Am i crazy!?

I don't think so! A lot of vendors will begin booking a year + out. It gives you time to save money and not have extra stress!

No. It's good to be prepared so you're not scrambling later. I got engaged this July, booked the venue before my ring arrived and will be getting married this February.

It's good to be prepared! And knowing exactly what you want helps and you really helped yourself out by giving you and your FH enough time to save money to pay each vendor!

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Wow! You are doing it FAST! You must be stressed lol.

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Yes! Down payments are set and down so we have the vendors solidified - now we just have to save for the year to pay off the balances right before the wedding.

Not crazy at all. Once we booked our venue, I had all of our vendors secured within 2 weeks. When you know the vision you what you want for your wedding, it’s easy to plan and book the needed vendors.

I agree with PP, once you have your venue set and a deposit on that for the wedding. I see nothing wrong with booking the vendors that you want. Plus you also lock in the rates they currently have; the rates could go up as your wedding date gets closer.

Daughter's total engagement was about 18 months. We started visiting venues within a month, and I think we had most of the big stuff done within 8 weeks -- so probably around Oct 1, 2017 for wedding in January 2019.... There were people who initially didn't understand/questioned why she was doing everything so early, but she ignored them. She ended up with her first choice for her venue and every vendor. She finalized a few last things (e.g., HMUA) early in 2018, and then had a good 6-8 months off from wedding planning. Things picked up again in October '18, about 4 months before the wedding. It worked out perfectly! (She also was very relieved once Feb. '18 arrived because then, when she said, "the wedding's next January," people weren't confused about the date [when we first started planning, there were a couple vendors who were convinced she was talking about January '18, rather than January '19...].) Good luck!

Nah you are fine. You are excited. Plus less money to owe at the end. I got my items because I found good deals and they will hold up lol.

It is at least a year long process in most cases. Sometimes more if venues and vendors are very booked up. Sometimes less if it's a short engagement and the details aren't too crucial to a bride, where she kind of picks what's available.

Definitely not. We booked our wedding venue, photographer, and hair & make up 2 months BEFORE we got engaged and had everything else booked within a month and a half after. We knew when and where we wanted to get married and the venue was getting booked up. Everyone was surprised how quickly we chose/booked everything but we got our first choice of all vendors and then we just got to relax and pay for it all!

I don't think you are that's what I am trying to do for my wedding in October 2021

No. People who aren't actively wedding planning don't know how quickly things booked up and can be generally clueless. I booked almost everything 18 months in advance, Now that we are only 8 months out- I am so glad I booked things early.

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Oh this is so relieving to hear!

I think you're doing the best thing!! Less stuff to stress about later. Just be aware, you may change ideas throughout your engagements (centerpieces, colors, etc etc) but I think if you have your main vendors booked at this point, you can figure out those little details along the way! I've changed my mind on makeup and flowers a bunch of times throughout our engagement. The day after my FH and I got engaged, I went out and got my dress lol! The following 2 weeks, we booked our venue, DJ, photographer, flowers, and officiant. I'm soooo glad we did that!!

I've kind of figured out that it SEEMS younger people (or people of marrying age now) are having longer engagements and doing more stuff right away. I was with FH for 8.5 years when he proposed. We are getting married on our 11 year anniversary. I had our venue and photog booked in aug 2018.

I've had several family members STILL say to me "why are you planning this now, you're a whole year away from your wedding" and i'm thinking....i started booking things over 2 years out. a WHOLE year isn't as much as people think.

You're not crazy. We had almost the same timeline (engaged Oct. 2018 and wedding April 2020) and booked all the big vendors within the first few months of our engagement. It's good to lock them in!

Not crazy at all! You're organized and know exactly what you want! I would say you're a vendor's dream client to be honest haha! Enjoy this time!

Not at all!! this is fantastic news. my friend did the same thing, shes in the industry (photographer and designer) so she said she had been planning LONG before she was engaged. she was done very quickly as well. this is GREAT for you!! less stress and more time to concentrate on that honeymoon plus if anything comes up in the meantime it will be easy to handle. you go girl!

No! I had all mine done within the first month and we had only been together 3 months when we got engaged. I think we started looking at venues at about 2 months and only waited that last month to appease his parents (who, as it turned out, were completely fine and actually wondered why we were planning to have an almost year long engagement!!!) Venues, caterers, bakers, florists, coordinators and DJs in particularly book for a year out. I understand it is similar for photographers and videographers too. You dont want to wait too long. Plus, getting those big pieces taken care of early on is essential, even if you dont yet know specifics, reserving the vendors for your day early on is very important. You'll want a little break once you have those booked before you concentrate on the little details and you still want plenty of time to do that. My family was surprised how quickly I got things together too but it has been absolutely essential and is allowing me to concentrate now on the details, knowing that all my vendors are set. *also most vendors will let you edit the contract later so if something changes, thats okay!