Picking out a wedding date

Found a venue we liked and chose from the dates they had available

View Quoted Comment Is that included the year because every year prices change and this year I’m planning it out but we say 2023 should I wait?

View Quoted Comment We planned our wedding for within a year of our engagement. The year wasn't a question for us so I guess not in the same boat as you sorry

View Quoted Comment It ok thank for your help

We first chose a season we wanted, and then a month in that season and then we figured out the specific date based on our venue’s availability.
Regarding your question about pricing changing per year, often vendors will give you the pricing for the year you’re booking in even if you’re not booking for that year.
So for example if you’re booking in 2020 for 2023 date, but they don’t yet have the 2023 pricing set, they should give you the 2020 pricing they have now. You should ask your venue though when you book and make sure it’s in your contract so you know exactly what your rates will be.

View Quoted Comment But we decided to pay everything next year. So should I wait next year? And look this year ? Or plan everything next year? Because this year is to soon and 2023 is far away?

View Quoted Comment But we decided to pay everything next year. So should I wait next year? And look this year ? Or plan everything next year? Because this year is to soon and 2023 is far away?

View Quoted Comment Im sorry I’m a little confused. Are you not sure which year you want to get married in, but you know you want to make all payments next year?

I wouldn’t pick a date quite yet since it’s over 2 years from now probably close to 3. But you pick a season, or month. Once you find a venue, you check availability. We planned our around fiancés grad school and other things like college graduation. Now my spring wedding is a fall wedding but not much is changing.

View Quoted Comment I’m saying i don’t knows how to choose my date and lock it and stick to it. And I’m also asking you should we wait until 2021 to start planning or do it now, or no since the wedding year I pick is in 2023. I know I want it to be in 2023 but my month and date keep changing

View Quoted Comment Gotcha. Honestly you need to be 100% sure of your date before you book so focus on that first. If you’re in between months can you try to make a pros and cons list for each month? Look at weather, pricing (on season vs off season), best time for guests to come (especially if your closest friends are teachers for ex a summer wedding night be better for them), how the landscape will look in pictures (especially if you’re doing outdoor photos or ceremony this could be important May would have more flowers in bloom than August for example), are any dates important to you (anniversaries, first dates etc). These are just ideas to help you lock down a month/season which hopefully will help.
Then once you have the date, find the venue and see if they allow you to book this early in advance, some venues might only only 2 years in advance, some don’t have a limit.

View Quoted Comment So I start planning now 2020 then next year pay everything off I’m getting a wedding planner and full service planner from start to finish.

Or should I wait until next year and plan in 2021 then pay in 2022 because right I’m planning and looking at wedding planner and talking to them.

View Quoted Comment I'm planning my wedding for 2023 and the good thing about planning so far ahead is u will pretty much get ur pick of dates but u will have to wait for ur venue to start allowing reservations for the new chose a date that's very important to me I would look at important dates for you and your FH and check how far a head venues will let you reserve

View Quoted Comment I’m confused

View Quoted Comment Sorry let me try again the good thing about planning early is u will get a larger pick of dates the bad thing is venues usually dont allow reservations unless it's under two years away and as for picking a date I would pick something sentimental

View Quoted Comment When you book vendors, they will have specific payment schedules. Pretty much all will have a deposit that you need to put down. Some will then ask for the rest at time of service (so right before or day of the wedding), while others may require multiple smaller payments throughout the life of the contract. For instance, we booked our venue for our July 2019 wedding in May of 2018. We put down a deposit, then had a payment due in March 2019, and the rest was due on the wedding date itself. Meanwhile, our DJ required a deposit at time of booking and then the rest the day of the wedding.

Picked a season and what venue had the date available for the month we wanted...

Our decision was based on a couple of factors - my FH was previously married and has a son (10) from that marriage. We wanted to make sure he was a part of our big day, we didn't want to get married around our birthdays and wanted to avoid the major holidays (T-giving, Xmas, etc.) and definitely avoid the period around his first wedding. We ultimately decided to have our wedding during one of his son's school breaks and settled on October. And ultimately the date fell 1 week shy of our first conversation / meeting anniversary (5 years later)

I think the way you choose by narrowing it down to a couple of dates or time frame and then take it from there. When you choose the right date, you'll know it immediately. (Or you can go by the availability of your venue as others mentioned)

With everything going on right now, I would not make any payments to a vendor for 2023. It is very possible that your vendor, especially a venue, might go out of business by then, and you will likely have trouble getting your money back. I would wait until mid-2021 or early 2022 depending on how popular your venue is. There is too much volatility right now to be able to do much of anything.

As for picking the date: we knew what venue we wanted. It is a city park with a pavilion, so outdoors, which limited our choices to the months when it would be warm enough but not too hot (pretty much April, May, September, October). From there I asked what they had available and we got a handful of dates. Because photography was a priority to me, I ran those dates by a bunch of photographers I was interested in. We narrowed it down to 9/7 and 10/10, both of which are holiday weekends, and ended up going with 10/10 because we thought 9/7 would still be too hot (in the South). So here we are, 10/10/2020. It has the added bonus of being a super cool date.

Now, with everything going on, I have put a soft hold on 4/10/2020. I would also be happy with that, I hope it won't be too cold though.