When to Book Each Wedding Vendor in London, Ontario

Most wedding timelines you'll find online are written for nowhere in particular. They tell you to book twelve months out without saying what happens if you don't, or which decisions block the others. Here's a practical order for planning a wedding in London, Ontario — and, more usefully, the reasoning behind it, so you can adjust when your own timeline is shorter.

The short version: your venue sets your date, and your date determines who's still available. Almost every other decision waits on those two.

12+ months out: venue and date

Nothing else can be confirmed until this is. A photographer can't hold a date you haven't set, and caterers quote differently depending on whether the venue has a kitchen.

• Brookside Banquet Centre — a 62-year London institution near the Thames — starts from $425, with four halls and capacity up to 400.
• The Blank Room Inc rents from $115 per hour, which suits smaller weddings and events where you want to bring in your own vendors.

If your date is a Saturday between June and September, treat twelve months as the latest comfortable point rather than the target. Peak-season Saturdays are the first thing to go at every venue, in every city.

10–12 months: the one-wedding-a-day vendors

Some suppliers can serve several clients on the same date. Photographers, planners and DJs generally cannot — once they're booked, that date is gone.

• Love Knots Wedding Photography starts at $2,350 for ceremony and reception coverage.
• Woodgate Photography starts at $3,500 for a full day.
• Starlight DJ Services runs from $2,800 including planning support and reception MC duties, while L.O.V.E. Wedding Music starts at $1,200.
• A planner like Plan To Remember Events, from $500, is worth booking early precisely because their value is in the months of coordination before the day.

This is the group where waiting costs you the most. Not money — availability.

6–9 months: catering, florals, hair and makeup

These vendors can usually take more than one booking per weekend, so the pressure is lower. What you gain by booking early here is time for tastings and trials, not access.

• Culinary Catering Services works out around $60 per person, and also handles rentals and bar service.
• Grow & Bloom Co. starts near $600 for personal flowers; full ceremony and reception styling typically runs $3,500 and up.
• Hair and makeup trials should happen well before the day. Dolledupbydalxo charges from $95 per person.

3–6 months: rentals, decor and the extras

Furniture, glassware, arbours and the pieces that make a blank room feel finished. Also the place for anything novel — an audio guest book like Phone Keepsakes runs $35, and things in this category are rarely booked out.

The last six weeks

Final guest counts, seating, timeline confirmations, and the dietary details your caterer needs. No new vendors should be entering the picture here — if they are, something slipped earlier in the chain.

What a shorter timeline actually costs you

If you're planning in six months rather than eighteen, you haven't ruined anything. You've narrowed the venue list, and you've probably lost first choice of photographer for a summer Saturday. Everything from the six-month mark down is largely unaffected.

The honest constraint is rarely money. It's that the vendors who can only take one wedding a day are working through a queue, and the queue is ordered by who asked first.

Where to start

Browse wedding vendors in London, Ontario by what you still need to book — the checklist there is ordered roughly the way this article is, so you can see at a glance which categories you've covered and which are still open.

A few categories worth flagging: videographers, bar services and cake makers aren't yet listed on Eventlli. If you need those, ask your venue or planner for local referrals — and if you run one of those businesses, list it here.

Ready to start planning?