How to pick a date?

My husband chose the date based on what worked best for his work schedule aha

I had my fiancé choose since I really chose everything else for the wedding day.

My fiance and I first decided how long of an engagement we wanted as well as the season we wanted to be celebrating our anniversary for the rest of our lives. We got engaged in August 2020 and didn't want to have an engagement longer than a year. We also liked the idea of a Spring wedding so we choose May. Later on my fiance told my family at dinner that we were planning for May 1st. This was news to me but I liked that he came up with the date because he doesn't have many opinions on the planning. Of course we didn't set this date in stone until we were able to book our venue. I'd say just brainstorm ideas with your FH. If you're thinking about getting married in 2020 or 2021 don't wait to book a venue. With all the covid craziness, brides are having to push back their dates and venues were being booked fast. Getting the date and location is one of the first things to get done. Then its easier to start the rest of your planning! Hope this helps!!

We chose our date because I really love November. FH had suggested Halloween (my second favorite holiday) but I didn’t want friends to have to choose between a wedding reception and taking their kiddos trick-or-treating. (And now I laugh because Covid isn’t going to allow trick-or-treating.) November 7th was a Saturday and further enough away from my oldest son’s and sister’s November birthdays so I chose it.

We chose based on our work schedules and when the venue we wanted was available.

My husband is terrible with dates. He has forgotten his own birthday. I know it's not a personal thing, he just is.




So he proposed on Valentine's day to help him remember and he likes to do special things on recurring holidays to help him remember. It is just how he functions. That and a billion google calendar reminders.


So we picked our engagement anniversary. It is also Valentine's day where there will be a lot of grocery store reminders and ads every where that's it's coming up. And there will be a lot of couple specials.


The date was more him than me and I didn't want to have the "when is our date" fight. That fight has constant reminders for the planner of the relationship and none for the other... Because like clockwork, you will say "I'm getting married!" and the literal next question people ask is when. I am the planner one and he's more spontaneous. I am going to assume you are the planner of the relationship because you are asking this question. It's okay if you're not. It is a non gendered thing / every relationship is different and special. It also can switch every now and then.


I am also the saver and he is the spender. We both are good with money, I am just more frugal. So, I did the wedding budgeting and we talked it through. He said he was in a previous relationship where he was the saver and he didn't like that.

What will really decide your date is cost and venue availability. If you like a venue enough and they only have a Wednesday morning available, you will bend over backwards to get that Wednesday morning. Also Friday-Sunday cost more and are usually less available.


But before the date, start with the guest list. You need a rough head count with a 10% margin for error. Best way is who have you/stb contacted in the last 3 months... If you/spouse to be like them, they are a guest. If you /stb, both don't like them they are not. For example, american express customer service representative I called about a billing error was not invited to our wedding. If one of you don't like them, it's a talk but generally/without strong reasons they will probably be a guest. After you get a rough head count like 50 add 10% just in case you forgot someone or you find out you would like to invite someone's plus one and forgot it in the head count. Guest count will be your biggest cost.


After the guest count then comes the where are we going to put the guest and will they fit. With the venue capacity question answered then you look at when the venue is available. You have a date when you have the venue.

We chose our original date as it is the anniversary of when we first met. However we had to change it to the day prior which is also FH’s bday lol so either way it’ll be easy to remember.

My fiancé and I knew we wanted a fall outdoor wedding so our original date was October 22nd based on what our venue had available. However, we have decided to postpone to April 22nd which again is what our venue had available and it happens to be the day before our “dating anniversary”. I would have preferred the 23rd, but we are literally saving thousands of dollars by having it the day before.

I had wanted to get married on our anniversary, but that was a) too close to when we got engaged, and b) when my ILs were traditionally out of the country on a recurring gig. (Drat, it was a Saturday, too!)

We took into account some family date conflicts, and targeted a few dates that would work best. After that, we looked at venues with those dates available, and chose the one that we liked best and went with the date they had open.

