When to book your wedding suppliers

The order things actually go

Roughly, and counting back from the day.

• Twelve months or more: the venue, or the gurdwara, church, mosque or register office
• Ten to twelve months: photographer, caterer if the venue does not cater
• Eight to ten months: music, whether that is a band, a DJ, a dhol player or a ragi jatha
• Six to eight months: florist, cake, decor and mandap or chuppah hire
• Three to six months: hair and make-up, transport, celebrant if you are using one
• Six to eight weeks: rehearsals, final fittings, and anything hired by the day

Why photographers go so early

A photographer can only be in one place, and a good one shoots perhaps twenty-five weddings a year. That is twenty-five Saturdays out of a possible fifty-two, most of them between May and September.

Caterers are the same shape of problem with more staff and less flexibility, because a kitchen can only produce so many covers at once.

If you are already later than this

You are not in trouble. You have fewer options, which is different.

Three things open the calendar up immediately: a Friday or a Sunday, a date outside May to September, and asking suppliers directly rather than filtering them out. Plenty hold a late cancellation and never advertise it.