Setting the Wedding Date
Published: 10/10/2009
» Planning Your Wedding
Narrowing down wedding date is no easy task. Your perfect wedding venue is unavailable, or the must have photographer is already booked or maybe your best friend has prior commitments that are difficult to break on your chosen day.
What do you do? Either find another best friend or change the date.
In the end, you must decide what’s best for you and the majority of your close family and friends. Once you’ve set the date, stick to it. Everyone will have to deal with it. And most of them will do so very well.
Planning your wedding to fall on a public holiday is often tempting. If you have guests coming from far and wide then having a few extra days may work well for them or if you are planning a wedding away from home that requires people to travel, then a long weekend gives wedding guests some extra time off work.
On the downside, public holidays, in particular Easter and Christmas, can be an expensive time to travel, and these times are usually cherished by families as a time to spend with kids and family...no matter how much they love you they won't be happy about having to cancel such holidays.
Another downside to holding your wedding on a public holiday is the extra cost for wedding services - it is highly likely that there will be a surcharge on everything - venues and restaurants charge at least an extra 10% to cover holiday loadings and when you are talking about a $10,000 or $15,000 reception.
Here are some days to take into consideration when choosing a date:
- New Year's Day
- Orthodox Armenian Christmas
- Feast of St Maroun
- Mawlid al-Nabi (Prophet's Birthday)
- Good Friday
- Easter Sunday
- Orthodox Easter
- Labour Day
- Martyrs' Day
- Resistance and Liberation Day
- Assumption of the Virgin.
- Eid al-Fitr (End of Ramadan)
- All Saints' Day
- Eid al-Adha
- Independence Day
- Islamic New Year
- Christmas Day
Peak versus Off Peak
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The Spring/Summer months of April, May, June, July, August and September are popular months to hold a wedding in most parts of Lebanon.
Winter weddings (October to March) are generally considered easier to secure in demand wedding venues and wedding service providers. Although with more people getting married than every before, this is starting to change.
Be flexible. Booking a venue for a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday evening is likely to be less expensive than a Friday, Saturday or Sunday night. You may be surprised as to how many of your wedding guests will take the afternoon off to celebrate your marriage. What’s more, if you really want your wedding reception at the most popular place in your area, that spot may be booked every Saturday & Sunday night for the next two years.
Good luck and choose your date wisely and remember you will be celebrating this wedding anniversary for many years to come!
