It seems like a lot of people contact DFTW before the 12 month mark. What do you talk about at that point? Can you actually do any planning if you can't reserve the locations yet? Do you can an advantage/priority on difficult locations over the people who wait and call first thing in the am on the exact 12 month mark?
I called at about the 20 month mark, and they sent me all sorts of info and set me up with a specific person to answer all of my preliminary questions. You can't reserve stuff till closer to the 12month mark (depending on who you have...I've heard some girls have been able to reserve ahead of that), but they are more than willing to help with what they can. Good luck!
I called at the 16 month mark. It was helpful for me to get the ball rolling. We were able to talk about the positive and negative aspects of having the wedding during different times of the year (i.e. the hotel rates change for your guests if you are in peak season). They also gave me some more ideas for locations. We went down for our site visit at 13 months out. This way, we had our locations set and we knew what we wanted. We were able to do our contract at 12 months.
I was able to call about the 20 month mark... But they just answered some questions and took down the dates that I wanted. So I am keeping my fingers crossed that I get the date I want...
