Long engagement, when to start planning?

Congrats on your engagement!!

We are 2 years out and will be booking venue, dj, and photographer in the next month. Most places won't book until 2 years out, some wait until 1 year out before they will book. So you have plenty of time!

Definitely too early to book anything, but you can of course start playing with ideas. Colors, theme, size, budget. Start a Pinterest board and have fun!!!

My wife and I are renewing in two years but the sooner you start the more you can spread out the finances. Little by little.

Congratulations!! that is so exciting!!!

once you've set a budget/potential guest list, i would start researching venues. many venues won't accept bookings so far in advance, and i wouldn't recommend putting down any deposits on any vendors until after you've booked your locations.

to give you some perspective, we looked at our venue 1 year and 2 months out from our wedding date and all the saturdays in october (high season) were already booked and fridays were starting to go.

if you find a dream venue, i would ask when they start opening bookings and then secure it when the time comes. once you have a date/venue, you can start booking other vendors!

Congrats

Congrats! You could start looking for a venue and set a budget. Unless you have room to store stuff for a few years I would wait a bit on buying stuff. Pinterest will be your new best friend!

I would start constructing your first draft guest list now, so in the spring you can possibly start looking at venues! You could also look up colors/decor ideas. But most vendors you will have to wait.

Thank you so much to everyone for the tips so far, I am definitely taking them all in! I have already been looking and venues and FH and I will start to go see them in person as we have days off throughout the year so we can have at least an idea of budget, and I am already obsessed with Pinterest, so helpful!

Congrats!!

I got engaged July 2016, will be married in April 2018. I actually loved having a long engagement. It gave me plenty of time to research and not feel stressed about doing it.

My advice, the venue needs to be booked ATLEAST a year and a half earlier. But it also depends on how popular it is and the location. Call in advance now and ask how soon it books up usually. I waited to book mine ( I still have a year until my wedding date!) and my venue was already booked! I had to push back the date, not a lot thankfully. For the rest of the time id probably spend saving up money and then once your a year out book the other big stuff: honeymoon, caterer, dj, florist. Thats what I am doing os now all I have are the little things to worry about

Start planning the big stuff sooner (caterer types and prices as well as photography). It'll help in the long run especially for monetary reasons

I got engaged three years ago and my wedding is just shy of two years away (talk about long engagement HAHA) I went through tons and ton of ideas over my three years...so glad I didn't go with them! We are looking at a venue Monday next week ....about 22 months before the wedding. Would love to book it by Oct/Nov when I have some other details priced out. But I've found some places offer discounts and include some extra items if you book over a year in advance so short answer: about two years out is a good time!

I would definitely set up and budget and start saving money NOW! my biggest regret was not saving or putting away money when we first got engaged now I'm scrambling. I would book big vendors about 1 1/2-2 years before your big day. That's what we did and even then we could have used more time. Figure out the things you want now as well. I didn't really think about a videographer and now I am regretting not thinking and looking at it sooner.

We starting planning right away and we had a 2 and a half year engagement. It worked out well because it gave us a time frame to save up and pay for the wedding as well as getting first dibs on a lot of our vendors and locking in some early rates! Make a realistic budget, create a guestlist and then start figuring out what you want to do. The WeddingWire budget tool is a life saver! Congrats! Enjoy the process!

I'm getting married in April 2020 and we got engaged of April 2017, we start planning right away. By the end of June we booked our venue, mainly because its the most expensive part of the wedding. We were able to get 2017 prices for our 2020 wedding. We haven't book any other vendor as of yet, but this up coming summer we are going to book our photographer.