Planning Tip - Book Early to Save Money

Posted by Jan

May 4, 2008

It’s just over 14 months before our wedding but it seems like Al and I had pretty much covered most of the major items in the preparation. Our engagement was in February and prior to that, I’ve already started looking at possible venues for the ceremony and reception. (Guess my 6th sense was working~!) So shortly after I received the rock, it didn’t take us long to pick our vendors for:

Photography (Pre-wedding & Wedding Day)
Ceremony Location + Music (included as part of the rental package)
Banquet Location + Menu
Pre-wedding photo location (we decided to rent a place to take photos, more on this later)
Wedding Bands
Cake
Favor Boxes (and possible favor ideas)
Invitations

The up side of booking everything so early is that you get a lot of options to choose from and secure the date you want (most locations recommend booking about 6-9 months prior anyways). In addition, items such as photography, ceremony and banquet location prices could change from year to year. Here’s an example for the banquet. The manager at the Victoria Chinese Restaurant suggested that if you are interested at the restaurant, it is always a good idea to pay a deposit to secure the date as well as the menu price. In our case, since we’ve booked the banquet in 2008, even if prices go up next year our bill will be based on this year’s price (we were told that menu prices have an approximate 3-5% increase each year).

I know it might sound strange to plan so far ahead but if it saves you money in the long run, I think it’s a good thing.