Christmas and New Year’s Eve are coming up, so it’s a good time to remind everyone that getting married over the holidays is a bad idea for a variety of reasons.

1. People want to spend time with their families. Unless you plan to have a very small wedding with family only, don’t get married around Christmas. I’m sure your friends love you, but they don’t want to rearrange their holiday plans to attend your wedding.

2. Travel is expensive. If you never have to travel over the holidays, consider yourself lucky. Airports are a disaster. Flights are expensive. Hotels are expensive. Bad weather can snarl air traffic and the freeways. Asking friends and family to travel to your holiday wedding is asking a lot. 

3. New Year’s Eve weddings are especially bad, for you and for your guests. Not everyone likes to be out on New Year’s Eve. It’s one of the most dangerous nights of the year to be out on the roads, thanks to drunk drivers. And if you’re going to the trouble of getting married on NYE, you’re going to want your wedding to last until at least 12:30 am, which is much longer than most weddings go. Plus, it will cost you a small fortune to have a wedding on New Year’s Eve. That’s a night when DJs, bands, caterers, and planners are in high demand. I don’t work on New Year’s Eve, but if I did, my fee would be at least double what it normally is.

4. The holidays are hard on some people. For anyone who’s lost a parent, sibling, or spouse, the holidays can be a sad time, not a joyous one. A lot of people like to hibernate away over the holidays and avoid the fuss and the gatherings. These folks aren’t going to want to come to your holiday wedding.

5. It’s cold and miserable in many parts of the country. I honestly don’t understand why anyone would want to get married when it’s cold and gray outside.

6. Your anniversary won’t be as special. Take it from someone who has multiple relatives with Christmas-adjacent birthdays: you want a day to yourself! Your wedding anniversary will always get lost in the hubbub around Christmas and New Year’s Eve. It’s way more fun to have your anniversary at a separate time of year.