If you love to get in on all the tea, welcome to the wedding blog for you! Many wedding vendors keep this conversation amongst themselves, but I love sharing this insight with engaged couples and also speaking about it with couples who have just recently gotten married. As a wedding videographer, I feel like it is my responsibility to use my power of perspective to pull out all the moments of great joy, laughter, and beauty. It is a wedding day afterall, it is an elegant and exciting day that has held this massive weight for some people’s entire lives. It is the public proclamation of this covenant that you and your partner are entering into and that should not be taken lightly or without thought. This is the part of weddings that I love, the marriage. It is undoubtedly a holy day with so much significance and it is spent with the people that you hold closest to your heart. I love that, and if that was the end of the story I wouldn’t be writing this. Unfortunately, we are human and we get caught up in the things that really aren’t so important.
We all have our own things, some of us are overthinkers, some of us care too much about satisfying other people, some of us are in debt to constant worry of the future, some of us have unrealistic expectations, and on and on. I struggled with these types of things on my day too, and I don’t want you to be caught off guard by it.
It is hard to plan something so grand and something with so much anticipation and hype surrounding it. I am not blaming anyone or myself for feeling those things, it is really only natural. So why am I writing this, what point do I want to make here? I want to explain some things about how wedding days really feel so that you can set honest expectations, I want to warn you about guarding your heart from the trap of comparison because you will find yourself seeing wedding content on every social media platform that you are on, and I want to dive deep into the things you can do to prepare yourself to have a day where you are present and without worry or concern for what’s next.
Before we dive into all of that, why should you take any advice from me? I am married and went through the planning process with my wife. I saw first hand the emotions she was experiencing throughout the entire process. I have also been in the wedding industry for many years and am someone who loves to dive into deeper conversations with my couples, so I am always learning and hearing about my couples personal journey. I hear about the season of engagement, their fears and worries, the things that are keeping them up at night weeks before the big day, I document and capture the day for them, and finally, I always chat with them a few weeks after the wedding to talk about all the post wedding feelings. So, I have learned a thing or two.
Let’s talk about expectations. Most people have different visions and ideas about what their wedding day will look like and feel like. I think it is really important to sit down with your partner and to share these thoughts. Even if one of you says they don’t care or don’t have an opinion, they still most likely have an idea on how they want their wedding to feel and what the most important thing about the day is. I’d encourage people to start here. Before you even begin to look at a budget or venues or planners, figure out what the heart of your wedding day really is. This is the thing that you can go back to when things get stressful to keep you grounded and reminded why you are doing this in the first place. It won’t make planning any easier (a planner will help with that!) but it will mean that you have a solid foundation and direction on what is most important and that will be the driving force behind every big decision you make and every small detail that you include. The other side of expectations is just having an idea of what wedding days really feel like. You’ve planned the wedding and did all the things and now the day is here. This thing that has been your part time job for maybe the last year has finally arrived. What is it going to look like? Firstly, there is going to be a lot of hurry up and wait, there will be moments of intense emotion, moments where you don’t want to take anymore photos, moments that you anticipated for a year and were anticlimactic, moments where you just want to sit down and take a breather, and so much more. The day will go by faster than you think and looking back, many memories will be a little fuzzy. Awesome, so what do you do with all of that? Married people have maybe told you one or two of those things, but please take them to heart. Go back to the heart of your day, what is the thing that is most important to you? Is the focus on you two and this promise you are making, are you glorifying God, are you just excited to have both your families and loved ones in one place, or maybe it is something else. Whatever it is, do things on your wedding day that will bring you joy, offer some comfort, make for a day filled with peace, and do everything with intention and thought. Don’t just do something because it is popular or because it looks cool. I am giving you permission to skip the things everyone does but some people say you need to do it because it is “tradition” or what has been done in the past. If it doesn’t align with the overall heart of the day, it can go. I hope that is an exciting thought. Make your day YOUR day. If you do that, it’ll be so much easier to leave the stress behind and to just be present for every moment.
Now, during the planning process, your entire tik tok and instagram will be wedding content. It might give you some fun ideas and some great tips, but I urge you to be careful. It is so easy to fall into doing trendy things for reasons that aren’t intentional and it is easy to compare your journey or your wedding day experience with others. I want to go back to what I mentioned earlier about perspective. I want you to know (even though you might already know this) that those videos that you are seeing are almost always biased. They are generally only showing the most beautiful things and best moments on a wedding day. They don’t usually show any family drama, stress leading up to a first look, the fact that they were an hour behind schedule and just trying to keep up and so many other things that I have seen on wedding days. You get to see what that person, videographer, photographer or planner wants you to see. They are shaping the perspective and presenting a story and message to you with every piece of content you consume. I don’t think that this is necessarily a bad thing at the surface, but it can become super toxic if you are consuming this sort of content all the time. Your day will have so many sweet moments, but it will also probably have some stressful ones. My encouragement to you is to not let the little things bother you and to just be as present as you can be because this day only happens once. Don’t worry about what other people think or if something isn’t going a hundred percent according to plan and just take on every conversation, every big moment, and all the little things one at a time. That is much harder said than done, but if you can do that, you’ll be thanking yourself for the rest of your life.
In order to have a calming atmosphere on your wedding day, you have to do the work to mentally prepare yourself beforehand. Everything that I mentioned above is super important going into the wedding day, but how to truly create a day that flows well and is stress free? I have an entire blog just about timelines and the best way in my opinion to do them and this helps, but having a worry free day is also a mental thing. I am not saying you aren’t going to be at least a little nervous. That is a good thing and something that I don’t think we want to get rid of. We just want to address those things keeping you at night. These worries are different for every person, but I think it is super important to trust that what will happen is meant to happen. I know that is kind of vague and might not be the most assuring thing, but it is true. Do everything you can to be fully prepared, trust in your vendors and the people around you making sure everything goes smoothly, and have confidence that if something happens that you weren’t anticipating, it is okay because it is supposed to happen that way. I do my best to talk through the things that are keeping my couples up at night and address those head on, but after all of that, this is always my best piece of advice that I give them.
So, if nothing else, I hope this got you thinking. I hope this was a form of encouragement for you. You got this and if anything gets too overwhelming or stressful, don’t forget to keep going on fun dates with your person even in this time of so much business because it will always remind you of why you are doing all of this in the first place.