Wedding planning mistakes and how to avoid them
Having attended quite a few weddings as a wedding photographer, and also having had gone through the process of being my own wedding planner for my own wedding within 5 months last year, I’ve put together a little list of common wedding planning mistakes that I see happen all the time. It’s not an easy task planning a wedding, and it certainly isn’t a cheap one either. Combining these two aspects causes a lot of stress and quite a few of these common mistakes!
Planning a wedding is made up of dozens of little jobs that range from super important things like choosing and booking a venue on a wedding date you like, down to the simple things such as choosing the groom’s socks. All put together makes a monumental task. Just remember however that with so many things happening, something is bound to not go to plan so try not to make it impact your day too much.
Common wedding planning mistakes
Budgeting mistakes
Perhaps the most common mistake that people stress over on their wedding party is how much everything adds up to. I myself was guilty of this, spending around 30% more than our budget allowed. But planning a wedding is expensive. Try to factor in what you can afford along with what your family are willing to pitch in, then prioritise what is the most important for you. For me personally the most important parts of our day was the wedding photographer, and the reception venue. For other wedding vendors it may be the bridal dress, perhaps a videographer?
The point is, dont go cheap with the most important parts of your day, then you can go a bit cheaper with the parts that don’t matter as much. There’s always going to be some hidden costs too, so when working out your budget in your planning process – add a little to it so there are no surprises. The goal is to save money, not jeopardise your weding style!
Letting others organise your guest list
Your parents probably have a bit of a dream in their heads about what their perfect wedding for you looks like. Hell, they’ve probably been planning it in their head and their own wedding guest list since you were born! So cut them some slack when they insist of inviting family members like second cousin three times removed just because they shared a carrot when they were growing up. But on the other hand make sure they are clear on your budget restraints and that the day is your day, not theirs.
A wedding day is supposed to celebrate your own personal love for one another with your closest friends and family. Just make sure everyone knows your intent in regards to your guest list upfront and you’ll avoid one of the most stress-inducing common wedding planning mistakes.
No plan ‘B’ for weather
Now living in Adelaide, we tend to be very lucky when it comes to the weather during our wedding season. Adelaide is the driest city in the driest state on the driest continent in the world. It doesnt rain much here, and when it does it doesnt stay long. But it does happen, and if you have no backup plan for your wedding ceremony or your reception, it can be devastating. The best venues I’ve found actually have a plan B set up for just an occasion, but other locations it just may not be possible. Marquee hire is a common backup plan for locations where there isn’t a convenient building to use.
The only good thing about having a wedding in the rain is that it’s supposed to be good luck, and you get some great unique photos out of it! 😀
Look after your guests
The common timeline for a wedding day usually calls for a 1-2 hours photoshoot in between the end of your wedding ceremony and the start of your reception. This means that your guests are left to entertain themselves for that period of time. If your venue is out of the way, this may cause some distress with your guests. Try to entertain them with something, give them something to do! Be it lawn games at your venue, or makes a game of it like a scavenger hunt, with a prize given out at your reception?
At the very least suggest a local attraction or a nice pub for them to visit while they wait for you. Some wedding websites can provide insights on hotel rooms and ways to help guests to arrive, or perhaps deal with too many guests. Just remember you have the final say on everything, and your guests may either like or not like your desicions, so act wisely 🙂
Spray tanning, or changing your look too much
Please, please don’t suddenly decide to go get a fake tan for the first time a week out for your wedding! If you’ve had a spray tan before, and you were happy with the result, then go for it, but only if you go back to the same place. Nothing worse than being an oompaloompa in a wedding dress! Same goes for dying your hair, or drastically changing your makeup. Always trial it all several months before your wedding to make sure you’d be ok looking like that on your wedding day.
Eating
Crash dieting in the weeks leading up to your wedding day can cause sickness and just isn’t a great idea in general. The idea is to be as happy and healthy you can be on your big day, so try not to do anything to jeopardise this. Same goes for eating on the day. Often nerves get to brides and grooms on their wedding day, which causes a loss of appetite, but eating and keeping your fluids up (not alcohol) is very important!
Many brides fall into this trap – hopefully your bridal party can help out – as that’s what ther job is!
Seating arrangements
Perhaps one of the hardest part of planning a wedding is sorting out where everyone is sitting at your reception. It’s one of those common wedding planning mistakes that can really cause people to get upset if they are sitting next to someone they despise, or something. One big problem people overlook is placing all the single guests on a ‘singles table’. Having everyone single at a table together is rather uncomfortable for them, so try to mix them about on other tables, hopefully with guests who share a common interest.
Sort out your clothes in the days prior
Another one I’m guilty of. To all the men and grooms to be out there, get out your shirts and wear/iron them at least once in the days leading up to your wedding! Shirts come with an ugly crease through them brad new and need to be ironed! Brides out there, pick out some comfy undies, preferably white so that they can’t be seen through your dress! I can’t count how many times I’ve had to awkwardly point out that your black panties can be seen in your photos. It’s one of those small common wedding planning mistakes you don’t often think about.
