Shortest time to plan a wedding?

[Glorianna]

Glorianna,

I found this online, I hope its helpful to you.

Wow, that's awesome! Thanks so much for that.

 

[PurpleBunny]

Not when our fiance visa's not approved yet! We have to wait for our fiance visa to be approved so that we know for sure when we can get married. I don't want to pay for photographers, etc. and then find out that we can't get married when we want to!

You may want to start booking things even before you move, though, 'cause don't you have a couple of months to move and THEN 90 days once you're in the US?

So say you get approved in August, you could move in September or October but spend those two months doing research and getting your fiance and his mom to check out your shortlisted vendors. Online resources are great for that kind of planning! That's actually how I found most of my vendors--online. I shortlisted them, met with them, and then booked the one I liked best that came within my budget.

 

[Sign Of The Fish Burger]

6 Weeks. Tops.
Thats on an off season however. But seriously.
We got engaged in Feb, and the wedding is in October, I have EVERYTHING done. With the exception of a few small things, that I've basically just been putting off.
If you have the money to do it, I dont think you need more then 6-8 weeks. If you already have a good idea of exactly everything you want, there shouldnt be much problems.

Now where the problems occur, is when you try and have a wedding the middle of wedding season, as someone mentioned.
If you get real into it, like ordering your BM dresses and your wedding dress with all kinds of specifics, it will take at least 6 months. No joke.

I say, the quicker the better!
We would be married much sooner (probably June) but we have to deal with immigration, so it wasnt an option!

 

[Sign Of The Fish Burger]

it is biblical.

Do you mind sharing with me where exactly it says pre marriage counseling is biblical Just curious.

As for Josh and I, because of our distance, I had to go back east after school, so we are apart for most of our engagement. So unfortunatly we are not able to have pre marriage counseling. But we are planning on entering a marriage mentor type program as soon as we are married. You might want to consider this option too.

 

[Glorianna]

You may want to start booking things even before you move, though, 'cause don't you have a couple of months to move and THEN 90 days once you're in the US?

So say you get approved in August, you could move in September or October but spend those two months doing research and getting your fiance and his mom to check out your shortlisted vendors. Online resources are great for that kind of planning! That's actually how I found most of my vendors--online. I shortlisted them, met with them, and then booked the one I liked best that came within my budget.

I haven't really been able to find many good sites for vendors in South Carolina. And it totally depends when Clay and I get our fiance visa approved. We're hoping to get married on April 30, 2006 so it's only if we get approved in January or before that I will be able to plan a bit from British Columbia.

 

[Sign Of The Fish Burger]

When did you apply
It dosent take that long for your visa to process.
We applied in April, and we are getting married in October. Our visa is one of the next ones to be processed (they keep updating the website)

I dont think you need 10 months for the visa to be approved

 

[Glorianna]

We haven't quite sent in our application yet. We're hoping to sometime this week.

 

[Sign Of The Fish Burger]

Oh, then that would explain everything. You should be able to have your wedding WELL before April then. You should be approved by fall at the [very] latest.

 

[PurpleBunny]

Oh, then that would explain everything. You should be able to have your wedding WELL before April then. You should be approved by fall at the [very] latest.

Yep, I've actually been pleasantly surprised by how quick it's all been. A (non-Christian) friend of mine and her fiance sent in the paperwork in early December and they were approved in early April. She moved in with him in early May and they have the same wedding date as we do. She's now at about the same planning stage as Chris and I are, after a few frantic weeks of trying to get everything major booked.

 

[Sign Of The Fish Burger]

Yeah its quite quick.
The longest part is having the visa approved. I guess the waiting time for interviews with the US consulate (in Hailfax at least- where I will be going) is only about 3 days. So once we get approved, I can make my appt with Halifax, and go the next week if I wanted to. Which is nice to know. And you get your visa at that time!

Bunny, how far along are you with your visa? I cant remember, have you been approved yet? Do you have the visa? Have you gone for your interview?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated

 

[FaithfulServant]

Sign of the Fish - Is your avatar flipping the finger? lol

 

[PurpleBunny]

Bunny, how far along are you with your visa? I cant remember, have you been approved yet? Do you have the visa? Have you gone for your interview?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated

LOL, we're actually getting married in Canada, and Chris has been living in Edmonton since May 1 with a student visa.

After the wedding I'll sponsor him from inside the country--waiting list for that is about 8-10 months as of the last time I checked. He's legally good to stay here until April 2008, though. Not only that, but with some new legislation that was passed in February, even if it takes longer than his visa lasts he is able to stay in the country until the application process is complete. In fact, he technically doesn't need a visa, being American. He would just have to apply to stay in the country past the six months if it took longer than that to process the application (and it would be automatically granted).

 

[Sign Of The Fish Burger]

Oh very cool then!!

