— you do you —

Countless hours go into planning a wedding to make sure the day is memorable and executed efficiently. Here’s the reality: weddings are weird, full of traditions you’d never do on a normal day, like feeding each other cake, dancing alone on a dance floor with everyone staring at you, pulling off lingerie to throw at people. Up until the moment it happens, these events live as perfect little line items on orderly timelines and meticulous spreadsheets.

With all the planning, checklists, “things you must do on your wedding day” guides, mom/sister/bridesmaid/planner suggestions, you can easily forget that each of those line items is going to be a living, breathing moment that you actually have to be in.

On top of that, your guests will be there waiting with their phones while your photographers and videographers stand by to document it all.

There is nothing we love more than witnessing people doing things they love on their wedding day. It does not matter what it is they are doing; if they are here for it, so are we.

More often than not, when someone is doing something they don’t want to do on their wedding day, it’s simply because they didn’t take the time to think about whether they actually wanted to.

So here are some things to consider when planning your wedding to ensure you don’t end up doing a whole bunch of things you don’t want to:

1) Imagine yourself in the moment

Close your eyes and put yourself in the room, physically doing the thing the line items say. What does it feel like to cut a cake with 250 people looking at you? How does it feel to leave your cocktail hour to take sunset photos? Imagine what it will feel like and decide whether or not it’s an experience you want to encounter. 

2) consider your personality

Take into account whether you are an introvert or extrovert and make decisions that reflect that. If the thought of eating dinner with your guests overwhelms you, consider eating a meal off to the side with just each other. If you thrive on one-on-one interaction with people, how can you slot in time to make those connections?

3) who told you that you had to

There are innumerable outside pressures when planning a wedding. Inevitably, there will be cultural and/or familial traditions that may influence your decision to do something, even if you don’t want to. We believe those types of pressures hold far more weight than society or industry pressures. Did Pinterest tell you have to take this photo standing in this exact way? Did the wedding blog or some other photographer say you MUST do a first look? Did Instagram/Pinterest/Wedding Blog show you the “right way” to do x, y, z? Did your coordinator fight to convince you it would be better if you did it this way, even though your heart says otherwise? Who influenced you to put that line item on your spreadsheet and how much weight do they hold in the reality of what that moment will feel like when it is actually executed?

4) What are you giving up?

Most weddings are a constant dance of give and take. If you are taking portraits during sunset, you are not spending as much time with your guests at cocktail hour. Why are you driving around to five different photo locations in a party bus, when you’d rather take your bridal party photos at one location and spend the rest of the time hanging at a bar? Consider what you are giving up in order to do something you would rather not. Is what you are not going to experience during that time worth it?

5) do you really want to?

If you’ve been wanting to do a bouquet toss since you were 10 but the DJ said they’re tacky, do it anyway. If all your friends did a first look but you’ve been dreaming of the moment you see your spouse walking down the aisle, do it your way. If you really want to skip the cake cutting because you don’t care and don’t get why people do it anyway, skip it and put your focus on what you actually care about. Instead of doing whatever line items weddings are supposed to have, start with the ones you really want and go from there.