Outdoor Wedding
Photography, Wedding

5 Things Your Wedding Photographer, Bridal Store & Wedding Stylist Wished You Knew

For most couples, their wedding day is the biggest and most expensive party that they will ever organise for themselves.

Upon announcing the engagement, most couples have little to no idea of how their lives are about to change. The scale of the planning, budget, considerations and emotions can often be overwhelming for the unsuspecting couple.

Even the simplest of weddings have a lot of moving parts and given that it is usually your first time planning your own wedding, there are a few things you should know.

Here are five things that wedding photographers, bridal stores, and wedding stylists wished you knew (but were probably too polite to tell to your face).

1. We (Really) Do Not Want Your Arm & Legs

Weddings can be expensive, especially if you want all the nice things.

Fresh flowers cost a lot of money - even at wholesale rates. A typical wedding florist can spend thousands of dollars  just on the raw materials, let alone labour hours However, the most beautiful weddings tend to feature a lot of fresh flowers.

Wedding dresses can cost a lot simple due to the wholesale cost of lace - even if they’re off-the-rack and not couture designs.

Stylists can spend tens of hours planning and organising the logistics of your wedding. You’ll rarely see them on your wedding day as they would have arrived at the crack of dawn to install things only to return after midnight to pack everything down and away.

Wedding venues tend to be the biggest ticket items but remember that they have salaries to pay, upkeep, insurances, and all sorts of other overheads.

“I think most wedding vendors understand that weddings are expensive. I know that my colleagues in the industry and I work super hard to give the weddings that our clients deserve. Often, we will go beyond what was agreed, at our own cost, because we care about the final result.” - Lilac, founder of Sydney wedding styling company Upside Down Events says.

“Often, I’ll include extra hours of labour or solve problems on the day that fall outside my responsibility. It’s just what we do as wedding professionals!”

2. Bring Mum To The Final Fitting (Not The First)

Your wedding dress is a statement piece.

It tells everyone how you want to look and feel on your wedding day.

For some brides, this may be conservative. For others, they may wish to be more daring.

“A lot of brides come in with their mothers.” - Sandra, owner of Emerald Bridal says. “And since mum’s opinion matters a lot, it can get in the way.”

Finding your wedding dress is an experience by itself. Quite often, the wedding dress that you decide on will not be the first one you try on. Therefore, it is important to try on different silhouettes to get an idea on what looks great on your body. Then, you can decide on the style and designer.

“It is not uncommon for a bride to try on a dress and absolutely love it to showing mum and being told that it doesn’t suit her. My girls and I do our best to side with the bride but ultimately, mum’s opinion trumps ours.”

Sandra offers a solution - “Instead of bringing mum to your initial fittings where you can be more experimental, I suggest brides to bring their best friend to try on different shapes and sizes. This allows you to explore and find your dream dress. Then once you have found the one, then you can bring your mum to the final fitting.”

3. Organise A Group Photo Wrangler

One of the most important sets of photographs you will receive from you wedding day are the family portraits. In twenty years time, you can tell your children all sorts of funny stories about uncle Jimmy and formal portraits from your wedding day serve as the best visual tools for doing so.

“Trying to get the important family portraits done can be a real struggle” Australian wedding photographer, Jack of Jack Chauvel Photography says. “For some reason, when it comes to trying to get everyone together, someone always tends to be missing. This then causes someone from the group to go looking for the missing person and the bride and groom feeling frustrated.”

To avoid this situation, Jack recommends that you delegate the task of herding family members to someone is not afraid to get stuff done.

“It helps if the person in-charge knows the family members but this isn’t always going to be the case. A good friend who isn’t shy tends to work well in these situations. At the end of the day, I just want to give the couple and their family meaningful memories, with minimal stress.”

4. Please, Pretty Please, Do Not Attend A Bridal Gown Fitting After A Gym Session

Ladies, we get it.

The modern woman has a busy lifestyle.

But please, spare a thought for the bridal store. Just because you can fit in a spin class before your 6PM fitting appointment does not mean that you should.

5. Consult A Stylist Before You Lock In Your Wedding Venue

“Only a handful of couples come to me before they lock in their wedding venue” - says Lilac.

“I know that there is pressure to lock in your dream wedding ASAP so that you don’t miss out. The downside of this is that once you’re lock in, you’re locked in. Without consulting a stylist, you may discover, only too late, that your vision is not possible due to logistic and timing restrictions. By then, it’s too.”

Therefore, if you are someone who cares about the little details, it makes sense to first consult a wedding stylist before you lock in your wedding venue. A wedding stylist will be able to tell you quite quickly whether your vision will be possible or not.