Planning Tips

Timeline | 6 – 8 months to go

We’re continuing our popular Wedding Planning Timeline Series with our key planning tips for when you have 6-8 months left to go until your wedding day. If you’re new here, welcome! You’re able to catch up on our previous posts below:

Kickstarting your Wedding Plans

9-11 months to go

8 MONTHS

Find your Beauty Team

Now you’ve secured the majority of your key suppliers, it’s time to focus on more of the details, and this includes your beauty tribe! Choose wisely, as the best hair and makeup team will make you feel your absolute best on your Wedding Day, so it’s important that you’re happy with the team you choose. There are some companies who offer both hair and makeup services, and others only offer either hair or makeup, but it’s completely up to you which option you decide upon. You may already have a hair stylist who you completely trust with your hair, and it’s definitely worth asking if they offer wedding services.

Consider how many of you there will be for hair and/or makeup on the morning of your wedding, whether this might just be for you, or also for your Bridesmaids and perhaps your mothers too. The stylists will be able to create a timeline for you to ensure everyone is ready in plenty of time, but consider if you might need a second Stylist or Assistant to prevent you all having to begin hair and makeup at 5am if there’s quite a few of you!

Once you’ve found a team you love, book a hair and makeup trial as soon as you can with them, to make sure you’re happy with your choices and styles. They’ll be able to guide you through the process, and give you a few tips of what to wear on the day to make it as beneficial as possible for you both.

Book your Furniture Hire

This may not apply to all weddings, but it’s particularly important if you’ve chosen to have a marquee reception, or if your venue is dry hire and you’re required to bring in your own furniture. Dining tables and chairs play an essential part in the overall look and feel of your dining room and chairs too for your Ceremony, so it’s important to find the perfect ones to suit your style, and that fit perfectly with the venue you have chosen. There are lots of companies within the UK who offer a huge range of beautiful furniture; some of our favourites are WedHead, Great Hire and Options.

Whilst you’re searching for Ceremony and Dining furniture, you may also like to include a few pieces for casual seating for your evening reception; from sofas and armchairs, to side tables and lanterns, there’s a huge array of items for you to select from, and it’s a great saving for delivery costs if you’re able to order everything from one supplier. Some also offer tableware (glassware, crockery and flatware) so it’s definitely worth doing your research to find a supplier with products you love!

7 MONTHS

Find your Production Team

Production plays a huge part in creating an amazing atmosphere for your event, so definitely consider this early. A production team will typically take care of sound, lighting and staging for your day, and should also offer for an Engineer to be on site on the day of your wedding to ensure the technical side of your wedding runs seamlessly and who can deal with any issues that might arise. If you have any other technical enquiries, they’re the team to ask too; perhaps you would like to display a slideshow of images of the two of you during your welcome reception, or play a film message during your speeches from those unable to attend, or every Groom’s worst nightmare – a presentation from his Best Man, complete with embarrassing images from his younger years!!

Order your Wedding Cake

Arguably one of the most exciting moments of wedding planning, and one of my favourites! It’s such a joyous task choosing your cake designer and working with them on the design and flavour menu for your wedding cake. There are endless opportunities here, and it’s easy to get carried away, but consider if you’ll be serving your cake as a dessert at the tables, or if it will be offered with tea and coffee after the meal. If it’s the latter, you won’t necessarily need a cake large enough to cater for 100% of your guests, so you’re able to go for a slightly smaller cake. If you like the grandeur of having a larger cake, but don’t need that many tiers to feed your guests, ask your cake designer about using faux tiers within the design. They can be iced and decorated so that you wouldn’t know any different from looking at the cake, but it means you can have a cake as big as you’d like without creating any additional food waste. Alternatively you can do the opposite, and if you need a lot of cake but don’t want to have too many tiers, you could have a simple smaller cake for display, and have your cake designer bake additional “backstage” cakes which your Caterer will serve from to your guests.

6 MONTHS

Book your Menu Tasting

Another super exciting moment in your planning journey; selecting the menu for your guests. Whether your venue offers catering in-house, or you’ve confirmed a catering company to provide the food and drinks for your event, they should all offer flexibility on your offering, and a menu tasting for you to make sure you’ve selected the right options for you.

It’s important to consider the time of year you’re getting married, for seasonality and the best produce, as well as the format and logistics of your day. Your catering company will be able to guide you through this process and offer suggestions for what works well. It also gives you an opportunity to see how each dish is presented and their style of canapé presentation. This is your time to make any amendments to the way a dish looks or tastes – be honest!

Your tasting is also the best time to ask to see any tableware examples, such as linens, crockery, cutlery and glassware to suit your style. If they only offer one option, and you’re not too keen on it, ask if they use a hire company that might offer a wider variety of options that you could choose from. Alternatively, go back to your furniture hire company to see if they offer alternative options. Classic Crockery and Duchess & Butler are two of our favourites for gorgeous tableware if you’re stuck for inspiration.

Another aspect to consider is the drinks for your day; if your catering company are also providing the bar and drinks service, now is the time to discuss (and taste!) your wine selections for dinner and any reception drinks. If you’d like to serve cocktails during the drinks reception or evening party, consider what these might be and ask if your caterers are able to provide them for you.

Finalise your Ceremony Details

Whether you’ve chosen to have a Religious, Civil, or Blessing Ceremony, now is the time to make your final choices for how you’d like your Ceremony to be. Both Religious and Civil Ceremonies have a fairly standard structure, so it’s best to take advice from your Priest or Registry Office on this. They often have a form which they’re able to provide to help you personalise your Ceremony and for you to add any readings and/or hymn choices.

If you’ve chosen to have a Humanist Blessing, there is much more flexibility with how you would like your Ceremony to feel. If you’ve gone down this route, it’s likely that you’ve already been working with your Celebrant for a couple of months and they will have given you some “homework” to begin building your Ceremony with some really personal touches.

Consider the Smaller Details

Once you’ve had your menu tasting and thought about how your tablescape design will look and feel, now you can begin to piece together any smaller details you might need to bring your overall vision to life. You may need coloured linens, candles and holders, additional stationery and frames or props. The same applies for your Ceremony; will you require candles or lanterns, additional styling details or Order of service booklets? We’ll talk a little more about “On the Day Stationery” in the next post in this series, but it’s good to start making a note of anything else you’ll need now that everything is starting to come together.

In the next part of this Planning Timeline Series, we’ll talk about the final few months of your wedding plans and bringing together the logistics to ensure a seamless celebration.

If you’re looking for some professional guidance in your wedding planning, Vanilla Rose Weddings offers Full Service Wedding Planning throughout the UK for luxury celebrations. Find out more about our services HERE, or GET IN TOUCH to schedule an initial consultation to discuss how we can help.

Jeni x