Welcome to Wedding Wednesdays!
After being in the wedding industry for over 4 years, I’ve decided that it was time to start sharing my experiences with my new Emma Loo Brides (who I absolutely ADORE!) I want my Brides to know that they are not alone while planning their most perfect wedding day. Oftentimes, I get the same questions just asked by different Brides and each time I ask myself why I still haven’t come up with a way or a system to inform and educate my Emma Loo Brides to answer all of their questions…SO…without further a-due..I’ve decided to welcome my own version of “Wedding Wednesdays” onto the blog to help educate my Emma Loo Brides for all things WEDDING.
Now, sadly, I can’t promise that every single Wednesday there will be a brand new post up…but I will try my hardest to do so for all my current and new incoming Emma Loo Brides. My plan is to make sure that I use events from my own personal experience from the numerous weddings that I’ve photographed, as well as planning from my own wedding as well.
Today, I’d like to start with just a simple little tip-list…5 things to help you plan your wedding right after you get engaged!
1.) BREATHE! Welcome to one of the most exciting, anticipated, and sweetest times in your life! I don’t think I’ve ever felt more pampered and I felt SO much love throughout Phillip and I’s engagement…not only from Phillip, but by my family and friends as well. Everyone just coated us with so much joy. Make sure that right after he gets down on one knee and you have that left hand ring, that you don’t stress yourself out with too much planning right from the start. Make sure to cherish every single second of those sweet moments of your engagement. Take some time to just fall in love with saying “fiancé” over and over again. Your engagement will pass by SO quickly, so make sure you enjoy every single second of it.
2.) Pick Your Date & Venue First. In a perfect world, you two lovebirds will choose a wedding date that is special to your relationship. BUT…it doesn’t always work out for even the most planning conscience Brides. Phillip and I had made a list of a couple different dates, but soon realized that lots of dates were already taken at some of our most sought after venues. This made having to move our date around once and our venue choice three times. It was quite stressful, that’s for sure…but after those two BIG items were crossed off our list, it made the rest of the wedding more manageable. Make a list of possible venue options and take some tours of those venues…together. Make sure that the venue fits you guys as a couple as well as your budget. Also be on the look out for venues that are all-inclusive versus those venues that you’ll have to find all your other vendors for. Depending on your budget and your amount of planning you want to do, this can be a big factor in which venue you decide on.
3.) Pick a theme and stick with it! I should really be looking in a mirror when I’m saying this because I hate to admit…I was FAR from this! My ideas were ALL over the place. First, I wanted us to get married on the beach, then a backyard casual wedding, then a more bohemian wedding day, and finally we went with a classic, Southern black-tie affair. Yes…it went from one extreme to another. It’s much easier when you pick a vision for your wedding day and just run with it! Don’t venture too far off from your vision, and if it isn’t THAT important to you don’t bombard yourself with it for your wedding day. Remember, the less stressed you are the happier bride you will be a month, a week, and even a day before the wedding day.
4.) Find your dress early on! Finding THE DRESS is such an exciting step in the planning process for a newly engaged Bride-to-be! For me, finding “THE ONE” wasn’t my top priority, so I put it off until only a couple months prior to our wedding day…a HUGE regret. Just like you knew that HE was the ONE, when you try on THE DRESS you’ll just know! It’ll be magic! Your wedding dress will also kind of lead the way in what the rest of the wedding will look & feel like. It doesn’t really feel right to wear an elegant trumpet style ball gown at a rustic barnyard wedding, so when you find your dress it’ll set the tone for your entire wedding. Trust me! Remember like I said before, I wanted more of a laid-back wedding?? Well I thought that I wanted more of a casual, bohemian simple dress but when I fell in love with a tight-fitting trumpet style gown with lots of details and a sweetheart neckline…I knew we had to change our wedding from something casual to more black-tie or else me in my dress would’ve looked out of place.
5.) Plan for cushion time on wedding day! I can’t stress it enough…weddings MUST be organized. Even the most laid-back wedding days must follow some sort of timeline, especially since there are many people (& many loving family members!) who want to be involved. I work with each one of my Emma Loo Brides to come up with a timeline that best fits their wedding day. This insures that we have enough photography coverage, but also keeps the wedding day well organized and allows for time to easily “flow” along. However, we must always hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. I tell my Brides to allow for enough cushion time throughout the day — just because it will realistically only take you 2-3 minutes to get the dress on, we should plan for 10-15 minutes at least. When you don’t allow for that cushion time in between the ever so many wedding day events, something is bound to go wrong. I see it happen ALL the time, especially when getting the Bride dressed–corsets aren’t lacing up correctly…we can’t find the Bride’s shoes…can’t get the veil in place correctly…and yes, even sometimes we’ve heard that freighting zipper POP! (Just one time, and luckily it wasn’t in a viewable place!!) As long as we have extra time built into our timeline, these little “bumps in the road” during your wedding day won’t even be an issue! We’ll still get to where we need to be and won’t have anything running behind schedule.
Alright y’all! Well that’s the first installment of our “Wedding Wednesdays”! I’m super excited to continue these week-by-week! If you have any questions or have any particular subject you want me to cover, leave a comment below & I’ll get to it!
Happy Planning! XO!
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