My Suggestions for a Beautiful Wedding Day

I know that you’d love your wed­ding to be a day nev­er to be for­got­ten by you or your guests.
You want all your table dec­o­ra­tions to be unique, your dress has to be the most stun­ning thing that any­one has ever seen, your hair and make-up needs to be per­fect and your shoes need to com­pli­ment that dress.

These things, most like­ly have already been planned in your head, but you’ve read hun­dreds of wed­ding mag­a­zines with real­ly beau­ti­ful pic­tures in. Per­fect flow­ers, per­fect make up, per­fect brides­maids and this incred­i­ble gold­en light back­light­ing the brides blonde hair and her dress.

How do you get just what you want?

Here are my sug­ges­tions for get­ting a wed­ding day that will look so pho­to­genic that you’ll nev­er for­get it, with some help from me of course! =)

First…Carefully choose your location.
The Major­i­ty of cou­ples I know, chose their loca­tion as soon as, or even before they got engaged.
Great loca­tions book up real­ly far in advance (we’re talk­ing years here)
The per­fect loca­tion adds beau­ty and romance to your day and real­ly sets the mood.
With church­es, you don’t real­ly have a wide scope and although they are more often than not beau­ti­ful build­ings, they’re usu­al­ly not known for being flood­ed with nat­ur­al light.

When you choose your recep­tion, try to choose one that has allot of nat­ur­al light flood­ing in.
Can you imag­ine watch­ing the sun­set whilst you’re enjoy­ing the main course, or just as you start your first dance?

Second…Carefully work out your timetable
No, its not as bor­ing as it sounds.
What I mean is, find out what time the sun sets on your day, and plan your pic­tures accordingly.
Pic­tures tak­en at mid-day are a pho­tog­ra­phers night­mare. But in ear­ly after­noon, the sun can make the most beau­ti­ful bride look at any­thing but her best. The harsh sun­light caus­es squint­ing (not good) harsh shad­ows (also not good) and basicly does noth­ing good to the most beau­ti­ful bride (you guessed it)

The two hours before sun­set are the best time to take pho­tographs and pho­tog­ra­phers call this time “the Gold­en Hour”. Why? The light is PERFECT, its the most flat­ter­ing, gold­en and soft light. There are shad­ows but they’re long and beautiful!

So what to do then?
Sched­ule your cer­e­mo­ny so that you have at least 90 min­utes of gold­en hour to play with. This will ensure that you have the best light to make you both look even more stun­ning in your pho­tographs, aswell as giv­ing me plen­ty of time to get some real­ly fun group shots of everybody!

Third…Make it personal
“Well, I know that Joseph, it is our wed­ding day after all”
What I mean by that is, inject some of your per­son­al taste into your day. Choose things that make peo­ple say “Wow, that is SO Dick and Jane’s style, I love it!”
If pos­si­ble, write your own vows.
Design your own sta­tion­ary (Jes­si­ca and myself designed our own sta­tion­ary and it was per­fect!! We also saved a few hun­dred pounds!)
Think about all of your music. Walk­ing down the aisle, walk­ing back up, music through­out the recep­tion (do you want Jazz, clas­si­cal, pop?)
First dance. Think back through your courtship and think about what songs you sang to each oth­er. (We chose “Can’t take my eyes off of you” by Andy Williams)
Hire a DJ. A great DJ can make the night end with a bang. Give him a list of songs that have to be played, but let him decide what order to play them in.
If you’re going to have a band, don’t skimp. More often than not, a band of col­lege kids who you’ve paid £50 each to are going to make your evening mem­o­rable for all the wrong reasons!
Ask lots of dif­fer­ent bands to play songs for you and see who you like best! (do the same for your DJ)
Real­ly think about your favors if you plan to have them. Lit­tle pots of per­son­alised Jam/honey/pickle? Peo­ple love any­thing with their name on! =) Besides, who likes sug­ared almonds?
A few more…
A Guest­book (Make sure this gets adver­tised, you don’t want a guest book thats 1/4 filled!)
Table Names (Don’t choose “table one, table two, table blah blah blah”…Again, make this anoth­er talk­ing point)
Name cards/tags. (Make these some­thing that your guests would WANT to take home and keep!)
Flow­ers. A Tip from my wife “Choose a bou­quet that com­pli­ments, yet con­trasts with your wed­ding dress, you don’t want your bou­quet to blend in with your dress”
Decorations
Can­dles. Think about aro­mas that will com­pli­ment the room, and always be care­ful with naked flames.

