While many individuals imagine ‘wedding season’ to be primarily in the summertime months, in actual fact it tends to stretch out languorously all year long like our cat Boots in his favourite sunny spot. In 2025 our first wedding was in April and the last in December, meaning that all year long we work on a rolling cycle of planning, designing and delivering. Once I’m not physically at a marriage or within the office, you’ll find me on planning trips, site visits, food tastings, industry networking events, symposiums, conferences and, yes, plenty of Zoom calls. At the top of 2025 I’ve banked 35+ flights, worked on 11 weddings, attended 8+ industry events, and secured one very special award – so when you’ve ever wondered ‘what does a marriage planner do all 12 months?’, that is our very Elegante 12 months in review.
What does a marriage planner do all 12 months?
Over a decade since I first began wedding planning, here is how 12 months in business pans out.
January-March
In the primary few months of the 12 months we dived into the main points for 2025 weddings and laid plenty of the groundwork for 2026.
Site visits
Once your venue has been chosen and also you’ve began to construct an image of how your wedding day will flow and what elements shall be included, it’s crucial that we have now a site visit. Actually standing within the space and envisioning how things will feel and look, meeting with the venue team that shall be present on the day, and physically getting the lay of the land for things like supplier load in, kitchen access and so forth are all vital steps that shouldn’t be missed. We may do greater than considered one of these for every wedding. In 2025, we:
- Visited London’s Corinthia hotel for a site visit for Emily and Louis’ wedding which might happen there in April
- Flew to Sottogrande via Gibraltar for a site visit at a brand latest venue; newly opened locations or those which can be latest to us at Elegante are especially vital to plan site visits at
Venue search trips
For our couples having destination weddings, most of the time we’ll go together on a venue search trip to their chosen country. Seeing a venue online and seeing it in person are two very different experiences, and it is just not unusual for us to make requests of wedding venues which can be outside of their normal ‘packages’ or previous events. Early within the 12 months, we went on two venue search trips with our couples:
- First to Florence, considered one of our favourite parts of Italy, to view venues for his or her May 2026 wedding – we’re currently deep within the planning process for them, and really much looking forward to their celebration at considered one of our most loved venues (but you’ll have to return back in May to search out out which one!)
- We also headed to Sicily with one other of our 2026 couples, and whilst there selected their castello venue where they’ll have their wedding in June
Planning trips
Site visits, venue search trips and planning trips all serve distinct purposes at different points in the method. What number of planning trips we go on is determined by various aspects, but the primary few months of 2025 were particularly busy with these!
- We went to Portugal twice (once in January and once in March) for Emily and Avery’s May wedding; first for a food tasting with their caterer, and secondly for logistics planning. I met with all of their suppliers on site at their venue, ensuring each meticulous detail had been discussed and agreed – that is invaluable to permit everyone to reach at the marriage feeling confident, excited, and with one goal in mind: deliver an exceptional experience for our couple
- In March I also headed to Spain on a planning trip for Chhaya and Harry’s multi-site wedding, visiting each Barcelona and Sitges for food tasting and detail-diving
- Barely less far afield, we also had a food tasting for Emily and Louis’ upcoming wedding with their caterer in London
While it might sound frivolous to your wedding planner to attend your food tasting, it’s actually very vital – discussing menu options, requesting changes and negotiating all of this inside the confines of a contract can turn into complex. In fact, it’s a stunning experience to sit down down with my couples and get a flavour (pun intended) of what’s to return at their wedding, but I’m there in an expert capability to make sure everyone seems to be on the identical page. Any catering issues in your wedding day are very noticeable to your guests, so I work proactively together with your team each throughout the planning and on the day to make sure every part is smooth…and delicious!
Industry events
After greater than 10 years of wedding planning, I even have learnt to turn into selective with the industry events I attend – I now know what is helpful and what just makes a busy calendar, so I’m very intentional with the networking I do nowadays. Every industry event serves a purpose.
- In early February I took part in La Lista’s Hyde Park walk event, where couples joined us for a stroll across the park to talk about planning their wedding in Italy and were in a position to get suggestions and advice from various planners and professionals
- In January I went to RSVP Club’s ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ at Harrods in London, a networking group I absolutely love being a component of
- Finally, I flew to Palermo in Sicily for an event with Italy 4 Weddings – a probability for wedding professionals to attach with venues and vendors throughout Italy. I used to be hosted on the fabulous Rocco Forte Villa Igea for 3 days, and met so many wonderful individuals who I do know I’ll recommend to my couples in future
Other notable events in the primary few months of the 12 months were two of our couples getting featured in Smashing The Glass, dozens of planning meets via Zoom and in-office, flower sampling meetings, latest client consultations and detailed logistics conversations to make sure the granular details are only as fabulous as the larger design picture.
Whew, quite the beginning to 2025!
April-June
During April-June there was, in fact, many more hours of planning, chatting to potential latest clients, and all of the vital day after day business jobs we are able to’t do without. Skipping over the repetitive parts, here were the highlights of those few months:
Weddings
- Emily and Louis on the Corinthia in London; a chic Jewish wedding which was later featured on Smashing The Glass
- Emily and Avery in Portugal; a stunning celebration within the Algarve, happening partially at Emily’s grandfather’s home, partially at a shocking venue crammed with orange groves, and partially at a non-public beach club. You’ll find the link to their very own blog at the top of this one, a whopping 5 events over 4 days!
