Engagements by the Numbers

It is very special time of year in the world of weddings! It’s engagement season! While some couples may be focused on celebrating their big news with family over the holidays, many others will jump right into the planning process – looking for a wedding planner, scoping out venues, building a budget and choosing a date. All of these are important aspects to get the wedding planning ball rolling, but before the ball rolls too far we wanted to share with you interesting statistics about engagements and weddings from Wedding Wire.com that can help newly engaged (or soon-to-be engaged!) couples plan their own event. 

All images courtesy of www.weddingwire.com.

Like we said, it’s engagement season! Even though most engagements are about a year in length, there are still many couples that will want to marry sooner than that. If that is you, keep in mind the most popular days to get married from the infographic below. Summer weddings aren’t necessarily becoming a thing of the past, but fall weddings are gaining in popularity (quickly!). With that in mind, if you want to be married during one of the coveted fall Saturdays, we suggest starting your venue search as soon as possible.  Also, be prepared to begin your vendor search as soon as you have selected a venue and a date. Most couples begin searching for their vendors 7-9 months before their wedding date and vendors (especially photographers) tend to book early.

The unique make up of weddings tends to change from year to year, but there are consistencies that we have seen in our own work in the Indianapolis area that vary slighting from the national information. Typically, weddings in Indianapolis have about 150 guests, slightly above the national average according to Wedding Wire. However, the RSVP rate in Indianapolis also seems much higher as well. As a rule of thumb, we often tell our couples to expect 20% of their guests to RSVP no.  Wedding parties around Indianapolis are smaller and the number of vendors is truly dependent on each couple based on the type of wedding they are having and what some venues include with their wedding rentals. This means that a venue many have required vendors that you use for various services. If this is the case, it takes the stress of finding a specific vendor away from the couple.

The most important information from these infographics, in our opinion, is date selection. So often we meet with couples that have their heart set on a specific date. Nearly half of all weddings in the last year occurred on only 25 days of the year. Saturdays are highly-prized! If a venue doesn’t have the ideal date, but is the ideal venue, a couple may find themselves at a cross-roads to pick one over the other. With that in mind, it’s incredibly helpful to know the most popular weekends to wed and plan accordingly. If you have a date that highly prized, and highly popular, consider a longer engagement to secure the date (and venue) you want.