“When’s the wedding?” The age old question that always seems to follow the “Congratulations!” right after getting engaged. Asking someone if they’ve set a date yet is not polite for several reasons, but that’s a conversation for another time. Setting a date takes time. It’s not something that happens right when a couple gets engaged, unless they’ve been planning their wedding pre-engagement, and believe it or not there are some major factors you need to consider before putting an official date on the calendar.
Holiday weddings will affect attendance
If you are looking to have your wedding on Christmas, New Year’s, or another major holiday, be prepared that you may have a much smaller group gathered than you’d like. No matter how much your guests love you, it can be hard to compete with holiday family time together, traditions, and travel schedules. In addition to time, money is also a factor with holiday travel as flight costs tend to spike during high demand dates.
Keep your guests and their faith in mind
If a lot of your family/friends practice the same religion, double check that your selected date does not fall on a religious holiday, especially one that involves fasting. Practicing guests may choose to skip the wedding entirely or may come, but not be able to partake in certain celebrations. While it is your day, it’s also a day you want your guests to be present for.
Television events may take precedence
It might be hard to believe, but some people wait all year to watch TV, and watching something on DVR is just not the same. Number one example – the Super Bowl. You want your first dance to be what all eyes are on, not the Half Time performance. Other major television events that could cause conflict may include the Grammy Awards, Oscars, Tony Awards, Emmy Awards, a presidential inauguration or a royal wedding. It’s not to say the guests will opt to stay home and watch the Red Carpet of the Oscars, it just means that you’ll need to be prepared to see guests doing a lot of social media scrolling for updates or sneaking into the bathroom with their phone to watch a few minutes of the game.
Plan for future anniversaries
The date you choose will be your anniversary for life. While it may be fun to have your wedding double as your birthday party, give some thought to whether you want to blend those two occasions every year. Having a “cool” wedding date like 8-18-18, which happened to be the biggest wedding date of this year, is not going to be as neat when it become 8-18-19. Talk with your partner about whether facts like this matter to you moving forward.
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