Welcome back to MyOhMy weddings we are the UK’s only dedicated wedding planning service for the LGBT+ community. And today I’d like to talk to you a bit about last minute weddings, why wait for your big day?

You’ve asked the question, you’ve gotten a yes. So, let’s go for it, why wait?

Why Wait?

You can reasonably plan a wedding in 12 to 16 weeks. Yep, three to four months is all you need. If you’ve got a little bit of flexibility around where you want to get married or certainly where you want to have your reception, it’s absolutely doable. I know some couples and the thought of spending a whole year planning and waiting for an event that they are so excited about right now does not appeal. It makes perfect sense not to delay!

We offer at MyOhMy Weddings, a two-week wedding planning service, essentially you give us the dates that you’re looking at and we’ll go away and intensively, work on your wedding and for a really short space of time, we’ll cram all of your appointments in together. so it’s a bit intense and you might have to take a couple of days from work and if we can get the appointments over a weekend then we certainly will do. But it means that you don’t have to spend the next year all consumed in wedding planning and it can be that way sometimes if you planning the wedding new self, you can feel like you’re spending every weekend go to venues or speaking to people that are going to make your appointment and make your outfits or speaking to different suppliers at different time and some couples are just not into that .

Catherine Pound Photography Wedding shoes

Don’t wait to save money

If you work hard and play hard and you just want to be together and be married, then a last minute wedding’s definitely something you need to think about. You also get fantastic deal booking late notice, unfortunately there are cancellations that happening in the wedding world, and also some venues will be struggling to fill different dates, especially if its towards the autumn or winter months. You can get some good value for money. You still get entirely the same package, but probably at a reduced cost. And that’s what we work really hard for is if it is going to be late notice and it’s unlikely the venue will fill those spaces we’ll work to get you the best possible price on not only the venue, but you’re catering your florist, even your outfits have to get a wriggle on with your outfits and it’s tight to order clothes. But you can certainly have something made and you’ve certainly got time to buy something off the rack and have it tailored or altered to the way that you want, So yeah, it can be really intense and really exciting.

You also might want to think about how you’re going to fund your wedding. If you’ve got some cash and it’s ready to go, why not do a last minute wedding? Equally, if you’re going to spend the next 12 months saving for a wedding, you could always think about an interest free credit card and pay that off over the next 12 months as kind of a reverse saving plan. I know couples that have done that very successfully, and have made it work so they haven’t had to wait for that big day and not have to compromise on anything either equally they haven’t had to spend 12 months, 18 months saving super hard when they can just be paying it off super hard. I’m obviously not advocating anyone gets in any horrific debt over it, but if you’ve got that option open to you, it’s always worth thinking about.

What do you need to remember if you’re going to have a last minute wedding?

If you’re having civil ceremony, i.e. it not in a religious venue you need to make sure that you give notice at your local registry office and that needs to be at least 28 days before your planned ceremony. So that’s your only real time restriction is the 28 days that your intention to marry needs to be displayed in your local registry office and you need to have lived in that district for seven days before you can give notice. If you’ve just moved into an area seven days, then you can pop down to the registry office in your district.

Got the date but no official?

What happens if you find the perfect venue at the perfect price and your guests can all do that particular date, but there’s no registrar available? Well, you can think about looking at when the registrars are available and having a really private service to do the legal side of it where you make your legal vows to each other then the signing the records and legal bits and then have a celebrant come along to your venue and you can give very personal vows and you can really make the ceremony in your own. It gives you a lot more freedom around timings and readings, music, and actually the words that you say to each other. They don’t have to be, the legally required words plus the personal bit. They can be completely around you and completely bespoke, so quite often I’ll have couples that will get married in the registry office the day before or the day after.

Their celebrations are at some point in that week leading up to and just with a couple of close friends or family and then they have their wedding on the actual date in their chosen venue, surrounded by all the guests that they wanted to invite. So there are definitely ways around it. Plus, you get to say nice things to each other twice, which I think is really special, really magical. So that’s it. There are lots benefits of not waiting for your wedding; and the stress and the time consuming-ness is not a factor and it’s done, and it’s planned, and it arrives in the blink of an eye and it’s just amazing and incredible for your guests too. They get the excitement of the proposal and the idea of you get married. Then they get their invitation through the door and then they get a wedding in a really short space of time. So they get to ride that excitement journey with you as well.

Last minute specialists

MyOhMy Weddings specialize in last minute weddings. So if you’ve got something in mind and you still want to get married this year, please do get in touch. We’ll be happy to help. That applies to anything. If you’ve got queries and questions or you just want to make sure that your day runs perfectly. Please do get in touch and we’ll be more than happy to help you out with advice and book in a call . If you find that helpful or if you know anyone that’s just got engaged and can’t contain their excitement, please do pass on this blog. Head over to YouTube and hit subscribe and you’ll get weekly content also.

You can find more hints and tips, pop over to Instagram. We’re on Facebook, and we’re on Twitter. We’re also on IGTV and YouTube as well.

For your free Planning and Budget sheet, sign up here.