A Wedding Photographer’s Insight into Wedding Planning

Your wedding day is one of the most special days that you will ever plan. You want it to be beautiful and memorable for your guests, but you also want to enjoy it for yourself! 

Maybe you’ve dreamt of our wedding from the time you were little, or maybe you’re the complete opposite and have no idea what you want it to be like. Maybe you love being in the spotlight with lots of people around you for a whole day, or maybe you’re all about a smaller, more intimate gathering for just a couple of hours. Or maybe it’s just a beautiful moment to share with your love (and photographer) at an elopement!

There really is no right or wrong way to do your wedding… It’s all about what fits you and your love story!

I’ve photographed enough weddings now (and was an elopement bride, myself) to learn a few of the important things about planning your day so that you love it and have amazing memories and photos to take with you into your new lives together.

Budget: Small or Big Wedding?

This really is the first thing to think about. It sets the perimeters for what you can do with your wedding day. Figure out how much you want to spend and what you can afford to budget out for all the essentials, like location, venue, dress, vendors (including photographer), food/beverage, and decor/flowers.

If you’ve got a big budget or financial support in splurging, great! But if you’re on a smaller budget and need to make every cent count, no shame in a small, intimate wedding! If this is you, I hope you’ll still consider your wedding photography a high value investment, because besides your love and marriage itself, your photos are the other things that last from your wedding day!

And make sure you create the wedding you want. Planning a wedding is a lot of work, which is why it’s so important that your work pays off and you get exactly what you’ve been dreaming of. Not your mom, not your soon-to-be in-laws, not your best friend. YOU!!

Guest List

As you know, this can depend on who you want there, who your family knows, where your celebration is, budget and personal preference.

Right off the bat, my advice is: Invite the people who mean the most to you and who you truly want to spend your day celebrating with! They’ll help you feel more relaxed and less anxious, not to mention how full your heart will be in sharing this huge milestone with them.

I say this because, on my planning calls with brides/grooms I often hear “Well, we wanted our guest-list to be under 50 people, but my mom wants to invite our old neighbors from the house I was born in and… and… and…”

Food for thought: For each person who may end up on your list, when was the last time you saw them? The moment you see that at your wedding, how would you feel? Would they spark joy? Would you be annoyed or feel nothing? Would it take a lot of your energy to chat with them? (Cus ain’t nobody got time for that on their big day!)

You might feel pressured by family members to have a larger guest-list because they want to invite every person you’ve ever known your entire life… and their cousins. I understand it can be hard to say “no” to people, and you might feel guilty, as though you’re hurting others’ feelings, but it’s your vision, your decision.

When it’s only the people that matter most to you, you’ll enjoy being at the center of your wedding so much more without having to spend so much time and energy mingling with people on the sidelines.

Location/Venue

The options are literally endless and the photography can really help capture the vibe and personality of your wedding no matter where it is!

Weddings are happening anywhere these days… quaint bed & breakfasts, cabins, parks, backyards, botanical gardens, farms, on ocean beaches or at the lake, on mountaintops, at vineyards, in forest settings. I mean, if you can dream it, your perfect location is out there… and I’ll be excited to capture it all for you!

I’m personally really into boho, rustic, naturey outdoor weddings, but you can absolutely hire me for bigger partial-indoor venues such as barn weddings. I also love traveling for couples doing destination weddings, or who love my photography and want to fly me to their location.

Vendors

Speaking of hiring me as your photographer, let’s cover a bit about vendors! Vendors are the businesses that cover the wedding services and products.

Be aware that your wedding doesn’t need to be bigger or fancier than you want it to be, so don’t let a vendor dictate what you spend money on. For example, I recently had a bride whose food vendor started adding unnecessary expenses to the cost of her wedding. 

Make it work for you!

Schedule + Shots list

I may not be the wedding planner, but I do play a big role in planning out the flow of your day. What I mean by that is after a couple books me, has their guest-list ready and has the timing down for the day’s events, that’s when I come in to plan out the photography schedule and what we call a ‘shot list’. The schedule works with the flow of events for your day, while the shot list is a list of all the important final images you want of people, moments and things.

This is where keeping your guestlist to just the people who matter can really come in handy! If you’re thinking of doing family photos, it’ll help to have a list of just those you want to include in that part of the shooting schedule. You’ll also want to have an idea of what kind of groupings, poses and any other type of images you want. That way you won’t look back on your photos with regrets like “I wish we’d gotten a close-up of Grandma’s hand on the bride’s hand!” or “Dang, we forgot to get one of all us out-of-town cousins together!”

I’m sure you’ll find all kinds of ways to make your wedding special for yourself, your S/O and everyone that comes to celebrate you two love birds. From the moment you start your planning, I hope you consider making photography a priority so you’ll have beautiful candids, joyful memories and touching moments to look back on through the years.

Head over to my wedding page to see what I offer my happy couples! You’re always welcome to drop me a comment or send an email if you’ve got more questions. Let’s talk about how I can help you get the wedding day photos of your dreams!