Advice for bride and bridegrooms to be: Organising a wedding!
Friday, September 26th, 2008
Bride and bridegrooms to be often don’t know where to start to even work out what they need. There is a TV series in which the groom is left to organise his bride’s dream wedding, with all her embodied hopes and fears being left entirely up to him – even the dress and makeup! It usually shows a few surprises, many conflicts and tears, as well as horrendous timing – so everyone gets stressed out – but in the end it all works out well for everybody.
Well, a good place to start is to ask family and friends who have been there before fairly recently, what they did and what worked well for them. Then of course there is the Internet and you could of course leave everything to a professional wedding co-ordinator as in another TV program where the trouble-shooter flies in and grants you 3 wishes!
Most couples have neither the budget nor the desire to let someone else run their show, and thoroughly enjoy the year to 2 years of wedding planning, honing it to a fine art: they have checklists, a wedding file with all the research and chosen suppliers written contract/promises with all their contact details.
If you need any help about any aspect of planning your wedding, just ask us! If you haven’t already chosen your dream dress ask about that too, as being there with the bride from the hair and make-up stage right through till the First Dance – and beyond, if its a good party – we observe what happens with certain types of dresses and without wishing to spoil anything for you if that aspect is already under control, I can give you some info about what to avoid – at the very least.
This very popular style of dress tends to also be very uncomfortable when worn all day, with many attempted photos being ruined by the constant need to hike the bodice up again when it has slipped unacceptably low – so whether you are a buxom D cup and beyond or a delicate A cup, the problems always tend to manifest themselves! It also tends to rub so we often see brides with sore red patches by the end of the day.
This style is so difficult to hold up, that many brides lace themselves in super tightly, which – besides being very restrictive – means the photographer is then asked to remove the “second boob” that overhangs the real ones. There is even a real risk in well-endowed brides of the sheer weight of their assets dragging the dress down, leading to discomfort.
In this last picture, the dress came with straps but the poor bride was in too much of a fluster to listen to me when I warned her that she really did need to attach the straps that came with her strapless. low cut wedding dress.
Weddings are every expensive things – just feeding all your guests in a marvellous location is obviously the biggest part of that, but then everything else tends to add up, so we try to help you by not asking for much money up front, though we are quite expensive too unfortunately! Hopefully though you will see it as money well-spent, as the photos will still be there when your grandchildren and great grandchildren are on the scene: I still have my parents lovely Black an White images that my grandfather – also a wedding photographer – took for them on their wedding day …. 57 years ago! Its very special to be able to see them so young-looking (Dad 25 and Mum 28) even though they themselves sadly are no longer with us.
Even deciding who is to be on the guest list and who is to sit with whom on the table plan, can cause headaches – to allow partners and children or not too…
Those who have no children of their own are often reluctant to pay for other couple’s children to share their day and risk it turning into a noisy nightmare, wanting an all adult day, but those with a family already wouldn’t dream of excluding the children. Children absolutely love weddings and bar a few interruptions from tiny babies (can’t be helped really…), add to the atmosphere and rarely cause their parents any problems, as take off with their new-found friends and are usually the first on the dance-floor!
Build in extra time for getting ready – at least 3 hours and often 4 or more if travelling to a distant church/ venue or having more than 3 people needing the professional hair an make-up – and brides do get your dress on at least one hour before the ceremony, to give you a safety margin and time for a few pics with your close family before the ceremony.
So once you have have all well-planned, delegated as to who is doing what (never try and do it all yourself!) you are going to have a fabulous time – just go with the flow and don’t let any little imperfections spoil your day!
