How to Plan a Simple Wedding in 1 Month (30 Days Checklist)

If you’re in a hurry to get married and considering getting it done in the next 30 days, follow our week by week checklist for planning a wedding in 4 weeks. For some couples, once they decide to get married, it has to be right away.  Their blood is boiling and the love is too hot to wait for 6 months or a year.  Sometimes, other life events force couples to tie the knot ASAP (as soon as possible).

If you’re planning to get married in one month (30 days), this post is a minimalistic and simple wedding planning checklist to help you go from planning to ‘I do’ within 30 days.  But first, let’s get the records straight.  This type of quick, rush-rush, simple wedding is not for everyone. Down in this post, I also explained the 7 types of people that a simple wedding planned out in 1 month may not work for. Read on.

Before I delve into this post, it’s important to know that planning a wedding in 30 days is not for everyone. Brides/ couples with certain personalities cannot successfully pull off a wedding within 4 weeks; and if they try, they would never be satisfied with the outcome.  I’ll explain more on how to know if a sharp-sharp wedding, such as planning one within 30 days, is for you or not.  Be sure to read to the end to read it.

With that said and out of the way, if you just want to get married ASAP, you need a straight-to-the-point, quick and minimal/ skinny wedding planning to-do list that is without bells and whistles. Put in another way, you can’t plan a big wedding in only 30 days.

So, if you just want to get married quickly, this 30-day wedding checklist (below) will get you from start to the ‘I do’ day. You need a clear step of actions without unnecessary details, period!. Without further ado, here goes your 4 weeks (30 days) simple wedding planning checklist.  Swipe/ scroll down to read on.

• Not Planning a Wedding in 1 Month? See our other Wedding Planning Checklists for Different Timelines

WEEK 1: PLANNING A NIGERIAN WEDDING IN 1 MONTH CHECKLIST

a. Set a Date

You need a date to work/plan towards, as this is what any venue or vendor (and your guests) will ask for to determine their availability.  The date sets the planning in motion, as it determines how urgent (or not) wedding tasks need to happen.

If you have a specific date in mind, that’s fine. If not, no problem for now.  Just know the month that you want to get married in – the date will surface later, or you can use our tips on how to choose a perfect wedding date.   Start by picking a month of the year when you prefer to have your wedding, and later narrow down on the date.

b. Set a Budget

Make a Budget/ set maximum cost amount and do an itemized expense breakdown.  Next, do a breakdown of that overall event budget, which is where you make a list of every wedding thing you’ll spend money on – vendor services and physical items (e.g. souvenirs, wedding gown, etc.) to buy and rentals.  Finally, you should allocate specific amounts to each item you listed.  I already did a full list of wedding things to buy in another post.

This exercise will let you know how much to look at for the different wedding expenses.  This itemized budget breakdown will enable you to make quick decisions when looking for venues, vendors or buying wedding things.

 Ultimately, you would get an idea of how much to spend on each thing and don’t need to go home to think through before deciding on anything. So, ensure to have a budget breakdown to ensure you make buying or vendor-venue-hiring decisions right on the spot, and move on to the next thing-to-do.

[NOTE: For a quick wedding in 30 days, there’s no time to save towards the event, and so you need to check your savings and plan the event within the size of your budget.

• HINT: Some people prefer to model their wedding budget from other couple’s sample wedding budgets, and that’s okay to get an idea of how to navigate budgeting for wedding expenses.

c. Find a Venue

You need two types of venue – the ceremony venue and the reception venue. For a quick wedding like in 30 days, your best option is to find a venue that has everything, from chairs, built-in decoration, in-house catering, drinks, sound speakers and microphones, basically most things you require, so that it saves you time from going about searching for multiple vendors.  See more on what a perfect wedding venue should have.

• Find a religious house (church/ mosque or other) or courthouse that will wed you within your one-month wedding date.  Resolve date with the ceremony officiant – Agree on a date with your officiant (church pastor, court);
• Find a wedding reception venue (that is within your venue budget breakdown): Once you have locked a date with the location of the wedding ceremony (worship house/ church/ court), you need to find a reception venue available for that date. Remember to use your wedding budget breakdown amount for the venue as a guide when looking for a reception venue.  Browse our wedding venues in Nigeria list for the different states.

d. Set a Maximum Guest List and Write the Names

Set a Guest Count and Make a guest list (have in mind the size of the venue you booked, and keep your guest list within the number of people that your venue can contain). Also, note that you don’t have to invite everyone. Only your closest people (friends and family will be able to attend within this short notice, so ensure to invite those you are sure of and those who do not live out-of-state).

