Wedding Wednesday: Three Tips for the Big Day

I’ve been to a lot of weddings. A LOT. Close to 300. Crazy, right? When I’m not blogging, I’m a professional photographer. My husband and I have our own company called JKoe Photography. We have been shooting weddings for almost 10 years now and in that time,  I have seen pretty much everything: the good, the bad, the totally unbelievable. One time, I helped a mother of the bride put her spanx on. After all of these weddings, Jason and I have come up with three pieces of advice, the three essential tips for having a beautiful, fun and stress free wedding. We share with this with all of the couples we work with and now, here it is for all of you:

1. Put your character into your wedding. Everyone has already been to the cookie cutter wedding, many times. Plan your wedding around what you want to do, not what you feel obligated to do. At a great wedding, guests leave at the end of the night with more insight as to who the bride and groom are as a couple and what they love. If your dogs are super important to you, have them come. If you hate cake, but love pie, serve that instead. You and your fiance are obsessed with board games? Set out Yahtzee and Scrabble for guests to play at the reception. If your culture and heritage are important, include unique traditions. Really into hiking? Get married in the mountains. 

2. Your wedding only exists in your head. This means, if the wrong cake shows up, no one knows, unless you make a big deal about it. If the florist put the wrong flowers in your bouquet, no one will know, unless you point it out. We’ve seen brides deal with all sorts of minor catastrophes and the only times that these situations actually harm the wedding are when the bride panics about it. Expect that little things might not work out the way that you’d hoped and remember that the ONLY thing that can actually go wrong at a wedding is if the bride freaks out, or the groom, or a mother...you get the picture. If everyone stays calm and focuses on all the great things going on, often times guest don’t even notice. 

3. The goal of your wedding, is to get married. If you are hitched at the end of the day, it was a success and really, nothing else matters. Weddings are fun, but hopefully you’re having a wedding because you want to spend the rest of your life with the person you’re marrying. Keep that as the goal and your wedding will go swimmingly well.

This is the first of many Wedding Wednesday posts. Be sure to come back for more advice and ideas. In the next few weeks I’ll be covering tips for a great wedding registry and how to look great in engagement photos. Also, many more ideas for unique weddings to come!

(All photos jkoephoto.com)