Your Wedding Wednesday Question:
Planning a wedding is such a huge undertaking! What can I do to avoid wedding planning mistakes?
Are there aspects people wish they had planned more carefully? Or areas where they wasted time over-planning?
Answer:
While there are so many things to keep in mind when planning your dream wedding, here are the 3 suggestions to focus on and 3 suggestions to not go overboard.
Be Sure To Plan:
Transportation
Often transportation and timing of the wedding party and key family members is overlooked. Just assuming that everyone will pile in whatever cars and all make it to the venue, fully dressed and in time for the photographer to get good photographs is not the path you should take.
- Have a clear plan that covers everyone. Know how everyone is travelling to the venue, count and recount passengers and vehicles.Allow time for getting lost, traffic, parking mishaps, etc. Give time for pinning boutonnières and fixing hair before the photographer is ready to shoot. Communicate your awesome plan to everyone individually so they are all in the know.
Photo & Video
Don’t ask your creative friend with a camera to cover your wedding. Unless they are specifically trying to start that type of business and you want to give them a chance, then by all means. But hiring professionals will get your professional results. Going with some guy with a camera is risky. And talking artistic friends or family into being your official photographer or videographer puts unfair pressure on them. They might know how to use their equipment for their own art but not important event coverage and portraiture. Even if you offer to pay them a fair amount, wedding documentation is a specialized skill and there are good reasons professionals charge their rates.
- Go with someone who can give you exactly what you are looking for. Make sure you hire them to cover all aspects of your big day and communicate exactly what you are wanting.
Venue Size
Venue capacities can be deceiving. When they give a max. capacity for a seated dinner service that means wall to wall tables and chairs. Make sure when venue shopping that you have room for all the activities you want. Can the bar, gift table, cake table, band and buffet all fit in with the number of tables and chairs you need? Do not book a venue where the maximum capacity is anywhere near your expected guest count.
- Be sure to selection a venue with enough room and enough time for everything you want to do at your wedding. Getting charged overages or going shoulder-to-shoulder with another event can cause a big stress.
Chill Out About:
Food & Drinks
Couples often overestimate the amount of food and drinks needed for their guests. Especially when it comes to alcohol. Remember that at least half your guests are driving and some people just won’t indulge for whatever reason. So ease up on ordering.
Bride Workload
Most brides try to do too much themselves. Know what you can reasonably handle and what you need to hand off. If you are worried about things not getting done the way you want through family and friends, it is time to work with a coordinator.
Servers
Having a fancy seated dinner might be a big part of your wedding dream. But if it isn’t on your wishlist, know that utilizing buffets and self-serve drink stations like a champagne or margarita fountain drastically cuts down on the number of servers and bartenders needed by your caterer. Save time and the extra money for your honeymoon!
We hope this answered your question!
If you have more wedding questions, send them to: [email protected]
Every Wednesday we will post answers to your biggest wedding questions.
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