Wahoo! We’re engaged! Now what?
This happens to every couple. Once they come down from the excitement and jubilation of their engagement, reality starts to set in and they realize “uh, we have to actually start planning this thing!”
So, where do you start!?
The best place to start is to 1. Set your expectations for your wedding day (basically, what kind of wedding do you want to have?) and 2. Determine your priorities
Where couples get into problems is when their expectations are in conflict. For example, say you want your wedding to be a fun-filled party and you want to be able to hang out with your friends and family and be able to mingle a little with your guests. BUT you also want a receiving line, a lot of bridal portraits, all your immediate and extended family in your photographs, a long ceremony (traditional Catholic Mass for example), and you found the cutest little park for your bridal party photos, but it happens to be about 15min away from your venue.
Trying to squeeze all of this in is going to make you a tightly wound ball of stress!
If your vision for your wedding day is to spend as much time with your loved ones as humanly possible, then you need to eliminate the things that will take away from that – a lot of travel between your getting ready, ceremony, and venue locations, wanting to go to a separate location for portraits, and time-consuming things like receiving lines or a lot of family photos.
And the opposite is true as well – if you want to have a lot of photographs or a long ceremony or you’ve selected locations that require a lot of travel, then your expectations need to be set that you won’t have a lot of time with your guests.
There’s no wrong answer here. It’s about what YOU want. Just be sure your expectations align.
Once you have your expectations set. It’s time to determine your priorities.
If bridal portraits are super important to you then a photographer that specializes in posing would be near the top of your priority list. If you want to have a killer reception party, then a really good DJ or Band would be at the top of your list. If you want to look AMAZING on your wedding day then finding the most beautiful dress may top your list. If you want to be able to spend a lot of time catching up with your friends or hanging out with your family AND you want amazing candid photographs, then a documentary-style photographer would be a priority for you.
Again, there’s no wrong answer. Just make sure that your expectations are in-line and your priorities support your expectations.
