Planning a Wedding in a Short Amount of Time

Planning wedding is not an easy task no matter how much time a bride and groom have to plan the big event. When the happy couple only has a short period of time to put together a wedding, the planning becomes much trickier. Life circumstances left my husband and me five weeks to plan a simple wedding and reception with close friends and family. Through this experience we learned a lot about planning a wedding quickly.

Picking a Location

Booking the church was the easy part of our wedding planning experience. Booking a place to have a reception was more difficult. Many popular wedding venues are booked a year in advance and I spent hours on the phone trying to find a banquet hall that could accomidate 30 people with only five weeks notice. Every restaurant and facility was full. Fortunately I spoke with a kind man at a Holiday Inn in our area who told me that though all of the banquet rooms were booked for our wedding day, we could reserve half of the restaurant located within the restaurant. The restaurant overlooked a beautiful body of water and the walls had ceiling to floor windows to help diners fully appreciate the view. The only catch was there was a clogging seminar in the adjoining banquet room that day and we would be able to see and hear the dancing. Given this was the first venue after much searching that was able to work with us we were happy to put up with clog dancing.

When selecting a place to hold a wedding reception that is to be held in a short period of time a bride and groom need to accept the fact that compromises will need to made. The couple about to be married may not be able to find the venue of their dreams, but with a little persistence and a lot of phone calls chances are a nice place can be found.

Sending Out Invites

When planning a wedding in five weeks it is important to get invitations out to desired guests as soon as possible. This will allow guests to have enough advanced notice to avoid a scheduling conflict. Set an RSVP date for the week after the invites are sent out so that a headcount can be given to the caterers.

Dinner Planning

Due to the fact we could not secure a banquet room we did not have music or dancing at our wedding reception, thus we did not have to worry about booking a band or a DJ. We did want to serve drinks and dinner to our guests and knew it was important to plan a menu and book a caterer far enough in advance. We were lucky that the Holiday Inn had a catering service available to us. We paid a deposit and made a beef, chicken, and fish selection. We ordered appetizers, champagne, soda, and beer at our expense, and offered a cash bar.

We ran into a problem while menu planning. The menu could not be finalized before the invitations were sent out and the caterer wanted to know who was going to be eating beef or chicken or fish. We ended up having to make a lot of phone calls and sending out a lot of e-mails to get these numbers.

Buying the Cake

Choosing and ordering a cake five weeks before a wedding is the easiest part of planning a wedding in a short period of time. Most bakeries only need one to two weeks advance notice in order to create a beautiful wedding cake. We chose step away from a traditional wedding cake and chose a cheesecake wedding cake. The cake was beautifully frosted and delicious.

Remain CalmWhen trying to plan a wedding in a short period of time it is important to remain calm. Anxiety will only make the planning process harder. Keep in mind the fact that the wedding is about the bride and groom and everything else will come together. The dress, tuxes, flowers, and other wedding components will all be in order on the day of the wedding, even if it takes some work to make sure this happens.