Two Myths and a Truth: Wedding Edition

As a play on two truths and a lie, today on the blog we are going to talk two myths and a truth: wedding edition! Don’t worry, I won’t make you guess which one is the truth because who has time for that these days. The important thing is for me to share the information, not to try to trick you. Just like with all the different news outlets, there is a lot of information about weddings out there. For many people this is their first time going through the wedding planning process, so it can be hard to differentiate what is fact and what is exaggeration since they’ve never experienced it before. Well, I have, so let me shed a little light on some of the questions you may be thinking about. We will start with the myths…

DIY weddings are always cheaper. False. It is true that there are some things that can save money if you do them yourself and at times a small wedding can be reasonably done. However, with a medium to large wedding you add the cost of materials to the amount of time you will spend to accomplish everything, and it will end up equaling the cost you would have paid for professional help. Think about it… usually the bulk of the cost isn’t the materials, it’s the labor. When you want to take on projects such as hand lettering each place card or designing and making your own invitations or making 150 individual party favors you are likely doing these tasks after you have already worked a long day and would rather just relax and decompress. Que the stress and bring on the point where planning a wedding isn’t as fun anymore – nobody wants that. Not all the time, but much of the time it is a full-time job for these professionals to create these amazing signs, invitations, and personalized items for you. They have likely also developed some great tricks of the trade that you may not know about thus extending the process for you if you decide to DIY. Try not to make the planning process more stressful than it needs to be. Your guests will love a personal touch no matter if it was you that put in the sweat equity or if you decided to support someone else’s small business dream.

You only want to hire vendors who are familiar with your venue. False. Is it a bonus if they have already worked at your venue? Yes, but as long as you are hiring a true wedding professional it will not matter one bit whether they have worked an event there before or not. These are people who have worked in all kinds of situations, have great visualization skills and who know how to “go with the flow”. Try to be open-minded because sometimes a vendor who has not worked in a space before can bring a new perspective and creative ideas that maybe you hadn’t thought of. Speaking for myself (and most vendors that I work with), I will always try to do a walk-through of a space – whether it is new to me or not – before the wedding day. If I am not able to do that for some reason, I will give myself extra time the day of and arrive early.

It is likely that your wedding timeline will not be right on time. True! But that is okay, and usually, to be expected. If you don’t have a wedding planner who will put together a personalized timeline, your photographer will typically help you through this task. And believe me, we know that things happen, and your timeline probably won’t be true to schedule the entire day. In fact, we plan for that. A 5-minute buffer here a 10-minute buffer there. You may not even realize the buffer is there because it all has a way of working itself out in the end. Now, please don’t be one of those people who say “Oh that won’t be my wedding. We will be ON TIME if it’s the last thing I do!” No, you probably won’t, but again, that is OKAY! Hiring a wedding planner and a professional photographer can do you a whole lot of good in this situation because we know how to keep things moving and know where we can cut some corners to help get things back on track, if needed.

All this to say that the wedding planning process doesn’t have to be super stressful and can actually be very enjoyable and fun if you have the proper vendors backing you up! There will always be that person in your life who thinks they know best and wants to give you all the advice in the world. As unsolicited as it might be sometimes, listen, acknowledge and if it is appropriate say “thank you for the advice, but I think I am going to go [this] direction for my wedding”. Also, never assume anything. If you have a question about something regarding any vendor – ASK! We all want to make sure your day is everything you are envisioning and more, but we aren’t mind readers. As with most things in life, communication is key!

If you found this article helpful and want to chat further, head on over to the services page for my packages and pricing information. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me or leave a comment below!

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