Wedding days can be so stressful for everyone involved! Especially the bride, and those around her! If you don’t have a planner, there are so many things for you to worry about. Flowers showing up, your hair getting done on time (which hardly ever happens), your makeup not turning out right the first time so you have to redo it a second time. There’s so many things that can, and [probably] will go wrong, that I wanted to give my brides, and brides everywhere ideas for wedding day planning and tips!
Wedding Day Details
I don’t think I can fit everything into one post so I decided to make another series of these tips and today, we’re going to start talking about one of my FAVORITE parts of the day. DETAILS!!!!!
This part of the day is when I feel like I can be the most creative. It’s my warmup for the day, so it almost sets the stage for the rest of the day. When it comes to shooting details, I like to have at least an hour and half for detail and prep shots. This give me enough time to fit everything in that I need to, and also usually gives us a little buffer of time, in case hair or makeup run over time.
Some of the most common details that are shot are the dress (obviously), veil/hair piece, rings, shoes, jewelry, perfume, invitations, whatever your “something borrowed and blue” is, bouquets, and boutonnieres.
If you walk away with anything from this post let it be this!!!! Make sure you gather everything together before hand, so we don’t have to rummage through everything to find things. This will ensure that I have the time I need to be able to get all the details shots and then get more fun shots with you and your girls getting ready! That means making sure your flowers will be on time, having all three rings (you will be able to get them to their proper location well before the ceremony), and making sure that an invitation suite is handy. This is SO crucial to how the day begins!!!
Depending on the feel of your wedding, sometimes it’s good to have some extra little elements for your details shots. If you are having a rustic style wedding, you could add some burlap in with the rest of your details that you have put together, or anything else that may fit with the rest of the theme of your wedding. This will make it easy when it comes to designing your album and helping everything mesh well together. 
When it comes to shooting the rings, there’s so many times that I only have the bride’s ring. I always recommend for my brides to keep all three rings before the wedding so we can shoot those during the details, and not have to worry about it later in the day. Whether you have a first look or not, there will be some part of the day that we can get the rings to the designated person! If by chance, you do forget them, we can always get them later in the day.
Lastly, make sure you have the bouquets and boutonnieres delivered to the bride before the first look takes place, and if no first look, before any formal portraits start. We’ll make sure we have them in water as much as possible before the ceremony starts to keep them looking fresh! One of the worse things is to be all ready for photos, and then realize that you don’t have the flowers yet!
Wedding Day Prep
After the details have been documented, we move on to prep! There is so much going on at this point in the day, it can be a little hectic. Things are usually thrown everywhere between the bride and the bridesmaids getting ready, and there’s usually lots of makeup and lots of hairspray everywhere. It always helps with this part of the day if you have a little buffer time. Hair and Makeup always take longer than expected, the dress doesn’t go on as quick as it should, and after just that happening, you could be 40 minutes behind! YIKES! That buffer will help us stay within the timeline, and keep things rolling.
Speaking of hair and makeup, make sure the bride’s makeup is done before I show up. Most of the time, they don’t want to have photos without their makeup done. Nobody wants that.
When it comes to shooting the groom and groomsmen prep, if their prep location is close by and I have a second shooter, they will shoot that part of the day. That gets taken care of pretty quickly as boys usually only take 10-15 minutes to get ready. Wouldn’t that be nice?!
And back to bridal prep. When the bride is ready to get her dress on, i’ll move you over to the area with the best light in the room, likely in front of a window. This will give us beautiful soft light, and we get some great shots because of it. Also, it looks better when your bridesmaids are in their dresses at this point, too.
If you follow all this advice and heed these tips, the beginning of your wedding day should go off without a hitch! We will be able to get your details, and prep photos taken and then we can move onto one of the most exciting parts of the day!
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