When to Book a
Wedding Decorator

The honest answer is "earlier than you think for some dates, and later than you fear for others" — which is useless without knowing which is which.

So here is the actual pattern, from our own booking calendar.

The dates that go first

• May–September Saturdays. Ottawa's peak. These book furthest ahead and they are gone earliest. We are already taking bookings for summer 2026.
• June weekends. Convocation season — uOttawa, Carleton and Algonquin ceremonies fall within weeks of each other, and graduation parties compete directly with weddings. June is the one month we genuinely run out of Saturdays.
• Eid. The dates are fixed and every family wants the same two days. This is the least flexible booking in our year.
• Long weekends. Victoria Day, Canada Day, Labour Day — popular because guests can travel.

Realistic lead times

• Full wedding week (3–5 events), peak season: three to six months. Longer if you have a specific date in mind.
• Single large event, peak season: two to four months.
• Single large event, off-peak: four to eight weeks is usually workable.
• Small home event — mayon, dholki, aqiqah, birthday: four to six weeks, and often much less.
• Custom-made items — sehras, decorated dupattas, custom-colour floral jewellery: a few weeks on top of the booking, because they are made rather than stocked.

Short notice is always worth asking

We take short-notice bookings when the date is free, and dates do come free. A week's notice for a home event is not unusual and we would rather you asked than assumed.

The honest constraint on short notice is not our calendar — it is custom-made items and your venue's access window. A backdrop we can build. A gotta-worked sehra in a specific colour we cannot conjure in four days.

Five things you need before anyone can quote you

Enquiries stall most often because these are missing, not because the decorator is slow:

• Your date — or all of them, if there are several events
• Your venue name, or a photo of the room if it is at home
• Ceiling height — the single most important thing about a room and the thing nobody asks their venue
• Guest count and table count — venues seat 8–12 per round table, and that difference is ten tables across 300 guests
• Your venue's access window — what time the decorator can get in, and what time the room must be clear

What booking actually secures

The date, primarily. Décor design can be refined for months afterwards — palettes change, guest counts move, people see something on Instagram and change their minds. None of that is a problem.

What cannot be changed later is whether we are available. If you know your date, secure it, and treat the design as a conversation that continues.