If you’ve sorted out what you’re wearing you hang it up and not think about it until the day right? Ladies put on your dress as often as possible too, make sure it’s comfortable. If you’re wearing high heels and planning on having photos done at the beach or in a forest, perhaps pack a change of shoes too.
Don’t sweat the small stuff
Perhaps the most important thing of all, don’t let small issues dominate your thoughts. Remember what the point of the day is – to get legally married. Things are bound to go wrong, that’s life, but don’t let it phase you. Just be thankful you don’t have to contend with a cyclone, or fires on your wedding day. Enjoy yourself!
Same goes for wedding traditions. If they don’t mean anything to you, dont think they will magically ruin your life just because you don’t follow something! Then again if it is important to you to have the perfect wedding – by all means plan for it – don’t expect everything to just ‘happen’. Worrying too much about stuff like this is how so many couples can lose sight of the end result and caught up in the small stuff.
What is the old saying about rain on your wedding day? Often the first thing you hear on your wedding day if it starts raining is that it’s ‘good luck’. Followers of my blog will know that I’m an avid fan of researching the origins of such quirks behind wedding traditions, so I did a bit of digging and found out why rain is good luck on your wedding day.
The origin of the superstition about why rain is good luck on your wedding day may stem from the reasons I’ve discovered, or the general fact that saying something like that will somewhat ease the mind of the bride who had their heart set on a beautiful sunny day. I mean most people would plan their wedding expecting great weather, only to be disappointed with rain – kind of like what Alanis Morissette was talking about in her song ‘Ironic’.
Why rain is good luck on your wedding day
So where did the origin of the superstition come from? What does rain on your wedding day mean? The truth is that rain represents a multitude of different things depending on your culture of origin.
Rain represents fertility
One of the obvious merits of rain is the brings of new life into the world. Without rains new grass and plants cannot grow and hence represents fertility. Always a nice thing to be reminded of on your wedding day if you’re planning on starting a family with your newly wed.
Rain represents Unity
It’s not all that common at weddings in Adelaide but, a handfasting ceremony was common at all weddings in years part symbolising the combining of two souls into the union of marriage This also happens to be the origin of the saying ‘to tie the knot’. Rain would cause this ‘knot’ to become wet and hence become difficult to untie, signifying unity.
The handfasting tradtion originated from Europe and celtic roots, as as the Celts hailed from areas in Europe where it was often raining, this stands to reason.
Rain is Cleansing and Pure
Rain causes the world to become clean and represents purity. using water to cleanse one’s hands if paramount in many of the world’s religions, so rain on your wedding day is supposed to represent a clean and pure start to your lives together. It’s also supposed to represent renewal, in that you will be born again as a couple forever. It’s supposed to wash away all prior bad experiences and memories, leaving only the good for the future.
It’s very similar in the reasoning why brides traditionally wear a white dress.
Before brides wore white dresses to their weddings, the traditional colour was actually pale blue – symbolising the virgin Mary. As pale blue is also the colour often associated with water, one can make the link with rain.
Rain on wedding day represents tears
Now this could be interpreted as a good or a bad thing, but rain can represent the last tears the bride is to shed for the rest of her life – hence a good thing. But it would also represent tears that the couple is getting married! Which is a bad thing.. Depends on how you look at it this way 😛 Another origin story of this representation can be allocated to the virgin Mary in christian tradition where she would cry for all the sins in the world, thereby washing them all away.
Adaptability and Resilience
Another reason why rain might be considered good luck on your wedding day revolves around the attributes of adaptability and resilience. Just as couples face unexpected challenges and twists throughout their journey together, rain on your wedding day serves as an immediate test of adaptability. Couples who face the sudden change with grace and poise demonstrate resilience and a willingness to work together to face challenges head-on.
Overcoming such unexpected obstacles on one’s wedding day sets a precedent for the marriage ahead. It suggests that the couple can weather any storm together, facing trials and tribulations with love, understanding, and cooperation. In many ways, this adaptability in the face of rain symbolizes the flexibility required in a successful, enduring marriage.
So, instead of viewing rain as a damper on your big day, consider it a blessing in disguise, symbolizing the strength and unity of your bond that will carry you through all of life’s unpredictable moments.
Rain on your wedding day meaning?
These superstitions have a range of different origins so it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where and when people started saying why rain is good luck at weddings. But most of the resources I’ve looked at having originated from Hindu custom. But honestly, rain doesn’t originate from India, or Hindu-dominated countries so the sentiment of why rain is good luck at weddings can be as wide and varied as the world itself.
It was a beautifully sunny day for Tam and Shaun’s wedding at the Glenelg Golf Club which backdropped an incredible day full of love and joy. They opted to have me as their wedding photographer for the entire day allowing me to capture both of their preparations, right through until their exit from the Glenelg Golf Club where they held both their wedding ceremony and reception.
