Great Advice From a Wedding Expert
As wedding season quickly approaches I wanted to send an email that listed all the tips and tricks I’ve learned over the years. I’ve been photographing weddings for over 12 years, have been in and attended countless weddings and even planned my own last year…needless to say I’ve seen some of the best and worst of weddings. Here’s what I’ve learned:
- Register with Bed Bath Beyond. They are the only place I know of that will allow you to return gifts for cash back! That’s right no in store credit or gift cards…they will you give you cold hard cash back…you just have to ask for it (even without a receipt). If you’re like my wife and I, when we got married we already had a house and nearly everything we needed. As such, we ended up registering for stuff that we really didn’t need just to give people options. Granted we kept a fair amount of the gifts but ended up returning a large portion and getting cash for the honeymoon.
- The photos are the most important thing. A year after our wedding I can tell you this: the dress has stayed in the closet, we watched the video once, and we only ended up using about half of our gifts…but the photos are cycling through on a digital frame in our living room constantly reminding us of how much fun that day was. Everyone who comes over to our house comments on how great our pictures are and for those that were there comment on how much fun they had. Bottom line the photos are the one thing that will always remind you of that day.
- Hire a DJ or designate someone you trust to MC the reception. You absolutely need to have someone guide and move things along during the reception…things just go much more smoothly when someone is in charge. I can’t tell you how many weddings I’ve been to where there were long awkward spans of time where nothing was happening and guests were standing around and getting anxious.
- Delegate, Delegate, Delegate. You can’t do it alone…get some people you trust to help you out. It was very enlightening at our wedding of who actually helped and who just had a good time…there were some people who were a tremendous help at our wedding that we never would have expected to help. Just make sure that whomever you trust with helping, make sure you give them explicit details on how you want things. I’ve helped out at numerous weddings because the bride was trying to do everything herself and was simply overwhelmed (I’ve done everything from the bride’s makeup and hair to even putting together the bouquets and flowers for a wedding once). Bottom line help is there…all you have to do is ask for it.
- Make sure the Pastor/Priest/Officiant knows exactly what you want. Some officiants like to ad-lib if you don’t give them direction…whether your ceremony is completely non traditional or even very religious…make sure your officiant knows what you want. At our wedding we had planned to have our officiant quote the priest from the movie “Princess Bride” (for those of you who know that reference…Mawage), sadly he had the flu that day and forgot (we were just glad he showed up).
- Duct tape. Seriously…bring duct tape, scissors, a sewing kit and extension cords. These are the core things that are needed in every wedding emergency kit.
- Set up a free website for your wedding. You can easily set up a free website on www.theknot.com months before the wedding. This can be a great place for you to post info about your wedding…where you’re registered, directions to the reception, where people can stay, desired attire, etc. Basically anything you can think of that would be handy for people to know. You can even reference it on your save the date’s and invites.
- Send emails to guests. This is the easiest (and cheapest) way to pass along information about your wedding to guests. For our wedding we actually sent our save the date’s as an email. The easiest program to create and send mass emails is www.mailchimp.com (what I use to send these emails). It’s free and allows you to create professional looking emails…did I mention it’s free!
- Don’t get carried away with tanning. I know that every bride wants to have a nice even glow to them the day of their wedding…just keep in mind especially if your wedding is during the fall or winter you don’t want to be the only one who is tan. The rule here is make it look as natural as possible.
- Make sure you have enough makeup. If you’re doing your own makeup make sure you put on a little more than you would normally (don’t get crazy). Makeup that is a little more dramatic makes for great photos and I can assure you that regardless of how much you put on it will be nearly gone by the end of the reception (maybe sooner if there are tears or hot weather).
- You will always be late the day of your wedding. I have yet to see a wedding go exactly as scheduled…which is fine, it happens to everyone. Just roll with the punches…everything has a tendency of coming together and working out in the end. Just enjoy your day.
- Relax. I know how stressful this all can be…just take a few breaths and relax. Everything always seems to work out on the actual wedding day. From a photography perspective…the more relaxed and comfortable you are the day of your wedding…the better the photos will be guaranteed.
Related posts:
