Planning Your Wedding: 6 Helpful Tips

August 21, 2022

If you’ve just started thinking about planning your wedding, you may be wondering what things you can do to make sure your wedding day runs as smooth as possible, am I right? What are all the little things that get underrated and overlooked? I was wondering the same thing when I was trying to plan my wedding! Lucky you, I’ve put together my top list of wedding day tips that will help your day run as smooth as possible, and keep your stress at bay.

1. Transportation

Make Wedding Day Transportation Arrangements In Advance

I cannot stress this enough.  Making travel arrangements for the day of is HUGE. The last thing you want to be doing is standing around trying to figure out who is riding with who, how Aunt Cindy is getting back to her car, what’s the parking going to be like, …ok, you get the point. There’s really no such thing as being over-prepared and overly detailed with day of travel arrangements. If not, it can quickly turn into a recipe for disaster.  And ain’t nobody got time for that!

2. Food

Don’t Forget To Eat While You Are Getting Ready

Making food arrangements for the day of while you and your bridesmaids are getting ready is A MUST! Food. Yes, you heard me…food.  It sounds so simple and you’re probably thinking…um duh, imma EAT. But you’d be surprised how fast the day will fly by before you get a chance to shovel the food in!

Pro Tip: aim for foods that don’t cause a lot of bloat…aka carbs/gluten. Stick to lighter,  more easily digestible foods like fruits, salads, chicken salad, tuna salad, charcuterie boards, etc.

3. Payments

Pay Your Wedding Vendors In Advance

When planning your wedding, make sure you’ve make arrangement to pay all your wedding vendors a couple days before (maybe even sooner depending on the vendor).  The last thing you want to be doing is worrying about finding a checkbook or scrambling around on Venmo while you’re trying to get ready for your big day. If some of your wedding vendors won’t allow you to pay in advance, don’t sweat it! Hand this responsibility off to someone you trust to get the job done!

4. Day of Timeline

Make A Wedding Day Timeline

There’s one thing that’s an absolute must when planning your wedding…making a day of timeline! Of course if you have a wedding planner, he/she will be taking care of this. But if you don’t, you’ll need to start brainstorming timelines at least a month out. You’ll need to send this timeline out to most of your vendors before hand to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Pro Tip: Take a screen shot of your timeline and save it as the background to your phone. Take it a step further and send it out to your whole bridal party! Chances are, you won’t be around your phone much…you’ll have someone else keeping tabs of it.  Once again…designate someone to be the schedule queen/king. If you send this out to your whole bridal party, and parents/grandparents a couple days before your wedding day, it will cut out a lot of last minute confusion.

Making a timeline wallpaper is one of the things I absolutely love doing for my brides. It helps tremendously!

Some of the things I like to include on my timeline wallpaper is:

  • All addresses (ceremony, reception, bride getting ready, groom getting ready, etc)
  • At least 3 emergency numbers (this can be maid of honor, best man, and maybe the event/wedding coordinator)
  • Important times (when girls bridesmaids/groomsmen start getting ready, when to leave for the ceremony, when bridal portraits will be taken, when family photos will be taken, start of cocktail hour, start of reception, etc)
  • The more details the better!

5. The Friend

Find That One Friend With The Loud Voice Who Knows The Family Well

Designate a person in your family or bridal party to help reel everyone in for all the requested family group photos.  Pick someone who knows most of both sides of the family pretty well.  Make sure the person that you pick for this job has a strong voice and isn’t afraid to boss people around to get the job done as quick as possible! I can assure you…your photographer will LOVE YOU FOR THIS. The quicker the family photos can be taken, the more time you will have for portraits of you and your lovey….and partying, duh.

6. Overnight Bags

Make Arrangements Ahead of Time for your Overnight Bags

Making arrangements for your clothes/toiletries/personal items/belongings to be at the location you will be spending your first night at. Often times you will be getting ready at a different location than you will be spending your first night together as husband + wife. Which means, you’ll most likely want your night clothes (or lingerie *cough cough*), toothbrush, day-after clothes, purse/wallet, yada yada…already at the place you will be ending your night.  For me, I requested an early check in at our hotel, and then had my Dad check in for me and drop off all of our things while me and my bridesmaids were getting ready. Another option would be to store them in someone’s car.  Just make sure this car doesn’t drive home before you get a chance to grab all your things out of it!  

Conclusion

Planning your wedding can be so stressful, that’s no secret. While these tips may seem trivial, it’s the small things that count! Having all of these details taken care of will help ease your mind on the day of! As a wedding photographer, I love helping my couples with their timeline. In fact, it’s a great idea to talk with your photographer about timeline expectations! If you are planning your wedding and still on the hunt for a photographer, I’d love to chat! Just head on over to my contact page to get the party started!

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