Forth…Keep it Tidy
Imag­ine this: Your pho­tog­ra­ph­er shows you your wed­ding pic­tures and the first ones you see are of inside the dress­ing room. The pho­tog­ra­ph­er has cap­tured the emo­tion and the excite­ment. All fine and dandy so far, but in the back­ground of the pic­ture you can see that your dress­ing room is a total tip! Jeans all over the place, train­ers on the bed, piz­za tray on the dress­ing table (you get the picture!! )
Just make a lit­tle time before the pho­tog­ra­ph­er arrives to tidy up (push things under the bed) so every­thing looks great!
Don’t hide away brides­maids dress­es or shoes, but you don’t want to see the shoe box­es or wrap­ping that they came in.

Fifth…Light your room
If pos­si­ble, choose a big room with a big win­dow so that you have plen­ty of light flood­ing in, but dif­fuse it. Put some white cur­tains or gauze up.
If you don’t have a room with a win­dow, then make that room romantic!
Fairy lights over the dress­ing table, over the win­dow, can­dles in the bath­room. Be care­ful though!
Choos­ing a big room if pos­si­ble will make things eas­i­er for every­body, includ­ing me, I don’t want to step on peo­ples toes.

Sixth…Light your reception
Loads of fairy lights, rope lights, hang­ing lanterns in trees or from beams look fan­tas­tic. Keep them nice and low (just above head-height)

Seventh…Throwing the bouquet
I have to admit, I’ve missed this before, and it had to be restaged. I missed it because there was no build up! Lots of oth­er peo­ple missed it too.
So, don’t rush this bit, it’s good fun. Take a minute to play with your crowd, tease them, chase the kids away (per­haps arrange some­thing like a sweet toss for the kids to keep them busy!)
Make sure there are no low lights, or ceil­ing fans to get in your way, and when you’re ready…Throw!

Eighth…Show off to me
Through your first dance and the dance with your father, ignore me completely.
When it comes to the crazy danc­ing, every now and then just turn around with your brides­maids and show off for the cam­era, oth­er­wise I end up with lots of pic­tures of backs and bums. (not good)

Ninth…Feed me!
Its going to be a long day for me. So pro­vid­ing me with the same meal as your guests is always real­ly appre­ci­at­ed. It keeps me going so that you get the best from me!
Try and seat me about 15–20 feet from the top table with an unob­struct­ed view so that I can get some great can­did shots.

Tenth…Go slow
When you’re putting your wed­ding rings on eachothers hand, I know you’ll be ner­vous with every­one watch­ing you, but just try and go real­ly slow and try not to block the view of myself, or your wed­ding guests.
Typ­i­cal­ly, this is one of the hard­est pic­tures to get, so heres my tip to make sure I get the shot for you.

Try to remem­ber that when you are putting the ring on, hold the ring so that your fin­gers are on the top and bot­tom instead of on the sides of the ring. This turns your hand so that the ring is vis­i­ble from the sides and now guests and myself can see it all happen.
Try not to use your free hand to grab your part­ners wrist so that you can get the ring on easier.
If you feel as if you need to do this, try putting your hand under­nei­th your part­ners and grab­bing from below.  This keeps every­thing in per­fect view.
Try to prac­tise this a few times with eachother.

Eleventh…Don’t be late
Some­times, things go wrong.
But some­times, with a lit­tle extra plan­ning, you’ll be walk­ing down the aisle at the right time.
Being late isn’t nice for your guests. They’ve trav­elled a long way and may have oth­er things to do lat­er in the day.
If you don’t arrive on time, then this throws every­thing back­wards. You have less time for pic­tures and the meal may have to be put on hold until every­one is ready.
————–

I’ve shot allot of wed­dings, and I’ve picked up these tips from brides and wed­ding planners.
If every wed­ding fol­lowed a few of these tips, it’ll make your day so hard to forget!