Preparation
I started the day with Shaun’s place of preparation which was a house in Hallett Cove, surrounded by his extended family and friends. The atmosphere was laid back and Shaun’s groomsmen were doing their best to keep things light hearted and fun by telling jokes and ripping on one another. When it came to tying ties though, things started to get serious, as none of them really knew how to tie the specific knot that Tam had requested them to wear! So out came a handy youtube video to help, but they still hadn’t perfected the knot before I left. It’s a pretty common thing that men have trouble with during their preparation. 🙂
Tam was getting prepared in a room of the Grand Hotel on the Glenelg foreshore. Much like the guys, the atmosphere was lovely and laid back with no real rush to get ready too soon. Once the dresses and make up was done, we went for a little walk out along the Jetty and used the Grand’s pool area for some glamour photos before revealing the wedding dress to tam’s dad.
Glenelg Golf Club Wedding Ceremony
The Glenelg Golf Club is located just to the south of the Adelaide Airport, nestled away in an area that you just wouldn’t know is there unless you’d sought out one of the best and most awarded golf clubs in South Australia. Founded in 1926, the Glenelg golf club was developed by the idea of a group of local business men who wanted to have a more local golf club for ‘regular Sunday morning sojourns’. Due to it’s locations, it’s become one of the more prestigious and well looked after golf clubs in South Australia.
The functions side of the Glenelg Golf Club has been awarded as well, winning a multitude of ABIA awards, with the most recent being the 2017 Australian Bridal Industry Academy Award for Best Club Reception Venue in Australia.
Tam and Shaun’s wedding reception took place on a little grassy area in front of the club house, as is the case with the majority of weddings that take place at the Glenelg Golf Club. The area is backdropped by a line of trees and a fairway for one of the course’s holes which can be a good and bad thing, as it looks nice, but you’ll always have people playing golf in the background. The time of day they held their reception however saw some magnificent sun shine seeping through in their photos which was nice.
Glamour Photos
Rather than stay at the Glenelg Golf Club and make use of their lovely fairways as a backdrop to their wedding photos, Tam and Shaun opted to go for a bit of a drive down to Hallett Cove where they spent their first date. However due to the slightly later wedding ceremony they held in Glenelg, by the time we arrived at Hallett Cove, the Sun was just about ready to set, so we had to hurry to get all the photos we could before it sank below the horizon all together.
Glenelg Golf Club Wedding Reception
The Glenelg Golf Club’s reception hall is a lovely laid-out area surrounded by decking outside suitable for guests to wander out on during the night. The guest’s tables were spread out across the room that can accommodate a rather large wedding congregation, surrounding the dance floor which was located at the fore of the head table where Tam, Shaun and their bridal party sat. It was a good fun night, culminating in a sparkler send off out the front of the club rooms with every guest, sparkler in hand seeing off their getaway car. Was pretty awesome 🙂
Thanks so much Tam and Shaun for having me capture your wedding photography. I hope you enjoy your photos as much as I enjoyed taking them! 😀
Willunga Peacock Farm Wedding – Aubrey & Darcy
I love heading to the Willunga Peacock Farm as a local Mclaren Vale wedding photographer. The venue has a stunning variety of lovely backdrops to use in photographs, and this is precisely what I drew upon at Aubrey and Darcy’s wedding. They had me as their wedding photographer for 7 hours which saw me at their wedding ceremony through to after their first dance at their reception venue out at the One Paddock Winery at Currency Creek.
Willunga Peacock Farm Wedding Ceremony
As usual I arrived a little early to the Willunga Peacock Farm so I was able to wander about capturing some shots of Aubrey and Darcy’s guests as they arrived in the beautiful Autumnal sunshine. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the centerpiece of the venue – the pond – was full of water as last time I covered a wedding here it was unfortunately dry. Their wedding ceremony was set up on the grassy area next to the pond which allowed for a lovely backdrop to the entire scene.
The Willunga Peacock Farm is an all-in-one wedding venue that is built around an organic, completely self sustaining farm. The venue boasts a rustic reception hall set within a covered veranda connected to a heritage listed farmhouse built in the 1800s. Theres also a bed and breakfast and gardens on site suitable for wonderful wedding photography.
After the ceremony I gathered everyone together to take an aerial photo with my drone which has become one of the most popular aspects of my wedding photography service.
Willunga Peacock Farm Glamour Photos
Walking about the Willunga Peacock Farm’s gardens and surrounding historic buildings is a wonderful experience, especially as a wedding photographer. The scenery lends itself well to the kind of natural wedding photography I’m known for. During May, the sun was setting quite early in the day which was fantastic as I managed to capture it in the most beautiful way in the backdrop of many of the photos.
One Paddock Winery Wedding Reception
The One Paddock Winery down in Currency Creek was a bit of a drive away from the Willunga Peacock Farm, so by the time we arrived for the wedding reception, it had already turned dark. Once I arrived the guests were enjoying themselves in the lobby having a wonderful time chatting and having a few drinks. The wedding reception itself took place in the large reception hall they have decorated with winery paraphernalia such as wine barrels and plenty of rustic metal and wooden decor. It’s a beautiful, homely venue which suited Aubrey and Darcy’s wonderfully personal and intimate wedding day.
Thanks to Aubrey and Darcy for having me capture their wedding photography!
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