Uhh I dont think he's flipping the finger, I think he just only has 3 of them

 

[Glorianna]

SOTF and PurpleBunny, are you talking about a fiance visa for the USA? I'm moving from Canada to the USA and I know that at least PurpleBunny is dealing with getting a fiance visa for Canada. I don't want to get my hopes up if you're talking about a visa for Canada.

 

[Glorianna]

And where did they send their applications? Ours will be sent to Texas.

I just talked to my fiance and he told me that there are lots of conditions on how quickly the application gets processed- things like where the application is sent, whether you have enough evidence of your relationship, etc. That kinda puts a damper on things but I'm still hopeful.

 

[Sign Of The Fish Burger]

I am talking about me going to the US.
Well you just need all the reqiured evidence. Yuor written letters and your intent to marry. Dated letter, dated pictures, things like the recepit for your engagement ring, flights etc...
It only took us a few days to gather up all the information. Be sure to keep copies of everything for yourselves just incase.

We applied at the Nebraska center (that was teh one we had to)
We applied in April, and your is up for review next

 

[Glorianna]

We applied in April, and your is up for review next

Sorry, what does this mean?

Yeah, but sometimes they will ask for more evidence. My fiance and I are just hoping that they won't ask us for more because this will definitely slow down the process!

Anyways, here's an update: I sent our application express today which means that it will get there in 3-4 business days.

 

[PurpleBunny]

I am talking about me going to the US.
Well you just need all the reqiured evidence. Yuor written letters and your intent to marry. Dated letter, dated pictures, things like the recepit for your engagement ring, flights etc...
It only took us a few days to gather up all the information. Be sure to keep copies of everything for yourselves just incase.

We applied at the Nebraska center (that was teh one we had to)
We applied in April, and your is up for review next

Yeah, Chris is coming to Canada. I won't be going to the US until well after Chris and I are married. We'll be going for the K-3 spousal sponsorship, not the fiance visa... and that's several years in the future in any case.

Chris and I are following this application procedure:

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/sponsor/in.html

 

[Glorianna]

I thought so PurpleBunny.

 

[*heidi*]

What do you think is the shortest time you can have to plan a medium wedding (like i dont know, 200 people) and still having:
photographer,videographer,caterer,cake,dress,bridesmaid dresses,groomsmen tuxes,location,honeymoon
I hear about people getting engaged and then getting married in 2 months but is that really even possible to do and still have all of those things listed above?

I got engaged on November 7, 2004 and married on February 5, 2005 (just over 4 months now), so we organised our wedding in 3 months! We had just over 100 guests at the reception and about 130 at the ceremony (which most people I have talked to consider to be quite sizable), all invited to the engagement party in Nov too. We had 2 bridesmaids and 2 groomsmen. My dress was borrowed from a family friend of my husbands, fitted very well and was perfect. Bridesmaids dresses were bought on sale for a great price as they had no money! (We went with black so the girls could use the dresses again.) Flower girl's dress was made by my mother in law. Groom and groomsmens bought their suits. Wedding cars belonged to BIL and another relative of mine - classic white car. Flowers were done by MIL and two of her friends, all frangipani's (most florists won't touch them as they are too difficult to bother with) - for free as they were collected from people's trees. They were all professionally wired up and looked fantastic in the photos. My sister in law's freind is a photographer - SIL paid for as a gift. A family friend is a semi-professional videographer - done for free. We rang around with the catering and just about everyone was avaliable 3 months in advanced, we went with someone that my mum had met once a long time about. Cake was done buy husbands family friend, 3 teir chocolate/white chocolate wedding cake - totally professional. Reception hall was decorated by myself and mother and MIL. We made the table clothes, as it was cheaper than hiring, dark purple and lime green colour scheme everywhere. Frangipanies as table decorations. Everyone commented on how great it looked. MC was an older friend of ours from church, who has done that sort of thing before. Recpetion music was a jazz singer from my highschool, who we are still in contact with. Honeymoon was a little on the short side - 3 days and was a 2 hour drive away, we wanted to save money.... could easily have been a lot longer and futher away if desired.... there is always somewhere to stay.

Oh and we also managed to fit in 6 pre-marriage counselling sessions.

In summary, it is totally possible to organise a perfect wedding in 3 months. At times things did feel a little bit rushed, but it is achievable. I think the secret to our success was knowing most of the people we needed, photographer,videographer,wedding car, etc. through church and family and friends. We were able to do our wedding within a very reasonable budget, as many of the services were provided free as the people knew us or at a reasonable price. Obviously it would take longer if you are trying to organise it by yourself, but I had people to help me.

I'm glad we did our wedding this way, as if we had a lot more time and a lot more money we would have spent a lot more time and a lot more money and had a no better day because of it.