Let’s face it. Wedding days are one of the most exciting, chaotic, stressful, emotional days of your life. You’ve spent months and months (if not years), planning it, and you want to make sure that it goes off without a hitch. What’s the best way to do that? Here are some of our suggestions after 10 years photographing weddings, and feedback from our clients, that we think are the top contenders.

Tips for a Smooth Wedding Day

1. Hire Experienced Professionals

Have you ever heard one of your friends say, I wish I would have spent a little bit more to hire a professional? Listen to their words of wisdom. They’ve been there, done that, and would probably do just about anything to be able to re-do that single part of their day.Trust us on this one. You want to work with people that have experienced multiple wedding days. Why? No matter what comes up they’ve either already anticipated it, or can immediately react and come up with a back-up plan. And they’ll be able to better guide you from the start your planning process, all the way through the end of your reception so that you can have a rock-star, no stress, wedding day without having to worry about how to handle all of the little things.

2. Get Your Wedding Party on Board

Don’t want the guys drinking before your ceremony? Give them something else to do that’s fun instead.  On the morning of Lauren and David’s wedding, Lauren didn’t want all of the groomsmen, or her groom, drinking heavily before the ceremony. Especially since they were having an outside ceremony where they would be standing in the hot sun. Instead of sitting around in their hotel room drinking, David and his buddies went golfing. The perfect stress-reliever to start off his wedding morning!

3. Family Photo Sessions

Before your wedding day work with your photographer to make sure they’ve got all the people you want a “formal” photo with. This will help make sure you don’t spend hours taking family photos when you would rather be celebrating with your wedding party. For years we’ve worked with couples to put together their family list. This came in handy, especially for Jennifer and Neal’s wedding day. Jennifer’s mom is one of 11 siblings, and her dad is one of 12. Getting each side of their entire family into one photo was something that was really, really important to them both. Since we knew what to expect and how many people we would be working with, Jennifer and Neal made it a breeze for us to help them make sure this happened.

4. Delegate the Details

Would you believe that we’ve arrived on a wedding morning and had a bride hand-painting her place cards for her reception? It happened. And while it was something that we all laughed about at the time to make her feel better, it caused her so much un-needed stress on her wedding day! Delegate the details, friends! We know, we know. Easier said than done. And we completely get it. Wedding planning is hard and there are SO MANY details to think about!  Do your best to rely on your friends and family in the weeks leading up to your wedding to get your to-do list done so you can really focus on and enjoy your wedding day.

5. Hire a Wedding Planner

Hiring a wedding planner is something that Jamie and Paul were so glad they did. Not only did Jessica and her team from Hitched help with all of the moving pieces and parts on their big day, but they did so much more. Jessica and her team worked with Jamie to help make all of her ideas and visions come together for a beautiful, cohesive, stress-free wedding day that Jamie and Paul absolutely loved.

You would be amazed at all of the little things wedding planners are pros at. Everything from making sure your day runs on time, to making sure that everything is set up, that all of your vendors are paid and on the same page so you can enjoy yourself. Even just being AMAZING emotional support and someone that you know you can count on. If you can’t hire a planner, ask a responsible aunt or cousin to step in and help out with timeline and organizing people so it’s not something you have to worry about.

6. Make Sure your Groom Knows What’s Up

Just imagine. Sitting down to open a gift from your groom on your wedding morning. Your family and friends are watching in excitement as you pull a small, velvet box out of a gift bag. With excitement you open it up. What’s inside? A poker chip with your face on it. Meanwhile, your groom is opening his gift of the watch he’s had his eye on for years. (We promise this is a true story – we’re not making it up!)

As much as we like to think that they’ll read our minds and surprise us with a lovely, heart-felt note or the diamond earrings we’ve been dreaming of on the morning of our wedding, oftentimes they don’t even think about it. Unless you bring it up. Are you giving him a gift? Make sure he knows so he’ll know he needs to find something for you too. And don’t be afraid to drop hints!

7. Location, Location, Location

Kayla and Mack made things so easy for their wedding party. Instead of riding all over the city on a bus, they just asked them to go across the street for wedding party photos. As a result, these two got so many different options and such a wide variety of images, and their wedding party wasn’t beat from running all over the place!

Something to think about on your wedding day is what you really want from your photos. What style you’re drawn to, and also what you have time for. It may not be physically possible to hit up all of the hot spots in 2 hours on your wedding day. Especially, if you need to find time for a bathroom break for all 15 of your bridesmaids and need to stop to get food for everyone. Talk it over with your fiancé to figure out what you really want and are drawn to and pick one, maybe two. You’ll get so many more photos and the quality will be so much better than if you’re running all over the city trying to hit them all up. If you really, really want more than 1-2 locations on your wedding day consider doing a day-after wedding session!

8. HYDRATE

 Trust us. We’ve had to stop wedding party photos before because the bride’s brother so much in such a short time in the heat that he couldn’t stand up, and had to go throw-up in the bushes. Not a fun thing for anyone on the wedding day to handle. We get it, you want to (and should) celebrate all day long. But, one thing that we’ve seen happen too many times over the years is that our couples don’t pack enough water to supplement that alcohol. The truth is, when it’s 100* outside and you’ve been celebrating on the bus for 20 minutes with all the champagne, that heat is going to hit you hard. You’ll need plenty of water to balance it out. This way, you can continue to celebrate, still have fun, and actually enjoy yourself instead of being miserably sick all night.