We’ve been photographing weddings in Florida — and weddings all over the world — for many years. So, when it comes to wedding advice, we have learned plenty of wedding planning tips. Whether you are having a Florida wedding, a destination wedding, or a New York wedding — the advice that we can give is actually very similar. We want your wedding to be the best wedding ever. Whenever possible, we like to share tips with our wedding couples to make sure that their wedding goes off with no stress, no complications, and no problems. With that in mind, here’s our best advice to wedding couples on how to NOT mess up your dream wedding!
The Key to Not Messing Up Your Dream Wedding
If there’s one single thing that you can do to make sure your wedding goes off without a hitch is to communicate. Communicate with everyone. Communicate with your vendors. Encourage your vendors to communicate with each other. There is no such thing as too much information when it comes to planning a wedding. And the most important thing to communicate is the wedding timeline.
Build a Wedding Timeline
Having a clear wedding timeline is the key to communicating with your wedding vendors. The wedding timeline is the best tool in your wedding planning arsenal. It helps you to set expectations with each of your vendors and helps them all to know how the day will flow. Have your wedding timeline set at least two weeks before your wedding day. Not a few days before, and certainly not the night before. (Yes, we’ve seen that happen.) Share your wedding day timeline with all your wedding vendors: your wedding venue, your wedding photographer, your florist, your officiant, your DJ, your videographer, your ceremony musicians… everyone. All your wedding vendors should work off the same timeline.
When you hire a wedding planner they will help you to create your wedding timeline. Then, they will help all the vendors stick to it! If you aren’t using a wedding planner, make sure to get your wedding vendors the timeline ahead of time. That way, everyone is operating from the same playbook!
For example, if the DJ knows the photographers are having their dinner break (given by the bride and groom) he should not start speeches without letting the photographer and video team know. There’s nothing worse than getting back from a planned break only to realize that there was a moment we missed! Your photographers want to be there, they just need the DJ to give them a heads up.
Communicate your Wedding Day Vision
Having all the wedding vendors working from the same timeline will help you to not mess up your wedding. But remember to include everything that is important to you on that timeline. From letting your hairstylist know that you’ll be wearing a veil to making sure the caterer knows about food allergies, there is never any harm in providing more detail than necessary.
If you want to have your wedding photographer take some pictures right at sunset, make sure that it is on the timeline! That way, the wedding photographers won’t be eating dinner when you want to take those pictures and the DJ won’t play something important. When in doubt, communicate!
Teamwork makes the Dream Wedding Work!
Clergyman John Maxwell’s catchy phrase, “teamwork makes the dream work” actually has a very important second message. The rest of the quote says, “but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and a bad team.” Your wedding vision is executed by your wedding vendors. It’s so important to have a great team of professional vendors who are masters of their craft.
But even the best wedding vendors can’t work together as a team if they don’t have a way to communicate with each other. Or worse, if they don’t know with whom they are working until the day of the wedding! Cultivate a community of teamwork with your wedding vendors. You can even get them all onto a group email to make sure they can talk to each other and share contact information ahead of the big day. There are so many parts that come together for a successful wedding. There is so much that happens behind the scenes! Making sure your wedding vendors know how to work together can ensure all those things can happen when (and how) they are supposed to happen.
Planning the Perfect Wedding
The key to planning the perfect wedding is to build a great team of wedding vendors and then to communicate with them. We all want you to have the perfect wedding day. When you have a great team of wedding vendors, no matter what comes up as you are planning your wedding, they will be there to help you, guide you, and make sure your dream wedding comes to life.
At Organic Moments Photography, we want to make sure that the wedding of your dreams is photographed in an amazing and beautiful way. If you are planning a wedding, please make sure to contact us. We would love the opportunity to hear more about your dream wedding and your wedding photography needs!
