The 12-Month Wedding Timeline We Actually Use
Every wedding here runs on the same skeleton — twelve months, four checkpoints, one coordinator. Here's the real timeline, including the decisions couples consistently leave too late.
Months 12–9: The Big Three
Date, venue, guest count — everything else hangs off these. Peak Saturdays go a year out; couples who flex to Friday or winter find the same spaces suddenly available and the budget breathing easier.
Months 8–4: The Design Phase
This is where the tasting lives — a private afternoon with the chef where the menu becomes yours rather than the package's. Suppliers book here too: celebrants and photographers go early, florals and entertainment can wait until month five.
The decision couples leave too late: the weather plan. It's made in month six, not the week before — and it's designed as a choice, not a contingency.
Months 3–1: The Details
Run-sheet build, floorplan sign-off, the seating chart that takes three attempts. Your coordinator owns the master document; your job is answering their questions quickly.
The Final Week
Rehearsal the afternoon before — thirty minutes, coordinator present, everyone knowing where they stand. The day itself is a machine you built months ago; your only job is being in it.
A wedding timeline isn't about controlling the day — it's about making the day too well-built to need controlling.
Sofia Andersen · Events Director
The Takeaways
- Peak Saturdays book 12 months out — flex days save budget
- The tasting belongs in months 8–4, not the end
- Weather plans are designed early, executed silently
- One coordinator owns the whole run-sheet
Written by
Sofia Andersen
Sofia has coordinated over a hundred weddings on this floor — and can recite the weather-call logic in her sleep.
Asked After Reading
One Email a Month, Worth Opening
New journal entries, rate calendar openings and the occasional unlisted dinner — no noise.