Ours was easy. H finished his board exam at the end of June and had to be back at school the third week of July. If we wanted time to take a honeymoon after the wedding, that left us with July 1 and 8.
I have no idea how people choose dates when they don't have tight schedules to guide them! I would say to choose a season that you like the best and start checking out venue availability. Don't forget to ask your families and best friends if they will be available on that date--anyone you would be crushed if they couldn't attend your wedding.
Post by oregonpachey on May 17, 2012 12:31:55 GMT -5
We wanted a long engagement (in order to save up money to pay for our wedding and reception), wanted a fall wedding and wanted something that was around our dating anniversary.
The date we picked also would have been my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary.
I wanted a fall wedding. DH is a huge college football fan. We picked the particular date because it was a bye week for his team. Not super romantic, I know.
Because that is just what worked. I really wanted a fall wedding, but we couldnt get the venue and photographer on the dates we wanted, so we went with the first date that worked, which was august. It ended up working best to do it before school started anyway
Post by aerowife2010 on May 17, 2012 12:35:47 GMT -5
Venue availability and that is it. It was either get married the weekend we did or wait another 6 months for the next available date (it was a 2 year wait just for our date/first available date).
Post by countthestars on May 17, 2012 12:36:29 GMT -5
Venue availability, mostly. We knew we wanted June. There were two dates available at my venue - 1 was my divorced MIL's anniversary, the other was my late grandparents. We chose my grandparents
The Resort where I worked had a particular fall date open and they offered us a huge discount and a lot of freebies. FYI due to your location, we had a mid September date in Northern Michigan and it was a beautiful day, we were married outdoors.
Post by Rachael070707 on May 17, 2012 12:37:48 GMT -5
In order of how it was chosen for us:
- had to be summer - originally it was 7/17/7 and we were more or less eloping. 17 is a significant number for me. - when it switched to an in town big affair, we chose the weekend after our favorite holiday, the 4th of July. We both had a LOT of OOT guests flying in and since the 4th was a Wednesday that year, they made it a long weekend/reunion type of event - Realized the Saturday was the 7th...and the date was 07/07/07. I thought it was a cool added bonus.
i always wanted to get married in may. it just so happened that it was the most convenient month so i got my wish. we got married on a sunday afternoon because it was most convenient for our venues and because it was canadian long weekend and we had a lot of family and friends traveling for the wedding they didn't have to take time off work. they could drive in on saturday and back on monday.
also, i like to joke that i picked the 17th because my birthday is also on a 17th so h only has to remember one date and two months.
Post by mrs.spunky on May 17, 2012 12:38:39 GMT -5
I don't know if this is true everywhere, but here (in NJ) peak season weddings cost more. We had a relatively low budget, if you ask people on my local knot board at the time, so we wanted whatever month was going to be the least expensive - January or February, possibly early March. We had already been engaged ~6 months before we set the date and going with March would have pushed it out another 14 months. Instead we chose the first week in January, and we had a day that was 45 degrees and mostly sunny.
Our work schedules (when we could easily get the most time off) and what worked best for our traveling family, to an extent. We were engaged for 17 months and booked all of our vendors early, so that wasn't really an issue.
DH picked the date. It was in September and he knew wanted sunflowers in our wedding (my fav flower). Also, he picked the 13th b/c it was would be an easy date for him to remember. His birthday is Jan 13th and mine is Feb 13th.
Post by mrssavy42112 on May 17, 2012 12:42:26 GMT -5
I knew I didn't want summer (too expensive) or winter (too cold). We got engaged in the summer & it would've been too hard to pull it all together for that fall, so we did the following spring. I picked April because it's right before the high wedding season & the rates were a bit lower. I wanted either the 2nd or 3rd week & both were available. I picked the 3rd since that would give me one more paycheck from my job
Post by pinkdutchtulips on May 17, 2012 12:42:33 GMT -5
when we finally got serious about planning a wedding .. turns out our dating anniversary (3/17) conveniently fell on a satuday !
the rest fell into place pretty quickly b/c its off wedding season and the venue we wanted isn't in great demand - too small for most bay area weddings.
Post by bluelikejazz on May 17, 2012 12:42:43 GMT -5
We originally wanted it exactly 1 year after DH proposed (Friday night, so it would have been a Saturday). But my MOH was still in school and couldn't come home that weekend. So we worked around her schedule and made it for 1 yr and 2 weeks after instead.
Venue was my parents backyard, so that availability didn't matter.
We based it on location. We wanted to get married in Hawaii and I was in search of a deal. Flights to HI from the east coast were cheaper in May and October. I thought it would be funny to get married on Cinco de Mayo. We went with May, but moved the date forward 2 days b/c of logistical issues.
We wanted a summer wedding so that our nices and nephew could travel because they were off school. Our venue was cheaper for august so I told DH pick a day in August. He picked friday the 13th as a joke but then we went with it because he was born on friday the 13 and my mom always says the 13th is lucky.
Post by Norticprincess on May 17, 2012 12:45:36 GMT -5
One side of the family spends mid June to mid July in one place. (The non retired ones are down on weekends and for the 4th) this was the place we wanted to get married, the two weekends that worked were 6/30 and 7/7. One bridesmaid was already in a wedding on 6/30, though she said she'd drop out for mine, so we went with 7/7(07).
I wanted a summer wedding because I was finishing school and I knew that was the only time where we would really be free to do the wedding. We picked July because there were more openings than in June, but we really weren't all the picky about it. It ended up being super hot, which I only regret a tiny bit. I know some people pick dates that have special meaning to them, but we really didn't have any dates in mind.
I wanted May. We were getting married in Chicago, and winter was too cold and unpredictable as far as travel goes because we had a lot of OOT guests. I hate the heat, so I didn't want summer. And I didn't want fall because I fucking hate pumpkins and burgundy and my mother was shoving "fall! burgundy! pumpkins!" down my throat.
So, we found our reception venue and said, "What do you have in May?" THey had one Saturday left, so we took it.
Coincidentally it was also my grandmother's birthday, which I took as a good sign. DH likes it because it's V-E Day, so he can remember it.
Venue availability. When we were looking, people booked two years out. We wanted October, but took August, the last Saturday they had for the year we got married. A lot of venues were completely sold out - Fridays too!