- We also travelled to Spain for Chhaya and Harry’s multicultural, multisite, multiday wedding which consisted of 5 events over 3 days and saw us mixing Hindu and Jewish wedding customs to create something magical
More planning trips!
- One among our 2026 couples is getting married in Tuscany, so we flew on the market for a planning trip with them…
- …Followed immediately by a flight on to Sicily. Back to back planning trips have turn into more of the norm as we at the moment are so busy with destination weddings, and it’s an absolute pleasure to be so!
Highlight of the 12 months!
Absolutely the high point of the 12 months got here at the top of April after I attended the RSVP Symposium in Vienna – I had the privilege of firstly speaking on the event, presenting to my peers, after which winning Favourite Destination Wedding Planner on the Awards Gala – all while in fancy dress, as you’ll see below!
July-December
The latter half of 2025 consisted of yet more beautiful weddings, more latest clients, more exciting plans for 2026…
- In August I headed off on more venue search trips for our 2026 couples, touring around Tuscany, Florence and Portugal. This couple got here to me knowing they wanted a destination wedding, but not quite sure which country to decide on – I narrowed it down in keeping with their transient, and we viewed plenty of venues until we found their perfect fit…
- …Which just so happened to be in Athens! If you work with Team Elegante on planning your wedding, we’re meticulous in our search to search out the correct venue and suppliers for you – not the box we’d such as you to suit into, or limited to what we’ve done before. It could take several countries and dozens of venues to search out it, but find it we’ll. Where there’s Elegante, there’s a way.
- The top of August saw us at the enduring Kew Gardens for Annabel and Oli’s wedding, happening inside the famous glasshouses – we still love working on celebrations closer to home in London, and are all the time up for the logistical challenge of a marriage in a public space.
- September and October were for planning trips – Florence, Rome, Sicily and Athens, all on our 2026 weddings schedule and all of which we’re very much looking forward to
Did we now have an in-house travel concierge? Your destination wedding is in protected hands, with a dedicated team member to handle hotel room blocks to your guests, support you and your family members with their travel plans, and even help plan your honeymoon – also they are present at your wedding to be certain that every part runs easily.
- We also attended more industry events; RSVP Tuscany symposium, a FAM trip in Puglia to go to latest venues and expand our repertoire, and an Italian wedding conference in Florence
- We crescendo in December with our final wedding of the 12 months in Essex!
Looking back, it’s hard to consider we got quite a lot done at Team Elegante – but I thrive on the work I do with my couples and the relationships I construct with them, and love the time I spend with my colleagues, friends and latest connections within the industry. I’m all the time in search of ways to proceed growing, learning and providing our signature Elegante Excellence to our couples.
All weddings, features and highlights mentioned listed here are linked below when you’d wish to explore more of any of them:
FAQ: What does a marriage planner do all 12 months?
What’s the most well-liked time of 12 months for weddings?
Traditionally the summer months remain popular for weddings, but increasingly more couples are favouring the shoulder seasons or winter celebrations for various reasons. For destination weddings it will probably be clever to avoid the height of summer, because the weather might be extremely hot and costs are sometimes higher – there may be also a time period in Italy when the locals leave the cities to flee the oppressive heat, which might make finding suppliers trickier.
Lots of our weddings are for Jewish couples, and each 12 months there may be a 3 week period which falls inside the summer months when weddings will not be allowed. Because of this, plenty of our weddings happen within the months either side of the summer as well.
Take a take a look at our 2026 Jewish wedding calendar to see when the three weeks falls next 12 months.
How long does it take to plan a marriage?
You’ll have noticed we’re continuously busy with planning weddings all year long, even during our busiest months once we are also delivering weddings in various places around Europe. It’s because our couples’ lead times vary – anything from 6 weeks to 18 months – and the timeline we work on adjusts accordingly.
Read our blog ‘how one can plan a marriage in 6 weeks’ for every part you should learn about shorter turnaround times.
What number of weddings does Elegante by Michelle J plan every year?
The precise variety of weddings Elegante by Michelle J plans per 12 months varies, but we’re most definitely not a ‘wedding factory’. The number is often on the lower side because we work with more generous budgets, complex plans, and sometimes over multiple days and in various locations. We truly want every couple to feel as if they’re our only priority, and the extent of service we deliver simply can’t be replicated on a bigger scale. Our motto is that working with us seems like ‘a hug, not a handshake’ – it’s warm and private in addition to being skilled and experienced, so we keep our circle of couples small and sweet.
We frequently tackle each full-service planning clients and Elegante Piccolo clients every year – discover the difference in this blog.
What does a marriage planner do when not at a marriage?
Other than the planning and delivering of weddings and the networking and connection opportunities, I’m also a business owner. This implies marketing, website updates, resource creation, collaboration outreach…complacency and being ‘too comfortable’ has never moved my business forward in the identical way that continuously striving to evolve and do things that feel latest and barely scary has. That is something I even have incessantly shared at speaking opportunities on stages and podcasts through the years – there may be all the time room to learn and grow, even with such a wonderful 12 months as 2025 just gone and an exciting 2026 ahead.
CONTACT MICHELLE FOR WEDDING PLANNING SERVICES
