY works….
If you have no enough time, my personal suggestion is to ask for a wedding planner’s help for some aspects or for the whole organization.
I hope this post, and the previous one as well, can help those of you who are thinking about wedding and wedding planning. Personally I think that this list is really useful for keeping track of what to do and when. Let me know what do you think about, and if you think that it is necessary to add something!
Thanks for comments and feedback!
Let me know which are your favorite topics for talking about these!
Stay Tuned!
Tricks in this post: 1. How to manage the wedding organization without stress; 2. The to do list for manage everything; 3. Timing: when to do; 4. What you should expect when you are going to marry.