Wedding planning - where on earth do you start?! It would be very easy to get lost in a seemingly never ending list of tasks that need completed. To help you, I've drawn up a list of my top wedding planning tips:
1) Never forget it is YOUR day, no one else's! Do it your way and make no apologies for doing so. You want family only at ceremony with a bigger party later? Do it! You want to wear a wedding dress that has colour? Do it! You want to skip the local church and get married in a converted prison? Do it! You get the drift!
Lauren & William did it their way and got married in the iconic Crumlin Road Gaol. Here they are exploring the tunnel that runs under Belfast linking Crumlin Road Courthouse to the Gaol.
2) Start planning early! The earlier you start the less stressful things will be closer to the day. Also, the top wedding vendors in each area will get booked out early - often up to two years in advance especially if you are getting married in the peak summer season. Be decisive and if you really dig a vendor get them booked before another couple snipes them.
3) Get your guest list in order! Arrange your guests in to groups - wedding party/immediate family/aunts & uncles & cousins/work colleagues/parents friends and so on. If guest numbers grow beyond a level that you are happy with/beyond your budget start cutting numbers from the bottom up!
4) Enlist the help of your trusted friends & family and delegate tasks accordingly! They will be delighted to help. If you have a family member who has a keen interest in any specific area why not ask them if they would like to get involved with your wedding? If there are any specific members of your family that you are concerned might go in to wedding overdrive, give them a non critical task to focus on and tell them to work away at it to until their heart’s content!
This floral arrangement was made by a family member with a keen interest in flowers. stunning work i’m sure you will agree!
5) Purchase wedding insurance! Recent events have shown that comprehensive wedding day insurance is critical for your peace of mind should anything unforeseen happen. Ensure this covers the honeymoon too!
6) If possible avoid having to travel large distances between ceremony venue and reception venue. On a few occasions I've travelled 90 minutes or more between ceremony and reception venue and I find it drains a bit of momentum out of the wedding day. Undoubtedly some people will also get lost/distracted along way and will inevitably turn up a lot later!
‘All in one' venues (venues at which you can have your ceremony, reception and also have your portraits taken onsite) like Lissanoure castle give you the chance to spend the maximum amount of time surrounded by and enjoying the company of your family & friends.
7) Don't get married too late in the day especially in the winter! The sun can set as early as 3pm in the winter, so if your ceremony is at 2pm you are leaving little/no time for photographs in natural light.
Ellen & James got married on a winters day with not much light but together we devised a plan and timeline that gave us the best light of the day to shoot some portraits in
8) Similarly, don't get married too early in the day especially in the summer and if your ceremony/reception is in the same venue. Getting married at 12 noon in the summer makes for a very long afternoon and some extremely hungry (and possibly a bit worse for wear) guests come dinner time! If you are getting married in the summer I strongly advise booking your photography to first dance, this will allow for photographs in the evening time when the sun is setting. That dreamy soft light just won’t be available earlier in the day!
Maria & Michael’s wedding was on a blazing hot summer’s day. booking coverage to first dance allowed us to shoot some portraits as the sun was setting in the evening. you won’t find light like this in the middle of a summer’s day!
9) Always have a plan B for everything and make sure your vendors do too. Do they have public liability and professional indemnity insurance? If you are getting married in the middle of July can your cake maker guarantee that the wedding cake arrives in one piece irrespective of the likely warm weather? What happens if your photographer smashes a camera, do they have another one? What happens if the videographer falls sick at short notice? All high quality vendors will have answers to these questions and will be more than happy to discuss them with you.
On the morning of Hayley & Kyle’s wedding I smashed a camera lens! If they read this this will be the first they’ve heard about it as it didn’t impact on their photography whatsoever. I carry multiple numbers of everything that is in my camera bag in order to cover all eventualities.
10) Make your wedding as personal as possible! All those little things about your relationship that define you, get them incorporated in the day. Places you've been, special dates, shared interests - include them all! This is what will make your wedding unique and one to remember.
Why not make your own special wedding day jam!
I hope that this article has been of some use to you and will help guide you in your quest to select a wedding photographer that best suits your needs. If you want your wedding photography to focus on all the real moments & real emotions of your day (minus anything awkward/fussy!) then please get in touch with me using my contact page and let’s get started making plans for some epic wedding photographs!
Alternatively if you’d like to learn a bit more about me and or have a look through my portfolio then please use the links below!
