The other day I was looking at our wedding album + reminiscing about our amazing wedding day. I can hardly believe it’s been 14 years and 7 months since we said “I Do”. Time has just flown by! As I was going from page to page of our album a few wedding day tips, I wish I would have had in advance, came to mind. We got married before we became wedding photographers, so now we know what we wish we knew then;) So I wrote them down to share.

* The First Look: When we got married a “First Look” was not even a thing yet. However, if we would have known about it we would have done one for sure. What’s a First Look? It’s when the bride and groom see each other before the ceremony, have a few moments alone, and get portraits done before the ceremony. Hands down we would have done this! Why… because our wedding day happened so so FAST! The day truly felt like it came and went at lightning speed. Doing the first look would have given us time to slow down before the craziness of the day unfolded. We would have had time to pray together, hold hands and just be in each others arms. As a photographer I have seen some very special and intimate moments unfold during the first look. Not one of our clients has ever regretted doing a first look… on the contrary they have absolutely loved it! The private moment between the bride and groom sets the tone for the rest of the day. It calms the nerves and allows the couple the opportunity to connect before they are standing at the altar together in front of hundreds of family members + friends. It also takes some stress off of the timeline for photos.

* Small Touches: Looking at our detail photos + getting ready photos I would have added some small touches to pretty things up a bit, for example:
• Bringing along pretty hangers for my wedding dress and the bridesmaid dresses.
• Chose a “getting in to my dress room” in advance that was separate from the make up and hair room. A room that was
clean and pretty ready for me to get dressed in with no clutter.
• Chose a clean “getting ready area” for the guys – guys especial need a room for hanging out + a clean area for getting
ready.
• I would have had an invitation on hand to be photographed with my wedding day details.

* Timeline Sharing: I wish we would have shared the wedding timeline with our wedding party and main family (the ones in photos). I really feel like this would have saved us time and made coordinating much better.

 * Plan Time to Eat: On our wedding day we were so busy talking to family + friends “making the rounds” that we never got to enjoy the amazing food. I say amazing because all our wedding guests talk about how great the food was to this day! By the time we left the reception and Brandon carried me into our house for the first time we both collapsed, looked at each other and said “I am starving!“. The first thing we did upon getting home was eat. So love yourself on your wedding day and EAT! Trust me. This one of Brandon eating is from our 5 year wedding renewal.

*  Sacred Moment… An Unplugged Wedding: Lucky for me Instagram was not invented yet when we got married. Our guests were not sitting in the pews on their cell phones, holding them in the air or in the aisle to grab a photo. As a photographer, one of the things that breaks my heart the most is when a very special moment is unfolding (the first kiss after “I Do”, the bride walking down the isle with her father, the grand exit, etc.) and there are cellphone screens in every shot. Or even worse people making the most awkward poses to get that shot on their cellphone and they end up in the background of the wedding day photos. I personally would love to see a room filled with family + friends who are enjoying the moment, clapping, smiling and celebrating rather then squatting with their legs wide open, a phone in their hand covering their face or leaning over each other to get the perfect shot. Like I said we were lucky that the photo craze had not happened yet so all of our photos show people involved in our wedding day, laughing, smiling, dancing, praying, clapping and truly being invested in the time and love that was being shared.

I hope these little tips help. Obvious I absolutely LOVEDLLVEDLOVED our wedding day and these are just little things we would have done had we know about them in advance. But what was really important to our beautiful wedding day was knowing that the day was about our commitment to choose to LOVE each other. It was not about the process of “getting married”, it was about the fact that at the end of the day we would “be married”. The whole day was about LOVE.