Being engaged is supposed to be one of the happiest times in your life, a celebration of love with your partner and a time to start planning your life together. Putting a wedding together, though, can be stressful! Sometimes it seems like it’s no longer about you and your fiancé showcasing your love and declaring your commitment, but rather it’s about other people wants and expectations. Before you embark too far down the wedding planning path, here are 5 lessons I learned as a real-life bride while organizing my big day.
Planning a Wedding Day may feel like a part-time job OR time-consuming, but exciting project
From the time perspective, I think, that I was treating my own wedding more like another task on my task list, than one in a lifetime experience. We had a lot of going on, and planning a wedding on top of that stole from me the excitement and joy. I didn’t enjoy my own wedding planning, because I put too much on myself. I was tired, stressed, and frustrated.
The amount of time and effort required to put together a really great wedding, currently, is basically like taking on a part-time job. Sure, it’s a series of decisions but the outcome of those decisions can lead to more decisions and more logistics and planning. For example, your wedding dress. You will spend hours searching the internet for the dress you want. Then you go to multiple stores and try on dresses until you find the right one. Even after you’ve paid for it, you still need to arrange alterations, find shoes, accessories, and undergarments. And all of that is just for the dress. Now you have to figure out hair and makeup and nails. Then you’ll do all of that for all the other details of your wedding. There is so much going on for your wedding day, and it’s challenging to keep it all organized.
What I’m trying to say, is that it is good to look at your life from a bigger perspective and think, when would be the best time to plan a wedding where you can actually enjoy the process. If you are in the middle of a massive project at work, having a baby, finishing your school, or renovating your new house, make sure, that planning a wedding will not make you feel overwhelmed and stressed. I strongly believe that we should enjoy every little moment of this process. It should not feel like another job, but rather as an exciting project.
How I can help: as your photographer, I will send you helpful reminders and questionnaires to make sure your day goes as smoothly as possible and your pictures turn out exactly as you imagine.
The Wedding Day may be a pure chaos
No matter how much you plan ahead, the day of your wedding may be chaotic and unpredictable. The best thing you can do is hire a wedding planner or make sure, the one that goes with you venue is good. This might seem excessive, but honestly, it’s the best thing you can do to keep things running smoothly on that day. A wedding planner takes tasks away from family and friends (and you!) so they can simply enjoy your wedding as a guest. It’s a wedding planner’s job to remember the tiny details, so even if you forget they won’t. I forgot to take pictures with my Grandma and there is nothing I can do now to go back and fix that. I’m always asking my couples to prepare a list of pictures with the closest ones they want to have and I didn’t do that for myself! I thought that picture with each table will be enough, but now I would want to have a separate one just with my Grandma.
To make sure you enjoy your big day as much as possible, take the pressure off you and hire someone who will make it all happen and come together for you. I know some terrific wedding planners and I’m happy to recommend them to you.
You won’t remember much of your Wedding Day
As a bride, the first time I saw my own wedding cake was when I looked at the pictures of the big day. I remember cutting the cake, and I know I ate some of it but I don’t actually even remember the cake at all. You might not remember exactly what the wedding décor looked like, or any details from your first dance, because you are so focused on not flipping and hitting the dancefloor. It could all be a blur and you’ll only have the pictures to look back on. For this reason, having a photographer who understands exactly what you’re looking for so that you can always look back on your wedding day with fond memories.
Your vendors should fit your personality and understand your vision
As a wedding photographer, I am often one of the vendors brides and grooms are interviewing to determine if I fit the idea they have for their big day. When it came to my own big day, it was tough to find the right photographer within the budget we planned to spend. There was a photographer I had been following for years, and I loved her style but she didn’t have experience with wedding photography. We decided to combine her style with my experience in wedding photography for our big day. It was a bit of a risk, but in the end, my gut feeling was right and our pictures turned out perfect – exactly as I had imagined in my mind.
On the other hand, I didn’t have time to look for a perfect DJ and I thought, that with the very detailed directions he will now what I want. I wasn’t 100% happy with his service, because we just didn’t click and our perfect wedding vision was different. I was expecting him to be someone, who he simply wasn’t.
What this experience taught me is that you need to find vendors who fit with what you imagine, who feel right to have around you on your big day. Your wedding day is such an important time in your life, make sure your vendors will make it memorable!
The wedding day will fly by way too fast!
When the big day comes around, there will be some things that don’t go exactly as you planned. Maybe there are some things you forget about completely. These details might stress you out – I know they stressed me out big time! As a photographer, though, the weddings where the bride and groom are just having fun with their day make for the best weddings since everyone is laughing and smiling all day. This day is one you’ve been planning for so long and it’s consumed so much time – so enjoy it! It will go by so fast! Take the time to look around and soak it all up: you did this and you made this happen so enjoy it!
Photographer: Olga Subocz
