5 Wedding Details You're Overlooking

The timing

An early May wedding is only lovely if you haven't booked a venue in a town's bar district in the middle of Cinco de Mayo. If so, here's hoping you like tequila and noise.

"A lot of couples don't realize they're booking a very popular wedding date when they do so," Winikka says. "They don't look into what's going to be happening in a city during that time of year, so they'll think that they want their wedding to be in fall but won't think to see if there's a homecoming game that weekend that will fill all the hotels."

Even though wedding season usually begins with summer break and the return of longer days, couples shouldn't be fooled into believing that every other nonsummer day on the schedule comes at a discount. June remains the most popular wedding month, according to TheKnot, but September is a close second. If couples think the fall is any less popular just because there's a nip in the air, they can feel free to take their place in leaf-peeping traffic among the other brides and grooms crawling their way up Vermont's Route 100 or down the Great Smoky Mountains Expressway.

"If your wedding is in the fall, you're not off-peak and your vendors may not be willing to negotiate or throw in some extras," Winikka says. "If you were to get married in January on the East Coast, you might get something thrown in for free."