Wedding for $1,000 Plan small. Mean it.

Free tools

The 30/60/90 checklist

Ninety days is plenty of time for a wedding this size. Enter your date and each column fills in with actual deadlines.

Start with the 90-day column. The 30-day list goes a lot smoother when the first one's done.

Progress

0 of 30 done

Your check marks clear when you close this page, so print the list once you've set a date.

90 days outDecide Set a date to see this
60 days outBook Set a date to see this
30 days outConfirm Set a date to see this
If you have less than ninety days Go in the same order, just faster. The marriage license and anything you have to order and ship are the only deadlines you can't push around.

The one deadline you can't compress

The marriage license is the one part of this list someone else controls, and the timing can trip you up either way. Around twenty states make you wait between applying and marrying, from twenty-four hours up to about six days in the strictest counties, and those rules can differ between counties inside one state. Licenses also expire, usually thirty to ninety days after they're issued, so applying too early can backfire too. Confirm both numbers with the county clerk who will actually issue yours before you pick the day you apply.

Dates you can't move
WhatDate
Ask the clerk about the waiting period and expirySet a date
Photographer deposit dueSet a date
Final guest count dueSet a date
Apply for the marriage licenseSet a date
Wedding daySet a date

Waiting periods and expiry windows compiled from Justia's fifty-state marriage license survey, with county-level variation confirmed against Door County, Wisconsin and Travis County, Texas. Rules change, so use these as a starting point and check with your clerk.

Every one of these is also a fill-in-by-hand page in the free $1,000 Wedding Starter Kit, if you'd rather print it out and write on it.

From the archive

Older posts on the same topic. Prices have gone up since we wrote them, but the advice still holds.

More free tools