5 Tips to Plan For a Stress Free Wedding Part 1
This was going to be a 10 Top Tips, but I’m splitting it up into 5 for easy reading. Keep an eye out for the next 5 in Part 2.
Planning a wedding…. It all sounded like so much fun and them BAM! all this stuff you need to organise and all these vendors you need to book.
From organising my own wedding and working with so many couples who are getting married, the knowledge I have acquired over the years of all the different vendors that go into planning for one one of the biggest days of your lives, I’m here to help!
What if I told you there were at least 20, possibly up to 30 different business that are involved in your wedding. I know right, whatttttt! How many do you have on your list now? Maybe you don’t have that many yet, but trust me, you’ll get there and with my help it’ll be a fucking breeze! I had no idea when I was planning my own wedding either - back before I got into wedding photography!
With what seems like an endless list of what to organise, how do you ensure you get it all right? How can you ensure to create the raddest wedding day ever? Is there a way to guarantee a stress free wedding?
Yo! You’re in the right place! Below are my top 5 tips that I have picked up watching hundreds of couples in the lead up to their wedding day. Now let’s break it down, read and take in every step and you’ll be we'll on your way to creating that dream, stress free wedding in no time!
Tip 1. Work out what is most important to you.
Don’t listen to your friend who got married 10 years ago, your parents who were married 30 years ago, or what some fucking stranger on the street thinks is best for your wedding.
Focus on what you and your lover want, what you want your day to feel like, to look like, what you want to remember it by. You two are THE most important people on your wedding day.
Tip 2. Set a budget and stick to it
Budgets are a biiiig stressfuck. If you don’t have one, go and do that now. Do some research, estimate how much each vendor will cost. Be realistic. Then add a 10% buffer. The average wedding cost in Australia is $36000-$56000.
That’s a shittonne of money to spend if you don’t know where it’s being spent. When I said be realistic before, I meant it. You may only want to spend $500 on a celebrant but to have a rockin’ ceremony where you having a blast and your guests to have a damn good time, you need a celebrant with the experience and with that comes additional $$$$. If something you want is going to cost you a lot more, look for other areas where you could nick some of the budget.
Tip 3. don’t procrastinate
We all know about 2020, the 2021 & the 2022 date debacle. If you don’t, that’s totally ok, let’s educate you! So usually shooting 20-25 weddings per year, I only shot 4 weddings in 2020 thanks to you-know-what. So those 20 weddings I didn’t get to photograph all took priority dates in 2021 amongst other 2021 dates I already had booked.
Then came the next wave of covid and corresponding postponements to 2022.
What does that mean for you, newly engaged human trying to book in photography or other vendors for your 2021/2022 wedding? DON’T DILLY DALLY. Find that vendor that you are absolutely jiving with and enquire immediately.
This doesn’t just apply to covid dates. Seriously, I’m in the mindset of, if I want it, I’m going to have it. That’s me and honestly, more people should adopt this mindset as well. Don’t sit and wait for something better. More often than not, there isn’t. The grass isn’t always greener, as they say.
Tip 4. Make vendor shortlists
This is a big one. All vendors know when you’ve copied and pasted the same enquiry email to a whole bunch of others.
The best thing for you to do is decide on 3 businesses that supply the same element, and enquire with them only. Ie. I could nail down 3 different celebrants I love that would give me the type of ceremony I want, and I’ll only enquire with them. There is absolutely no point enquiring with someone I’m not totally jamming on.
Tip 5. Organise an engagement shoot
Ahh this is a big one. Every single couple I shoot tells me “I’m so awkward in front of the camera” or “We’ve never had any photos taken of us before”. I get it. I had some taken of me recently and even though I know all the things to do, imagining what my body and face is doing behind the camera still gives me all the awkwardness I have.
Organising an engagement shoot not only helps you get comfy with me and the camera, but also helps me to see how you two love birds love on each other. I’m all about reading people and there are so many different types of couples. The openly lovey ones, the ones that just wanna hold hands and ones that just love to be near the other with no outwardly PDOA. Whatever your couple style is, I will shoot it how i see it.
Arriving on the wedding day and you haven’t had an engagement session with me, you might be feeling that awkwardness creep in during your prep or portraits which can hinder the standard of images you might receive. So to give you the best chance of receiving a bloody amazing collection of images, book in that engagement shoot and let your hair down!
So there’s my first lot of 5 tips to keep stress free planning your wedding, keep an eye out for part 2 coming soon!
Let me know below in the comments if that helped you!
