Last summer I got married to the love of my life after photographing nearly 60 weddings as a wedding photographer in the previous 3 years. It was amazing, to say the least! I was simply ecstatic to be the bride after serving so many couples, and to be able to completely relate to my brides and what they are going through!

Wedding planning is a BIG process, and I definitely didn’t realize all that goes into it until planning my own wedding! I had the advantage of already being in the wedding industry, but I always say that if I wasn’t a wedding photographer, I would have been incredibly overwhelmed!! Wedding planning is no joke and although it sounds simple (and almost everyone does it, right?!), you’re basically throwing a HUGE party for hundreds of people. Not only that, but it’s going to be one of the best days of your life (because you’re marrying the love of your life ;)), so you want it to be everything you dreamed of… Wow, its definitely not as simple as finding a place to do it, getting some food, and becoming husband and wife! It’s a big deal!

The big question is… how did being a wedding photographer change the way I approached my own wedding day? There are so many things I could share about planning a wedding in general, but here are 5 (big) thoughts I have after planning my wedding already being a wedding photographer:

Going in, I understood the importance of a dream team of vendors. Having amazing vendors all around is so crucial, and I totally understood this… I had worked with pretty much all of my vendors at weddings before my own (my videographer, venue, florist, DJ, hair stylist & makeup artist). I knew my photographer and had followed her for so long, I knew she was going to be the perfect fit for us, both in personality and the way she works with people! Brides, a great vendor team can seriously make any day go smoothly – at the very least, in your eyes! With most weddings I have photographed, something will usually not go according to planned. And that’s completely okay! In fact, it’s NORMAL. Having an amazing team of vendors who can work together to come up with a solution and keep things running seamlessly seriously makes it not a big deal. Having even one vendor, though, who is not working together with everyone else as a team can throw everything off and cause even little mishaps to interrupt the flow of the wedding day. Those vendors who are there for you and genuinely want to serve you are going to do everything in their power to make sure everything runs smoothly, regardless of who they’re working with – but having a full team of dream team vendors only makes it that much easier! :) To be honest, I look back at my wedding and it was flawless in my eyes… I’m SURE there were mishaps happening behind the scenes that I don’t know about, and to this day I still have no idea!! And I think that’s thanks to my amazing vendors who rocked it!! I’ve photographed weddings where we all work together to fix “problems” that arise and the couple usually doesn’t even know that we had to come up with a solution for a “problem” that came up.

I was able to let go of control. Y’know that dream team I just mentioned?! This is where it helps YOU on your wedding day!! After photographing SO MANY weddings, I KNEW that the easiest ones to photograph were the ones where the couples let go of control and totally trusted me. This doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy serving those other couples, of course I did!! But I just knew that my day would go way more smoothly… my photographer would have creative freedom and produce better photographs… my DJ would run the night the way he knew was best for my guests… everything! This doesn’t mean I didn’t give any suggestions where they asked, of course they were open to hearing if I had a few must-play songs at our reception, or a few photos, or I had a specific hair style I really wanted!! :) But at some point, I trusted and let go, especially once it came to the day of our wedding. I let them do their thing. And you don’t have to be a “laid-back” type of person to do this! I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself super laid-back (I’m definitely more of a Type-A planner – Michael’s the laid back one in our relationship, which is so good for both of us!). So if you’re not sure because you don’t feel like you’re laid-back or go-with-the-flow, I want to encourage you that you can trust and let go!! Because I did, and I promise you will enjoy your day more AND your dream team vendors will love rocking it out!! :) At the end of the day, all that really matters is you’re going to be MARRIED, right?!

