How to plan your wedding: a month-by-month timeline

Planning a wedding is a long list of decisions that depend on one another: you can’t book the venue without knowing how many guests you’ll have, and you can’t send the invitations without a venue. This timeline puts those decisions in order. It’s built around a year of planning; if you have less time, do the same things in the same order, just closer together.

12 months before: budget, guest list and date

Everything else depends on these three, so they come first.

• Set your total budget and decide who’s paying for what: the two of you, your families or both. It’s the most uncomfortable conversation, and the one that heads off the most problems.
• Draft your first guest list. It doesn’t have to be final, but it should give you a rough headcount. The number of guests drives the cost of the venue and the catering more than any other decision.
• Pick a tentative date, with one or two backups. If you want a Saturday in peak season, the sooner the better.
• Decide what kind of celebration you want: civil only, civil and religious on the same day or on different dates, daytime or evening, in the city or out of town.

10 to 12 months before: venue and key vendors

• Book the venue. Visit at least two or three, ask what’s included—furniture, hours, parking, whether you must use their catering—and get everything in writing.
• Book the church, if you’re having a religious ceremony. Every parish keeps its own calendar, but the Catholic wedding requirements in Peru repeat almost everywhere: a legalized baptism certificate, proof of the pre-marriage talks, and the civil wedding or its public notice.
• Hire the vendors who book up first: catering, photo and video, and the band or DJ. If you’d rather have someone coordinate all of them, check what a wedding planner charges in Peru and what the contract should say before you sign it.
• Choose your padrinos (wedding sponsors) and ask them well ahead of time.

6 to 9 months before: the look of your wedding

• Dress and suit. Between fittings and alterations, the dress often takes several months.
• Decor and flowers, in keeping with the style of the venue.
• Save the date. If some guests are traveling in, give them plenty of notice so they can block off the date. Here’s what to include and when to send it.
• Wedding website or digital invitation, with the basics: date, venue and directions.
• Honeymoon. If you’re traveling in peak season, book your flights early.

3 to 6 months before: paperwork, invitations and gifts

• Start your civil marriage paperwork. The documents expire and the marriage notice has to be published before the ceremony; our guide to civil wedding requirements in Lima walks you through it step by step, and what the paperwork costs district by district has the fees.
• Build your gift registry. Decide whether you’d rather receive things, experiences or contributions toward a project. If you’re leaning toward money, read how to ask for it without making it awkward.
• Send the invitation, ideally with the gift registry on the same link so nobody has to ask.
• Ask guests to RSVP by a clear deadline.
• Finalize the menu with your caterer and schedule the tasting.

1 to 2 months before: the details

• Close the guest list based on the RSVPs, and follow up only with those who haven’t answered.
• Work out the seating chart.
• Confirm every vendor in writing: arrival time, what’s included and who to call on the day.
• Put together the day’s schedule: ceremony, reception, toasts, first dance, the hora loca (the high-energy “crazy hour” with costumes and noisemakers) and the send-off.
• Pin down the date for the bachelorette party, and not the week of the wedding. Whoever is hosting can start from these plans by the bride’s style, games and ways to split the cost.
• Final fitting for the dress and suit.

The last week

• Send the schedule to your vendors, padrinos and close family.
• Have payments and envelopes ready for the vendors who get paid on the day.
• Delegate: pick someone you trust to handle surprises so the two of you don’t have to.
• Rest. The big day takes a lot of energy.

After the wedding

• Thank each guest with a personal message. It’s easier when you know who gave what.
• Collect your gifts and settle up with your vendors.
• Update your marital status wherever needed and keep your marriage certificate somewhere safe.

Questions about the timeline

What gets decided first?

Three things, in this order: the total budget and who’s paying for what, a first draft of the guest list, and a tentative date with one or two backups. Everything else hangs off them. The headcount is what moves the money most: it drives the cost of the venue and the catering more than any decision you make later.

Can a wedding be planned in less than a year?

Yes. The timeline is built around twelve months, but with less time you do the same things in the same order, just closer together. What’s worth not compressing is whatever books up first: the venue, the catering, the photo and video team, and the band or DJ, which are the ones with the fewest dates left.

When do we start the civil marriage paperwork?

Three to six months out. That window leaves room for two things you don’t control: the documents expire, and the marriage notice has to be published before the ceremony. If a church wedding is also happening, your civil certificate or its notice becomes part of the parish file, so both processes move in parallel.

When do we send the invitation?

In that same three-to-six-month stretch, ideally with the gift registry on the same link so nobody has to ask, and with a clear RSVP deadline. If some guests are traveling in, send them a save the date earlier, six to nine months out, so they can block off the day.

One tool for your invitation, guests and gifts

A good chunk of this timeline—the invitation, the RSVPs, the gift registry and the thank-yous—fits in one place. If you also plan weddings for other people, the task-by-task comparison is in digital tools for event planners. With parati you create your wedding page, share it on WhatsApp and see who has RSVP’d, and your guests give gifts from their phone by card or Yape, without signing up.