Getting engaged is the easy bit. What follows is a planning process that usually stretches anywhere from about six months to two years (or longer), and one of the questions couples ask most often is simply: what do I do first?
There's no single correct answer, partly because every wedding is different and partly because suppliers' availability varies enormously depending on the time of year and how far ahead you're planning. But there are some general patterns that hold pretty consistently, and understanding them early makes the whole process feel a lot less overwhelming.
Start with the things that fix everything else
Your venue and your date are the two decisions that everything else depends on. Until you have both, you can't really have a meaningful conversation with any other supplier about availability. So if you haven't got those yet, that's where your energy goes first.
Once you have a date and a venue, the rest of the planning has something to anchor to.
The suppliers who tend to book up earliest
Some categories fill up further in advance than others, and it's worth knowing which ones so you're not caught out.
Photographers and videographers are typically the first suppliers couples look for after a venue, and the most in-demand ones can be booked a year to eighteen months ahead, particularly for popular dates in summer and early autumn. If you have a strong sense of the style you want, it's worth starting that search early.
Bands and live music acts book up quickly too, especially for Saturday evenings. A band you've seen at a friend's wedding and fallen in love with may well be unavailable for your date by the time you enquire. This is one category where early action pays off more than most.
Wedding dress lead times vary a lot by designer and by how much customisation is involved, but six to nine months from order to fitting is common, and alterations add time on top of that. The exact timeline is a conversation to have with your chosen designer or boutique, but it's worth starting that conversation earlier than feels necessary.
For wedding rings specifically, made-to-order or customised rings typically take six to twelve weeks from order to delivery. That feels like plenty of time until it suddenly isn't. Somewhere in the middle of your planning process, rather than the final stretch, is about right.
The suppliers where timing is more flexible
Florists, cake makers, caterers, hair and makeup artists, and stationers are all important decisions, but they tend to have a little more flexibility in their diaries than the categories above — particularly if you're not getting married on a peak summer Saturday. That said, the best local suppliers in any category do get booked up, so there's no benefit in leaving things indefinitely.
The honest version: if you find someone whose work you love and who feels like the right fit, it's almost always better to move forward than to wait and hope they're still available later.
A rough order that works for most couples
Everyone's planning journey is different, but a sequence that tends to work well is: venue and date first, then any suppliers with long lead times (photographer, band, dress), then the rest in whatever order makes sense for your wedding. Everything else as you go.
What doesn't tend to work well is leaving everything until six months out and then trying to do it all at once. Not because it can't be done — it often can — but because you end up making rushed decisions on things you'd rather have taken time over.
Where wedding fairs fit in
A wedding fair is a good early step, ideally before you've made most of your bookings rather than after. The reason is simple: you'll have more useful conversations if you're still in the process of deciding rather than already committed. You can ask questions openly, take your time, and follow up on the suppliers who feel right without the pressure of a tight timeline.
It's also a good way to discover suppliers you wouldn't have known to search for — photographers and florists and cake makers who do excellent work locally but don't necessarily rank highly in a Google search. Meeting someone in person and seeing their actual work is a more reliable way to find the right fit than a search result.
Smooch Wedding Fairs is a new series of locally focused wedding fairs for couples planning weddings in Hertfordshire and the Chilterns. We're backed by 25 years of experience in the wedding industry through our family business, Smooch Wedding Rings.
See our upcoming fairs →