The wedding vendor checklist

These are the vendors with the least flexibility in their calendar: each one works a single wedding on a given date, so the good ones are booked out furthest. Lock these in before anything else:

• Venue. This is the vendor that sets everything else in motion: your date, your guest cap, your style, and often your catering and rental options too. Popular venues in peak months (spring and fall, mostly) can book a year or more out. See what to ask before you book one.
• Photographer (and videographer, if you want one). The vendors couples regret skimping on most. The best ones book a year-plus out for popular dates, and unlike almost everything else at your wedding, this is the thing you still have decades later. See what to know when hiring a photographer.
• Caterer (if your venue doesn’t provide food in-house). Feeds every guest, sets your bar service in motion, and is often priced per head, so it’s worth locking in once your guest count is roughly settled.
• Planner or month-of coordinator, if you want one. Hire this person early, not late. A planner brought on before your other bookings can help you sequence the rest of this list, vet contracts, and steer you away from vendors who aren’t a fit.
• Band or DJ. Live music acts and popular DJs run one gig per date and get claimed fast for peak-season Saturdays. If music matters to you, don’t leave this for later.

These vendors have a bit more breathing room (some can style multiple weddings in a week), but they still need real lead time to do their best work:

• Florist. Bring your color palette, your venue details, and a realistic sense of scale (bouquets and a few centerpieces vs. an arch and full reception styling). The range between those two is enormous.
• Hair & makeup. Book the trial run at the same time as the wedding-day booking, not as an afterthought. It’s the only way to know the look actually works before the morning of. See what beauty really costs.
• Officiant. Especially important if you want a specific person, a religious officiant tied to a congregation, or a fully custom, non-religious ceremony written around your relationship. See officiant costs, explained.
• Cake or dessert. Bakers often take a limited number of orders per weekend, and a good one will want to schedule a tasting well ahead of the day.
• Rentals (tables, chairs, linens, tents, glassware) if your venue doesn’t supply them. This category is easy to forget until you’re counting chairs two months out, so start earlier than that.

The last wave is generally lower-demand (plenty of vendors in these categories can serve you even with a short runway), but each one still needs enough notice to do the job properly:

• Stationery. Save-the-dates typically go out earlier (around 6–8 months before), with formal invitations following roughly 8–10 weeks before the wedding.
• Transportation for the couple, the wedding party, and/or a guest shuttle if your venue is remote or parking is limited.
• Bar service, if it’s handled separately from your caterer. Confirm who’s providing alcohol, glassware, and staffing, since this detail sometimes falls through the cracks between two vendors.
• Day-of rentals and extras: lounge furniture, a photo backdrop, dance-floor lighting, a specialty bar cart. Nice-to-haves that are easy to add once the essentials are locked.

Genuinely optional, despite what the standard checklists imply:

• Favors. Most get left on the table at the end of the night. If you want guests to remember something tangible, late-night snacks get eaten; favors mostly get thrown away.
• Elaborate stationery suites. One clean, well-designed invitation does the job. Guests rarely keep the belly bands, vellum overlays, and extra inserts. Most of that goes straight to recycling.
• A towering, elaborately decorated cake. A small display cake out front, paired with a simple sheet cake cut in the back for serving, looks just as good in photos and costs a fraction as much.
• Ceremony and reception musicians as separate bookings. Unless your ceremony and reception are in very different spaces with very different vibes, one band or DJ covering both is plenty for most weddings.
• A separate day-of “everything” planner if your venue already includes a strong in-house coordinator. Ask what your venue’s coordinator actually covers before paying for overlapping services.
• A second shooter for a smaller wedding. Below roughly 75–100 guests, a single skilled photographer can usually cover the day well; a second shooter earns their cost at larger, more spread-out events.

For where those savings actually go in a real budget, see how to budget for a wedding.

Do we need a wedding planner if we already have a venue coordinator? Not necessarily. A venue coordinator typically manages the venue’s own logistics: timing, staff, the space itself. A planner manages your whole vendor team and vision across every category on this list. Small, venue-catered weddings can often skip the planner; larger or multi-vendor weddings usually benefit from one.

What if we’re planning on a shorter timeline, say six months? Follow the same order, just compressed. Venue and photographer still come first, because they’re still the vendors most likely to already be booked on your date. Expect fewer options in high-demand categories and more flexibility in the lower-demand ones.

Can one vendor cover multiple categories? Sometimes. Some caterers also handle rentals and bar service; some DJs also serve as officiant or emcee. It’s worth asking every vendor you talk to what else they offer. It’s one less category to book separately.

What happens if a high-demand vendor is already booked on our date? That’s usually a sign to widen your search rather than change your date. Most areas have several vetted options in each category, and starting your search earlier gives you more of them to choose from.

You don’t have to cold-email every category on this list one by one. Tell Our Day your date, budget, and style, and we bring back up to six vetted vendors per category who are available and in range, with Our Day-exclusive pricing negotiated on your behalf. Start with how to budget for a wedding if you haven’t set your number yet, browse vendors in your state, or tell us about your day and let the matches come to you.