So you’ve decided to spend your life looking at the same face every day – congrats!
You’re engaged, feeling smug as hell, and wondering how much planning you can get done while pretending to work while simultaneously sneakily posting pics of your happy faces on Instagram.
But now what? You’ve never planned a wedding before and have zero idea where to start.
We’re a super fun wedding photography team, and in our 7 years shooting weddings, we’ve seen everything from tiny elopements to huge carnival type affairs – and we’ve chatted a lot to our couples about the planning process and learned a lot of very interesting things along the way! We’ve seen it all… Here are our top tips on the very first things you should do when you get engaged:
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Find a venue
Chances are you’ve already had one of those “wouldn’t-it-be-cool-if-we-got-married-at” chats at some point in your relationship. If you have a dream venue in mind, ask to visit and have a nosey around and make sure the staff are friendly and helpful and it’s what you expect. If it looks like an episode of Kitchen Nightmares, back away slowly.
If you’re starting from square one or narrowing it down from a shortlist of 3,487 places, we’d recommend planning it around where the most important people in your life live – weddings are all about people, so don’t make your poor nan drive four hours to be there!
In fact, we reckon when you get all your favourite people together and throw a big party, the surroundings won’t matter as much as you might think. Hotels and established venues tend to be very slick and offer low-stress packages where everything is sorted out for you, but feel less personal. Meanwhile a farmyard or field in the middle of nowhere will mean you have to think of everything (food and drink, decorations, staff, even loos!) yourself. Village halls are a great middle ground, as they often have a kitchen, loos and parking – and are a blank canvas for decorating it with fun stuff like this cat themed wedding.
Top tip: look for places that will do the ceremony and reception in the same place and save yourself the hassle (and expense) of arranging transport between two different places.
Set a date
If you’ve gone with a super popular venue, your date choices will end up being dictated by when they have availability. Assuming you have a choice, as a general rule venues will be higher priced in “high season” (Apr to Sept) and cheaper on weekdays and in the winter.
Whatever date you choose, our best advice is go with the flow, and embrace the idea that muddy wellies and grass-stained dresses can be as awesome as blue skies, summery dresses and hay bale ceremonies. Plus if you go for a winter wedding, at least you know it’s guaranteed to be cold and will probably rain – which means you don’t have to worry about fretting over the weather forecast!
Think about who to invite – argh, the politics!
You have that one cousin who was bit funny with you when you last saw them in 2006. Your brother just started dating someone he met on Bumble. Someone in the extended fam is the definition of A Little Bit Racist. Deciding who to invite can get incredibly political, so just remember – this is YOUR day, so invite who YOU want! Save bum space at the ceremony and £££ on dinners by inviting anyone you’re not sure about to the evening do instead (just don’t call them “stragglers” on the invite). Think of it this way: would you buy that person dinner for £50 in a fancy restaurant? If not, they don’t make the shortlist!
Tell your dog/cat/horse/bearded dragon it’s ok, they can come too
If you’re wondering if you can bring your best four-legged friend – just ask the venue. Your animals are an important part of the family and you don’t necessarily have to leave them at home! I shot a wedding at Wilderness Wood in Sussex a while back where the couple’s handsome pug totally stole the show. If you have kitties (known for wandering off and never coming back) then why not make larger-than-life-sized cardboard cut-outs of them made (I once suggested this to a couple in our meeting and they went full steam ahead with it – photo below!).
Work out what you care about – and what you don’t
Think about the things you care about and stuff the rest. We’ve photographed biscuit-themed weddings, crisp-themed weddings (you’ll LOVE this one), simple town hall ceremonies with candyfloss on the pier and shots on the beach and weddings with limoncello shots instead of Prosecco. Those were the things they cared about.
Over the course of planning your wedding, you’ll probably come across magazines and blogs that give you advice about stupid things that you should care about – such as playlists, table place settings and which confetti to buy. But in the end, it’s about the stuff you love – so if these things don’t matter to you, forget about them.
On that note, don’t get too hung up on Pinterest. You’ll become obsessed with decorations you never even knew existed and suddenly need more than anything – and that way lies empty bank accounts and full-to-the-brim spare bedrooms!
The important thing is to enjoy the planning process, and not get overwhelmed sweating over stuff that you won’t remember in the long haul. At the end of the day it’s basically just a big party… and you’re paying for it!
REMEMBER! Take time out to enjoy being engaged
As soon as you share your news on Facebook/Instagram, you’ll get inundated with questions you won’t have an answer to (no we don’t have a florist, venue or honeymoon planned yet – we got engaged literally 2 minutes ago!). And once you enquire with the first supplier it’s an unstoppable rollercoaster of spreadsheets and emails from here on. It’s ok to take time out to enjoy the newness of it all without involving great aunts and friends from uni just yet.
P.S. When you get around to hiring your kick ass wedding photographer, check out our guide to choosing a wedding photographer, and if you like what we do, get in touch! 😀