I knew where to invest the most. I’m going to be super honest here! I know most of us have a wedding budget. Right?! It’s totally not wrong to spend a lot on a wedding… most of us have a limit on how much we can spend, for one reason or another. My husband and I are super grateful to have had an absolutely BEAUTIFUL wedding and God blessed us in so many ways that we didn’t see coming. Wow, it was amazing. But we also chose to get married while we were still in college, so we had to be really smart about where we splurged, as much as we wanted to splurge everywhere, haha! First thing I knew was that an AMAZING photographer can automatically make your wedding look waaay more “high-end” than it really was! I personally think our wedding looks like we spent way more than we did. One way we did that was by hiring an experienced, super talented photographer who could elevate how my wedding looked! To put it in perspective, we spent over 1/4th of our entire wedding budget on our photographer alone. That’s not always possible for everyone but we made it happen! Another example is I knew where to invest for decor. I knew no one was going to notice if I paid hundreds of dollars more for better table linens… but that everyone would notice if I invested a little more in my florals, AND the entire look of my photos would be elevated by this simple factor too! Florals are a key detail that’s included in the majority of photos (think about it: you’re bridal bouquet is with you in almost everyone photo taken of you). I knew investing in a beautiful, natural venue was worth it versus splurging on a ton of decorations (those add up WAY MORE than you’d think… I didn’t buy much and I still think it was a lot!). Just being super honest here! I don’t think it’s wrong to splurge on those things at ALL… if that’s what’s important to you, I think you should GO FOR IT! I always encourage couples to pick 2-3 things that mean the most to them on their wedding day and splurging in that. But from my perspective as a photographer, I knew these things were going to make the WHOLE day look more “high-end” than it really was, and it allowed me to trust those dream team vendors I hired.

I wish I had hired a day-of coordinator. One of my only regrets with our wedding is not hiring a day-of coordinator. To be honest, I hadn’t worked with many at the weddings I had photographed… now I’ve come to realize, that there is a serious lack of “want” for wedding planners in Ohio. And I really think that should be changed! They are so crucial to the day of to relieving stress. And they don’t cost as much as you would think, especially in the grand scheme of things and how much they do!! And they take over everything one month out. That final month before your wedding, you can sit back and relax, because they’ll wrap up all the little details! How amazing is that?! Simply having that extra set of hands on the wedding day is WORTH IT. Seriously. Just a few things they help with throughout the day: coordinate your ceremony, gather family for family formals, grab and run water when you run out (so Dad doesn’t have to do it…), make sure you’re sticking to your timeline, keep track of your vendors and make sure they’re arriving and setting up/getting ready on time… and way, way more. They do all those little things that pop up during the day. A lot of them also have the option to add styling services for your venue. They also give you a ton of guidance in choosing vendors and crafting your perfect timeline. Because I had a working knowledge of the back end of weddings and how they run, I didn’t feel as much of a need for a full-service planner (although I think these are a FANTASTIC idea too, especially if you have no idea where to start and don’t want to / can’t put in the work), I didn’t mind putting in a little work myself, and knew of all the amazing vendors around town. I am so grateful for how my family was willing to chip in and help with everything the day-of so I didn’t have to worry about a thing (I was amazed at how quickly they got things set up and ready to go), and the venue also had a coordinator that helped with some of the setting up/ceremony coordination… it all came together so well, and I am INCREDIBLY grateful for that!! But I also know that a lot of that stress could have been relieved with a day-of coordinator, and would have been worth the investment.

From a photography standpoint, I now totally grasp the importance of what we do. I didn’t take it lightly before, but wow, the weight of the responsibility we carry as photographers on a wedding day is HUGE. We are capturing one of the BIGGEST days of a couples’ life. They are entrusting us to preserve every memory, to capture all of the blood, sweat, and tears they poured into this single day. The hours upon hours the couple spent planning, and the dreams they made come to life. They trust us to photograph all of the moments the day brings. It really made me realize that what we do is so much more than sunset portraits and pretty details… but it’s about a new MARRIAGE and all the emotions that it brings. I thought I knew the depth of this responsibility before getting married, but I became way more aware of just how important it is after being a bride myself. I am forever grateful for my photos that allow me to go back to that day and remember all that happened… all the “pretty” details and portraits and everything in-between, including all the real moments that happened. I am so grateful for this greater understanding being a bride gave me!

If you continued reading all the way down here, I just want to say YOU ARE AWESOME. Seriously, I think this is my longest blog post ever, so that basically means you’re my new favorite person. :) Thank you thank you!!

So now, I want to ask you: What’s your biggest piece of wedding planning advice? Drop a comment below and let me know! I’m so curious to know what you all think!! Hope this helps all of the future brides and grooms out there! :)

I also put together another blog post on my wedding planning experience, How to Plan a Wedding in 6 Months, if you want to take a peek! It breaks down a few of the things I did to make planning my wedding a little easier… especially in a short timeframe!