It’s normal to know more people than you can afford to host in the venue and not know who to invite and who not to, but you can follow the steps to trim down your guest list to match your venue size and catering budget.

Send out the Invitation Cards:  Now that you have a date and a venue, it’s time to send out the wedding invitations.

WEEK 2: A SIMPLE CHECKLIST FOR PLANNING A WEDDING IN 4 WEEKS

a. Just Send out e-invites

Use SMS text messaging, WhatsApp, email OR buy ready-made paper wedding invitation cards and send out to guests ASAP. There’s no time to design an invitation card or wait for any printer that may delay. Most people are okay with digital invitations. Besides, commissioning a printer to print wedding invitation cards could cause a delay, and you can even save that money to fund other wedding expenses.

b. Hire Wedding Vendors

Do a quick search of potential vendors. It’s quicker to ask people, as you don’t have the luxury of time to waste on researching.  Once you find a vendor you vibe with, you need to make deposit payments right away in order to lock down vendors such as photographers, videographer, caterer, cake baker, venue decorators, MC, DJ, hairstylist, and makeup artist. For the DJ, be sure to let him/ her know your list of special must-play songs.  For tips on finding vendors, read where and how to find good wedding vendors AND why you should hire a professional wedding photographer.

c. Choose Your Wedding Party Members

Choose your bridesmaids and groomsmen, and inform them (Some couples choose not to have bridesmaids and groomsmen, and if you feel so, that’s okay). Ensure to be conversant with what duties your bridesmaids should play in order to avoid bad blood, which usually happens.

WEEK 3: CHECKLIST FOR PLANNING A WEDDING IN 30 DAYS

a. Buy your wedding attire, rings, and accessories

By 3 weeks to your wedding day, there’s no time to be dilly-dallying over what to wear or wait for a tailor that may disappoint. There’s no time. Your best option is to go to the shops and buy a ready-made/ ready-to-wear wedding dress (for the bride) and the groom’s suit.

You also want to Pack Your Wedding Emergency Kit/ bag. This is your insurance against things that usually go wrong at weddings.

b. Book an Overnight Accommodation Near Your Venue

Staying at a hotel near your wedding venue will guarantee that you get there on time, without stress.  So, book a hotel near your venue for a sleep-over on the night before your big day. Most couples choose to get ready from a place away from home, close to their venues, to avoid showing up late.

c. Pack for the Wedding Night (In Advance)

You don’t want to forget anything, so do this now and forget it.  Pack for the wedding night and/ or day-before-wedding (if you plan to stay at a hotel near the venue a day before).  Unless you live close to your wedding venue, skipping this step is why some couples show up late to their own wedding.

d. Pack Your Honeymoon Suitcase (in Advance)

If you’ll be going on a honeymoon, you can easily forget something if you postpone this to later. Pack only the essential things you will need during your stay. Do not pack too many things. For helpful tips on this area, check out our answers to coming honeymoon planning questions couples ask, AND reasons why you should not skip having a honeymoon.  If you’re thinking of a beach-country honeymoon abroad, watch Akah and Claire’s story of their Mauritius honeymoon experience.

Why You Should Not Skip Having a Honeymoon (It Doesn’t Have to Be Expensive)

WEEK 4: ONE MONTH (30 DAYS) WEDDING CHECKLIST

a. Touch base with your wedding venue and vendors to review and finalize details

By the fourth week, your wedding week, it’s time to finalize with the wedding vendors you hired – to go over how they’re going to execute the plans on your big day. The idea is for you to get a mental picture of how well things will work.

Ask your wedding vendors to take you through how and what they will deliver, what they have put in place so far, and finalize any outstanding and payments.

b. Make plans for day-of wedding coordination.

Someone has got to be the general overseer on your wedding day, and that is your wedding day coordinator. If you have a wedding planner, s/he would be doing this. If not, appoint one or two trusted and close friends and/ or family members as your wedding day coordinator(s), and walk them through what to do. For ideas on what they should do and how to read our tips on how to make your wedding day go perfectly as planned AND Day of Wedding Coordination Checklist.

c. Hands-off all wedding planning and Relax

Handover the remaining wedding-things-to-do to your wedding coordinators and/ or bridesmaids/ groomsmen or close family members, and have them update you every day.  Doing this will ensure that you’re relaxed up until your wedding day. Besides, that’s the point of following this checklist – so that you do not have last-minute rush wedding anxiety.

d. The Wedding Day

You’ve done all the plans and the day has come! Eat, dance and get married.

