9 Month Wedding Planning Update

Aug 30, 2017

Where. The. Crap. Did. August. Go? Does anyone else think this month moved extra fast? We had a busy last weekend in August with Justin’s Ring Weekend ceremony and banquet and then my cousin’s wedding that it basically just ended in a blur. We are 9 MONTHS away from our own wedding. Holy. Crap. (How many times can I say Crap in this post? Stay tuned…). Anyways, welcome to Wedding Wednesdays on this blog where I talk about… well, all things wedding related. Last month, I started wrapping up the month with a Wedding Planning Update and we are officially another month down! If you missed our 10 Month Wedding Planning Update you should go ahead and check that out!

It’s true what they say that after the one year mark your planning really goes into overdrive. July and August alone have been full of checking off our To-Dos. It’s exciting and also a little nerve wracking to see the list get smaller and smaller as the days go by. I love writing these posts because it’s nice to see what we’ve actually accomplished so far so let’s get right into what we got done for the wedding in August:

Send Out Save the Dates | We finally sent out our Save the Dates! If you read my 5 Things No One Told Me about Wedding Planning post then you’ll know I wish we had skipped this part of the wedding stationary process. While I love our Save the Dates, they definitely weren’t necessary because of how late we sent them out. Typically you wouldn’t send out Save the Dates until around the 6 month mark but because many of our guests will be traveling we moved up our stationary timelines. Regardless, it’s nice to know that people who are on the guest list will finally know!

Finish Wedding Website | Since our wedding website was included on the back of our Save the Dates, I wanted to make sure that it was ready to go when the Save the Dates actually went out. I had originally wanted to do more with our website but just opted for a straightforward and simple website from The Knot to keep myself stress free and to make sure that everyone could get the information they were looking for.

Interview DJs | We finally started actually interviewing DJs and I think we found the one! Selecting the right DJ was important for me because my worst nightmare is that no one wants to dance at our wedding. We haven’t signed a contract or put down a deposit yet but hopefully we’ll be able to officially cross DJ off of our list soon!

Order Wedding Invitations | We actually went ahead and ordered our wedding invitations this month so that we had them ready to go in a couple months. With the holiday season coming up rapidly, I didn’t want to forget about the fact that we need to send them out pretty quickly after the first of the year. We actually commissioned a few watercolor pieces so I ended up designing the invitation and basically our entire wedding suite myself. I’ll be sharing a sneak peak of our watercolor work on Friday’s Happy Hour post so stay tuned for that.

Research Hotel Blocks | My original plan was to research other area hotels and make a second block for guest because our wedding venue, which is also a hotel, is kind of pricey. However after thinking about it, and looking into some hotels, we decided that it didn’t make sense for us to block other rooms. Our hotel block requires us to fill 80% of the block by a certain time or we have to pay for that and I didn’t want to end up in a position because we created a secondary room block so we got to check that off the list as well.

That’s pretty much all of the items we checked off our wedding planning list in August! I use the monthly checklist from The Knot as a guideline and here’s what we should have had done by August:

Book Photographer
Save Wedding Paper Inspiration
Book Caterer
Take Engagement Photos
Research Wedding Invites
Register for Gifts
Schedule Bridal Salon Appointments

I’m happy to say that we’ve checked all of these off our list. For September here’s what The Knot suggests:

Save Flower Photos
Save Bridesmaid Dress Photos
Buy Wedding Dress
Schedule Fittings
Decide Headpiece/veil
Save Cake Photos
Meet with Florist
Research Band/DJs

We’ve checked a lot of the tasks for September off the list as well which is great because I’m all about being ahead of the curve. If you’re dreading a long engagement I promise you the extra 6 months are worth it because I’ve pretty much been able to cut my To Do list in half by each month because of the extra time we have versus a standard one year engagement. Again, I can’t believe we’re at the 9 month mark!

If you’re planning your own wedding, let me know when you’re wedding is and some of the things you’ve already checked off your list! Also, be sure to follow me on Instagram to get sneak peaks of wedding decor, invitations, and more.