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Wedding planning checklist
Forty-five tasks, grouped by how far out they belong. Add your date and each one gets a real deadline instead of a vague “nine months out”.
Optional. Add it and every task gets a real deadline instead of “nine months out”.
12 months out
The decisions everything else depends on: budget, rough numbers, and the venue.
9 months out
Book the people who only take one wedding a day — photographer, caterer, officiant.
6 months out
Save-the-dates, attire, and the details that need lead time.
4 months out
Menu, cake, rings, and the paperwork nobody enjoys.
2 months out
Invitations go out. This is where the guest list becomes real.
1 month out
Chase RSVPs, confirm numbers, and settle final balances.
The last week
Hand things over, pack, and stop making decisions.
Afterwards
Thank-yous, name changes, and the photographs you have been waiting for.
Free. Ticking boxes here only lasts until you close the tab — in the planner it saves, and your partner sees each one as you check it.
How to use a wedding checklist without drowning in it
Most checklists fail for the same reason: they hand you a hundred and fifty items at once, sorted by category, with no sense of what is urgent. You read it, feel worse, and close the tab.
The version above is grouped by when, not what. In any given month there are usually five or six things that matter, and the rest can genuinely wait. Twelve months out you are making three decisions: what you can spend, roughly how many people, and where. Everything else follows from those.
The order actually matters
Guest count drives venue, and venue drives most of the budget. Couples who pick a venue they love before agreeing a number often end up cutting people to fit, which is a much harder conversation than agreeing the number first.
Book the one-a-day vendors early — photographer, videographer, caterer, band. They can only take one wedding on your date, so they go first. Things you can buy from anyone, like favours or table numbers, can wait until the last two months.
Where the last month goes wrong
The final four weeks are almost entirely chasing: RSVPs that never came back, a final headcount the caterer needs, balances due, and a seating plan you cannot finish until the numbers are settled. Every one of those is downstream of guests replying.
Which is why sending RSVPs early, and making them easy to answer, saves more stress than any other single thing. Our planner gives each party a private reply link — or one QR code for the whole wedding — and keeps a running count of who still owes you an answer.
Adjust it to your wedding
A destination wedding needs everything pulled forward: save-the-dates nine to twelve months out rather than six, because guests are booking flights and checking passports. A small wedding at home can run on a far shorter timeline than this list assumes. Treat the dates as a default to argue with, not a rule.
Common questions
When should you start planning a wedding?
Twelve months before the date is comfortable for most weddings, and the first three decisions — budget, rough guest count, venue — should happen in the first month or two. Popular venues book twelve to eighteen months ahead, so if you have a specific place in mind, start there before anything else.
When should save-the-dates go out?
Six months before a local wedding. For a destination wedding, or any wedding where a lot of guests will fly, nine to twelve months — people need to book flights and request time off, and passports can take months to renew.
How far in advance do wedding invitations go out?
Six to eight weeks before the day, with an RSVP deadline about three weeks before. That leaves time to chase the people who have not replied and still give your caterer a final headcount.
What is the most common thing couples leave too late?
Final numbers. Caterers usually want a confirmed headcount two to three weeks out, and that is the same fortnight when the stragglers have not replied. Chasing RSVPs early is the single easiest way to make the last month calmer.
Keep the ticks.
Save this checklist to a real planner where it remembers what you have done, and your partner can tick things off too.
Start planning — free