Not crazy in the least. The FIRST thing you need to do is to make a budget. It doesn't need to be inflexable, but it probably does need to be written down to feel 'real'.

Then you need to figure out location and gown. Those two things can take the longest. After that, you will probably find the food/drink and honeymoon take the biggest chunk of your budget, so figure that out. Everything else can get fitted in after that.

Six months will be just fine, just be willing to make decisions. If you find three dresses you like, choose one. You have already determined that all the choices are good, so you won't pick something icky. People with more time than you can spend months trying on hundreds of gowns, looking for 'the one'. While that may lead to a beautiful gown, it might not always be worth the time. Luckily for you, you don't have time for the exhaustion.

Six months is on the short-normal side of wedding planning, so don't sweat it too much. When I read your title, I thought you wanted the wedding to be before Christmas. That is doable too, but a bit more tricky.

I am a wedding coordinator. I have planned lovely weddings in 5 or 6 weeks. As Duckie mentioned, 6 months is a fairly typical time range. The first thing to do (after setting a budget) is decide on the location/locations and get them booked. Once you know where the wedding will occur, you will know whether you need to hire a caterer and rent tables, chairs, linens, etc.

The second thing to do is choose the photographer. The good ones book quickly. Then begin working on the other details.

In my area the big wedding shows occur in early January. We have well over a 1,000 brides go through the two shows and suddenly all of them are in planning mode, so merchants book very quickly. If a similar situation occurs in your area, be sure that you book your location and as many merchants as possible before the wedding show season begins.

Good luck; you will do just fine.

My roommates son is in the military as well and just planned a wedding in 10 days. They wanted to get married before he was deployed. So if htey could do it in 10 days, you can absolutely do it in 6 months!

Good luck and congrats!!!

choose the simplest possible choice every time.

And remember that often the simplest choice is "no"

Remember that every thing you choose to DO, adds layers and layers of decision making & expense.

If you decide to do favors, you have to decide what, and how much $, and how to wrap, and where to put them. Etc. If you don't do favors, bingo--no decisions.

Also delegate. You can delegate decision making by letting your vendor pick the table-cloth colors, or your florist create the centerpieces within a small set of parameters you might give her/him (no taller than 6", no bigger around than 10", blue, less than $X apiece).

That's great info about trying to get your place & photographer booked before Jan.! What a help, Sweet Pea!