We love receiving and featuring wedding stories and photos from our readers, and can’t wait to get yours. Contact us to submit your wedding to be featured.

Planning a Quick Wedding in One Month (30 Days) is not for You If…

a) If you’ve always dreamed of your wedding day since you were a little girl, chances are that you are not likely to put a Cinderalla-style wedding that matches your dream in only 4 weeks.

b) If you’re a perfectionist, planning a wedding in 30 days is not for you. The truth is that in less than one month, you are unlikely to get the perfect venue or vendors, or the perfect dress that most brides dream of, but you can get good enough and okay ones.  If you are a stickler to specific wants and needs, a 30 days wedding plan is not for you.

c) If you’re a natural procrastinator that prefers keeping things to ‘later’ or simply like to take your time to do things, you are not likely to be able to execute a wedding in only 4 weeks.  A wedding in 30 days can work for you if you’re quick at making a decision and also have a habit of getting things done quickly (for example, the decision to pick a date, to choose a vendor/ venue, to pick a wedding dress, and pretty much everything).

d) If your wedding choices are far away and not flexible. A wedding in only 4 weeks will not work for you if you have eyes on buying things or hiring vendors far from where you live. With short notice, you can easily succeed if you buy and hire local/ near you.

e) If you want an elaborate wedding, it is unlikely to be done in 30 days. That’s because a big-scale wedding involves a lot more details, logistics and vendors, which all require more time to put together.

f) If you easily get stressed and overwhelmed, especially if things don’t work out how you planned or if you don’t find a dress or something you dreamed of, you will burn out trying to pull off a wedding in 30 days.

g) If you prefer flying solo, it would be difficult for you to pull off a wedding in only 4 weeks.  You have to ask people to help you with planning a wedding within 4 weeks (30 days), as one person alone cannot cover all the grounds in such a short time.  If you’re going to hire a wedding planner, perfect.

If not, a wedding in 30 days requires the help of your fiance and maybe a few other people.  Ensure to delegate some of the tasks in this/ your wedding checklist to some friends/ family/ bridesmaids/ groomsmen (but be nice when you delegate or ask for help).

With all that said, if you are itchy to just get married ASAP, you have to have the mindset that however the wedding turns out, you’ll accept it, make the most of it and be okay with how everything turns out. You have to have to be able to ignore the little flaws and imperfections that come with it and focus on the few things that are beautiful and memorable, and what matters most, which is the two of you legally married.

Recap & Action Items: A Quick Wedding in Just 1 Month (30 Days)

So far, I laid out for you a week by week action plan you can follow to get things done when planning your wedding in only 1 month.  I also explained 7 reasons why a wedding in 30 days may or may not be for you.  Now, here’s a recap:

Start with the 3 essentials: date, budget, and venue, which are the epicenter where every other decision revolves. After that, choose your vendors and get the other things in place.

Be flexible about your choices of wedding venue, vendors and things to buy and look only within the area you reside or near your wedding location.  Focus on picking the best of what is available and you will be amazed to find that your wedding will be perfect as you envisioned it.

Focus only a few things that matter most to you and your partner (for example, quality photography, best DJ and great food) and every other thing will naturally fall in place. I always say, pick your 3 must-haves or non-negotiables.

Keep things as simple as possible.  Keep your wants, needs and even your wedding planning to-do list/ checklist very lean/ simple.   Again, focus most of your time, efforts and money on your 3 most important things/ must-haves and the others will fall in place, with minimal effort.  3 months is such a short time, and so there’s no need (or time) to sweat/ stress over the little things.  Enjoy every day of the process, and have fun checking completed tasks off your 4 weeks wedding planning checklist.

Finally, avoid these costly wedding planning mistakes by all means:

• Top wedding reception planning mistakes and how to avoid them;
• Costly Wedding Fashion Mistakes and Tips to Avoid Them
• Costly Wedding Cake Decision Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
• How to Find an Affordable Wedding Cake Faster
• Real Story of How a Wedding Photographer Ruined this Bride’s Big Day

That’s all about how to plan a wedding in only 30 days, in Nigeria or anywhere. One more tip is to challenge yourself to get things done faster than the suggested timeline above. By that, I mean, if you can do week 3 activities in week 2, that’s better – as long as you do not delay any task. 

Now you know what to do if you’re planning a wedding in 30 days – just use our checklist above. Remember to tweak it up to your desire.

Thanks for reading and I hope that the above simple one-month wedding planning checklist helps you out.  Kindly help me share it on social media to help anyone who might need it. 

Is wedding planning in one month for you?  Why or why not?  Comment down below to tell me and also let me know what you think.