Wedding planning in Chicago or Chicagoland suburbs can be its own beast. There are plenty of wedding planning problems that are universal, but some of these are specific to the city and area that you may not have considered. While there are so many things to remember when wedding planning, here are some of those things that you just can’t forget.

1. Sunset Time

Any of the days that you’re thinking about getting married, you’ll want to look up the sunset time in the city you’re going to be getting married. With any wedding in the Chicago area, the sunset will change drastically depending on the season you’re getting married, so it’s important to know if you’ll have time to do your photos after the ceremony if you’re planning on getting married in January versus July. A specific Chicago problem is that the sunset will likely be a little bit earlier due to the tall buildings. You will want to plan your wedding around the sunset for photos and so it’s important to know when you will have light to work with.

2. Other Events

Another tricky thing about Chicago weddings is that there may be other big events happening near you on the day that you’re planning on getting married, whether it’s Lollapalooza weekend, Pierogi Fest, a really big conference that is filling up every hotel in the city, or a Bears game, you’ll really want to keep close tabs on anything that’s happening in the weekend you’re planning on getting married. This can really affect the accommodations you plan to reserve, the cost, and the traffic.

3. The Traffic

An intensely Chicago-specific problem that you want to plan for is the traffic. If you’re planning your ceremony in Chicago on a Friday at 5pm, you will absolutely need to account for the traffic not only for your guests to potentially be late but also the travel between your getting ready, photo, ceremony, and reception locations. No matter what, you’ll want to keep tabs on the traffic specifically when you’re planning on riding around in those times, because while it says it’ll take 10 minutes to get to your ceremony when you looked that random Tuesday afternoon, the traffic on a Saturday afternoon the day of a Bears game is going to be potentially twice as long.

4. Your Own Transportation

Something that a lot of couple’s forget about is how YOU are getting from place to place. If you’re planning for a first look offsite, you need to know how each of you are getting there, how your wedding party is getting there, and how you are getting home at the end of the night. Make sure to map out your day with your coordinator on where you are planning on going for the entire day so you can have exact timing and locations planned so you don’t have to worry about a thing on the wedding day.

5. Market Research for Vendors

It’s important to understand the difference in hiring a Chicago vendor versus a Springfield vendor versus an Iowa Vendor. There will be different costs based on the location you and they are both from, and if you’re planning your wedding in Chicago you will definitely pay the price, literally. If you’re trying to skip this cost and hire vendors from outside the area, you still might end up with travel fees on top of their rates, so it really is up to you to find vendors that you like and trust more than anything else. Before you get too set on your budget, I would recommend checking out the averages for the vendors you might be looking into, and even reach out about your favorite vendors’ pricing just to get an idea of what is actually likely for you to spend.

6. Your Guest Count

Your wedding day will look incredibly different depending on how many people you plan on having, so it’s important to start out with a general idea of your guest count. Really all of your vendors will ask you for this, so it’s important to know a general idea of how many people you’re planning on inviting to get exactly what you need from your vendors. You can always change this number in the future, but any drastic changes through the wedding planning process can drastically change the scope of your wedding.

7. Your Priorities

It’s most important to really sit down with your future spouse and understand what is most important to you for the wedding day. The top three things you both value for your wedding day will heavily influence how you plan ahead, so I highly recommend sitting down and going through your needs vs. wants with each other to know where to put your time, money, and energy into the day. If you don’t think about this until you’re already in the midst of planning, you may have to change the plans you’ve already made which could end up losing you money and time.

Planning a wedding is extraordinarily hard work and takes lots of time and patience. These things are definitely things you’ll need to account for when you’re wedding planning to ensure that you have a day that is stress-free. If you are recently engaged and you don’t even know where to start, you can check out this blog post here about the 6 things you must do when you’re engaged! If you’re still stuck, you can reach out to me here for some more help.