List of things to do - Artwedding.com

At least 1 year in advance:

1) Choose a church and date, call the parish house to confirm. If it's a popular church, you'll want to have it booked at least a year in advance.

2) Ask the priest to perform the wedding. If you are choosing a priest from a different parish to the church, expect to pay extra, and pay for a B&B for the night.

3) Arrange a venue for the afters. Shop around, and don't mention the fact that it's for a wedding, or they'll automatically charge more. Ask for what you want, for example a 3 course meal for 150 people, with a drinks reception. Once they quote you a price you can tell them that it's your wedding.

4) Book your pre-marriage course. Accord have a 6 month waiting list for some areas. http://accord.ie will tell you all local courses and some general info. It costs €180 per couple. o_o You'll want to book one for at least 6ish months before the wedding.

5) Book your band for the reception! You wouldn't believe how far ahead most are booked.

8 months in advance:

1) Think about invitations. Get a list of all the adresses. You may need to book accomodation for people travelling to the wedding.

2) Post your banns! This site: http://www.oasis.gov.ie/relationship..._marriage.html has a pdf form you can download, and a link to a list of registrars. Your priest will tell you where you need to register it. It's basically just a simple form that you both fill out and sign, stating where and when the wedding will take place and your names/ages.

3) If you're getting your dress made as opposed to buying off the rack, your dressmaker will need at least 6 months generally.

6 months in advance:

1) You need to get your church papers done. This can only be done within 6 months of the wedding date to try and counteract bigamy. (I don't really get it either, especially if you've been engaged to one person for years) This involves calling the church where you were baptised, and getting your baptismal and confirmation certs from them. Even if you had your confirmation in a different church, they always send all your Catholic files back to your baptismal church. You need to get your respective parish priests, or family priests, to fill out all the permission to marry forms. Typically, one of these is the priest that will marry you, so he'll be letting you know what to do anyway.

2) When you have your pre-marriage cert, church papers, and banns sent, the priest performing the ceremony will want to see you again to fill out a 'suitablity to marry' form (basically a formality, it'll only ever be used again if you want an annulment) and to discuss which readings/psalms you want etc. Typically, if this is the priest doing one of your 'freedom to marry' papers you can get it all done at the one time.

3) Send invites. Ask for cash instead of a gift list, most people prefer to give/recieve moneh.



General:

Flowers. Bouquets, church flowers, centrepieces for the reception.

People to say readings/ be ushers/ prayers of the faithful. Bridesmaid/best man.

Church music. Organist/ flautist/ singer.

Cake.