This is my idea of when it is done...Comments please!!

Congrats on your wedding.
I have a couple of suggestions based on my experience as a landscape designer who manages the building of projects + contractors.
Your biggest ally will be a highly expereinced project manager.
This person , or if you are crazy enough to take on this role yourself, will start off with a time and monetary budgeting schedule.
This schedule will identify who is going to do what aspect of the job, how long the job will take and how much it will cost.
As as example, you mention that you want to install a stone fireplace with a mantle. In most areas of the country that requires a building permit , which means you need a set of plans to submit , which mean you may require a designer and in some areas a structural engineer. Then someone has to draw and submit for permit.
Sometimes a permit can be given over the counter and in other areas it may take as long as 2 months.
That is something that you should find out by calling your building and planning dept. right away. Find out if a permit is required and how long and how much the process will cost.
Building a masonry fireplace usually takes a couple months.
Because this is an expensive feature and has a large visual impact on the surrounding landscape it should be beautifully blended into the exterior landscape architecture.
If your'e not a designer with experience I think it would be wise to start interviewing someone for this position. I would also recc. hiring a designer with strong project management skills.

We installed a outdoor kitchen, garden and patio space for an August wedding last year. The process started almost a year before the wedding.

For local help you may want to check the website Houzz.com

photo- august flower border planted 8 months prior to wedding.

If I were a guest I know I would like to view the wedding vows facing the woods rather than facing the house. It just seems more romantic. Can you show us the area where you picture the guests to be seated?

I'm not attempting to solve all your landscape issues but just making a couple of suggestions. Based on the perspective drawing you offered, I would suggest NOT bunching up all the planting tightly around the deck area. Extend it outward from the house in order that it doesn't seem scrunched and out of proportion with the house. I would not have tall shrubbery right at the deck and especially not on the side facing the lawn and double especially right at the steps. As those shrubs grow, they will create a separation of the view into the yard from the deck and they'll make the steps seem claustrophobic.

I "second" that it would be to your advantage to get moving on things ASAP. Landscape results do not happen overnight so act soon (in whatever you CAN do) so as to put time on your side.

Of all the reasonably priced things that one can build, nothing says "wedding" like a flowering vine covered arbor. Consider if you can do it and how you might work it in. Annual vines can work miracles. (In general, width of opening should not be less than five feet; height no less than 8'.) I once built an arbor w/gates for myself on which I spent only about $80 (now probably $120.) It had to be dirt cheap as it was purely temporary. When the time came to ditch it, it was still too good so was retrofitted a bit and is in use elsewhere ... actually, a much better use than it originally had.

{{gwi:2117703}}

I am trying to do the same thing as well. On what website did you plan out your backyard design idea? I would love to be able to use that as a tool. Thank you!