Wedding planning timeline?

Typically, I would say it's fine with following the checklist timeline, but with so many people postponing from 2020 to 2021, and all of the 2021 weddings planned, I would suggest prioritizing booking vendors soon to make sure you get the ones you want before someone else either postpones to your date or books them first.

You don’t necessarily need to hire everyone right away but get the big ones done now. We waited until 10 months out to hire our photography and the first 5 I emailed were already booked! You have to get venue and date first so you are good there. That’s your first big one, catering and photography are next I would get those hired sooner than later. Before the end of the year for sure. Everyone else can slowly trickle in. Once you hire someone ask them for recommendations of other vendors. We found our dj through our photographer and our florist from our caterer, and both gave us referral discounts! Good luck

I definitely think you can start looking and hiring because you are right, there might be more weddings in 2021 due to all the postponements

Tbh i would hire as many as you can now. We got engaged in May and started planning right away for our 2021 wedding and already ran into some vendors being completely booked

Agree with all PPs, definitely start researching vendors you're interested in now so you can set up appointments with them and book someone you like. The big ones like venue/photo/video/DJ/florist are the ones you want to look into right away. Everything else you can probably follow the generic timelines.

For anyone else's information I have everything booked except for catering and only ran into one photographer who was booked for our date next year.


Photographer I reached out to five different ones and I got my first choice. Only 1 was booked.
DJ I reached out to 2 and I got my first choice. Both were free on our date.
Hair and Makeup I reached out to 2 both were free on our date. My first choice has been slower to respond take 2 or 3 days to respond. Booked my first choice.
Catering I reached out to 5 have gotten responses from 2 both are more expensive than our budget allows. This is especially frustrating because our venue requires us to use a caterer off their list so we may have to go over budget again. We're set to reach out by phone this time to all the ones that didn't respond to see what if the just don't check their email.
Bartending we reached out to 1 no response. Going to follow up with a phone call to see if they just don't check their email.

Get all your vendors hired as soon as you can, with majority of the wedding pushed to next year, a lot of vendors are booking fast.