Planning Your Wedding
Newly engaged and feeling overwhelmed with the amount of planning a wedding takes? Or even where to start with wedding planning? Hi, Friend! I’m Catie Eovaldi- a Southeast and Mid Michigan wedding photographer who’s been professionally photographing weddings for the past three years. As I move into my fourth year of business, I see changes throughout the wedding industry and how it affects couples from all over. I see all sorts of trends from economical ones to nostalgic ones to seasonal ones. Planning alone can be difficult, and it’s important to ask for help when you need it!
My most important piece of advice to you throughout this time is to enjoy your engagement and go with your gut during this time. Take some time to enjoy this time in your life because its fleeting. Time moves so quickly and there’s so much going on in the world that we could use a little celebration and happiness. Don’t let anyone’s opinion sway how you want to celebrate your day. You know yourself best and will plan the best day!
7 Tips for Wedding Planning
Hire a Wedding Planner
If you’re one to easily get overwhelmed when planning events, hiring a planner is the best move. Planners handle so much before and during your wedding day, and a majority of couples I work with who don’t hire a planner regret it. Not only will they keep all information organized and read through contracts for you, but on the wedding day they fix all issues that pop up. The best part of this is it’s done usually without you even knowing about it. No one will tell you that one groomsman lost his boutonniere or that mom is running late for makeup. It’ll be flawlessly handled by your planner so you can focus on you.
I recommend hiring a planner before securing your date or venue (because they can help with this as well), but you can work with a planner throughout any stage of planning. Each couple I work with receives my vendor recommendation guide which has a list of planners I’ve worked alongside!
Draft a Rough Guest List Before Venue Selection
Before you get too overwhelmed with all of the options out there, you should draft a guest list before searching out the perfect venue. I recommend doing this first because venues often have guest count limitations. Venues that have in-house catering often have guest count minimums, and every venue has a maximum of how many guests are allowed on site.
Your guest list doesn’t have to be finalized at all. A rough idea of the guest count will help weed out venues you can and can’t use! If you need some ideas of venues to use, I have a blog post on that! Read about these Michigan Wedding Venues and their guest capacities!
Meet with Vendors
I think it’s so so important now more than ever to meet your vendors prior to booking them. Hop on that consultation call and ask your questions. Talk over coffee and get to know them a little bit. I hear so many stories in Facebook wedding groups about couples booking vendors for a great deal and then are ghosted and left without services on their wedding day. Take the time during planning to meet your vendors and if you don’t vibe well together, let them know and move on. I love getting to know couples before booking and offer free consultations when you connect with me.
Organize Your Decor
I recommend doing this once your decor is secured. If you’re holding onto it at home and bringing it to the venue yourself, you’ll thank yourself later for organizing it prior to your wedding day! The best way to do this is to get big clear plastic tubs to store decor in. Write a clear list of what’s inside each tub and tape it to the inside of the lid. If you have multiple people helping you decorate the venue, this will help them know and avoid asking “where are the centerpieces” or “what’s in this box”. It’ll protect your sanity during this part of set up!
It’ll equally help during clean up. If you have family or friends on venue clean up duty (and you absolutely should), having an organized list will help them put it all back and make sure everything is there. Some venues have penalty fees if decor is left, so this organized list and tubs will help you avoid getting hit with those fees.
Timeline Planning
Planning the timing of your day is so incredibly important, and it’s another reason to work with a planner. If you’re not though, this is so important to lay out correctly. When creating a timeline for your wedding day, you want enough buffer time between moving parts of the day to account for any unexpected changes. You’ll also want to ensure you have enough time for hair, makeup, dinner, and so on. I’ve been to weddings without a timeline and guests have no idea where they are supposed to be, the wedding party gets lost, and the couple frustrated over lack of structure in the day. Not having a well planned timeline can result in late dinner, missed makeup or hair services, or even a late ceremony.
Timeline planning is something I assist all my couples with. We sit down over coffee or lunch and talk over their priorities for the wedding day. From that list of priorities, I build a structured (but flexible) timeline that fits their individual needs. If this is something you want for your own day, connect with me!
Tell Guests a Set Time for Events
The worst thing you can do for your wedding ceremony is not put an explicit time on your invitation. A quick story: I worked with a couple who put a “Doors Open” time for their ceremony instead of a set time. The result of this was guests either missing the ceremony entirely or walking in all throughout the ceremony. A few just didn’t even show up because they didn’t know what time to be there.
Moral of the story: don’t treat this as a relaxed graduation party. Even if you want your reception to feel more relaxed than a structured wedding, add explicit times on your invitations for your guests!
Don’t Be Afraid to Elope
If you’re in the middle of planning and are so overwhelmed, don’t be afraid to say “screw it” and elope. I’m totally serious! You can still have a reception for your family and a wedding day even if you want to elope. I work with military couples frequently. A lot of times they elope in the middle of planning a bigger wedding or come to me already married. A lot of these couples say already being married takes the pressure off the planning and it’s more focused on fun.
Meet Your Wedding Photographer
Hi Friend! I’m Catie and I’ve been professionally photographing weddings for three years. With 70+ weddings under my belt, I often help couples throughout all the stages of planning to execute their wedding day vision.
My photography is rooted in connection and sentimental memories. It’s weird to think about your future wedding as a memory, but you’re going to walk away from your wedding day with memories you’ll want to hang onto forever. That time your grandmother gifted you the family necklace, having a glass of bourbon with your friends, even a simple memory of dancing with your girlfriends to “Love Story” at the reception. All these memories are ones you’ll cling to reminisce on once the day is over.
Traveling all over Michigan and beyond, I help couples plan and capture their wedding days authentically and with intention. If you like candid, documentary style photography, you can connect with me here to check my availability!
