7 Tips For Planning A Stress Free Wedding
You don’t want to be stressed on your wedding day do you? This is supposed to be the happiest day of your lives! Follow these top tips to make sure your wedding is all smiles.
Hire a planner / co ordinator
Identify priorities
Have an engagement shoot
Tame your guest list
Have a photo boss
Your timeline - less is more
Spend wisely
Let’s go!
Hire a planner / co-ordinator
A wedding planner will help take a massive amount of stress out of the day. This is especially true if you’re having a DIY / backyard style wedding. Going DIY is awesome, but it comes with literally thousands of tasks for you to research, source, transport, implement and clean up. Don’t underestimate this. From big things like getting the marquee, to smaller things like table runners, lighting, candles, PA system for speeches, table decorations etc. The list is massive. If you choose to undertake all these jobs yourself, then you and your closest will be working all hours into the night before the wedding, and maybe even up until the ceremony to finish everything. Would you rather do that, or be chilling out with your family and friends, having a drink and good times? Hire a pro and thank me later.
Identify Priorities
For some reason, the wedding industry has become a list of ‘must have’s’. Chair covers, cakes, party favours etc. Some people call them ‘traditions’. Just because everyone else has these things, doesn’t mean you need to. Don’t eat cake that often? Then you don’t have to have a cake. Party favours? Didn’t you just provide everyone food and booze? Sounds like a pretty good favour to me. Then again, if you love these things, then go for it! What I’m saying is think about what’s important when you look back at your wedding day in 20 years time. I’m sure you’re going to care more about the vibe of the day than the little bits and pieces. Think about what creates that vibe.
Have an Engagement Shoot
Out of all of the vendors that you hire for your wedding, your photographer is going to spend the most amount of time with you. Sometimes I’m at weddings from 9am until 11pm. Most of that time is spent with the bride, groom or both of you together. So it’s important that we all get along well! An engagement shoot is your chance to try me out before you commit. Chances are you’ve probably never had professional photos before, so an engagement shoot is a great chance to get comfortable in front of the camera.
Tame Your Guest List
This is always one of the most stressful parts of planning a wedding. Do we invite cousin Jimmy’s new girlfriend? Or Aunty Ella who we only see every third Christmas? The guest list has a flow on affect too. The more people you invite, the more people you need to feed and the bigger the bar tab. A good rule of thumb is to surround yourself with your nearest and dearest. Jimmy’s new girlfriend who I’ve never met definitely isn’t coming to my wedding.
Have a Photo Boss
Lot’s of family photos and a lack of organisation can be a huge stresser.
I tell my couples that each family photo takes between 2-3 minutes. Yes, it only takes a few seconds to press the shutter button, but finding Uncle Bob (he’s already at the bar) and getting everyone in position takes time. No-one likes standing around waiting for their photo - it’s a bit of a buzz kill. So have someone who know’s both families well in charge organising the guests ahead of time. Whilst I’m taking one photo, they’re getting the guests ready for the next photo.
Your Timeline - Less is More
When it comes to planning your timeline, I reckon less is more. Yes, you need to tell people what time you’re getting married and what time they need to sit down for dinner, but no much else. If you detail every minute of the day then that’s just an opportunity for things to go wrong and things to run late. Have a general plan, but who cares if Dad’s speech happens at 7.30pm or 7.40pm.
And finally… Spend Wisely!
Seriously, just invest in the stuff that makes you guys happy. If you’re party animals who love live music, then spend up on your bar and live band. Love details? Go big on the decorations. And selfishly, don’t forget about photo and video - it’s the only tangible thing you’ll have to remember the day by.
I hope you found these tips super helpful! Chances are you’ve never planned a wedding before. I go to pretty much 1 wedding every week so if you’ve got questions or need advice, hit me up! Happy planning.