We wanted our wedding to be in mid-late summer, and for the venue to have at least some outdoor space. (I'm really glad we wanted that now that covid is here.) The venue we chose was available 2 Saturdays in our desired time frame, and I like even numbers better, so we picked 8/8 over 8/1.

There was zero question that I would only get married in the Fall- I am obsessed with everything about the season and Halloween! Literally everyone in my family just assumed I’d choose Halloween. But I didn’t because I didn’t want anything overshadowing/competing with the holiday every year (ie, how could I possibly be expected to worry about an anniversary when it’s HALLOWEEN?! 😆) Instead, we chose the anniversary of our 1st date, which is a week and a half after Halloween. Which works out perfectly because I’m always sad after Halloween is over- now I’ll have a nice little pick me up to look forward to every year after the holiday. Plus now we will be able to continue celebrating the same anniversary (no doing math to figure out how long we’ve been together or deciding whether to celebrate both days, etc.).

We’re legally getting married and having our minimony on our original date (it the day we started dating, the day he proposed, and now the day we’re getting married). We always planned on eloping that day but we’ve turned it into a minimony now. As for the big wedding, our venue offered us a 10% discount to have the wedding in a month that isn’t wedding season so we chose March 27th. It ended up saving us thousands of dollars!

Our original date was both a Friday (which is the day of the week we wanted) and exactly halfway between our birthdays. Our venue had it open and everything lined up perfectly! However, we've postponed thanks to COVID, so our new date is the around the same date but in 2022 - same day of the week, but the date is two days earlier.

My hubby and I are widower/widow. We got engaged Dec. 2016, and knew we only wanted a one year engagement. We first determined we would steer clear of the months of our late spouses bdays, wedding anniversaries and death anniversaries. I work for a cpa firm, so jan-september months were out of the question. He's retired but has a lawn biz that keeps him busiest thru September so that was perfect. We planned an adults only wedding and had a full blown wedding on a weekday so a Wednesday was decided (the church and reception was packed). With December 2017 being our engagement month, we respectfully did not want to interfere with our guest Christmas planning. This put us at November 2017 which was beyond perfect as we are celebrate both our bdays in November. So we settled on Nov. 15, the day before my bday. His bday is Nov 21. With Thanksgiving in the midst, we were able to enjoy being newlyweds, our honeymoon and visit family (of course this is all pre-covid) before returning to work in December. We spent the engagement anniversary week changing names updating all of our financials and packing up a few clothes from my house to move into his as we didn't live together beforehand then enjoying our favorite meal of seafood on the engagement anniversary. We also planted a rose bush at each of our homes in memory of our late spouses because for us it was "new beginnings" which was the theme for our wedding.

I was in school and wanted to get married before graduation and I didn’t want a long engagement. With school requirements, classes on saturdays, etc. it left very little options. During MLK weekend right after we got engaged. I had an epiphany, I’m not at school! So I quickly suggested that weekend the next year and he agreed. So we had a date which was the date it wasn’t negotiable. So we found vendors who were available. No special meaning, but once I wrote it out I really liked the way it looked. 1/19/19

We chose our original date based off of the fact that we wanted to be married 1 year from our engagement. Then we called venues and chose our date based off of when they had available around that time.
Then when covid hit we rescheduled and again, chose a date based off of when the venue had available. OCTOBER 24th, 2020

We chose ours based on the availability of the venue and the photographer we wanted. Didn’t really care about the date just wanted to make sure we got the vendors we wanted

March 26 was the day we first became a couple. Our wedding day will also be our 6th anniversary as a couple. And it means one less date for FH to remember haha.

Our favored venue was free that day in September. I always wanted my wedding in September, so the choice was easy. No real attachment or significance to the date

We got engaged spring and love fall, so we decided a longer engagement to save up money. We looked at venues for fall the next year and chose the first weekend of off season pricing at our #1 pick (after double checking weather patterns as our venue is outdoors).