After shooting more than 130 weddings in the past few years, we’re happy to share a few of our TOP TIPS for ensuring you have a stress-free wedding day!

Snacks are a must

If you’re getting married in the summer months, a “not-so-heavy” snack or lunchtime before portraits is always a good idea for you and your bridal party to avoid hungry bellies and passing out! Also never ever lock your knees in the hot summer months, we don’t need you collapsing on us! Always make sure to keep a slight bend in the knee. (this goes for hot ceremonies inside the church too)

Keep a cooler on hand

All you July and August Brides listen up… If it’s going to be hot, a cooler of cold waters and frozen washcloths can help keep a wedding party cool – especially if your men are wearing lots of layers.

Early Bouquet Delivery

Make sure and have your bouquet delivered in time to make an appearance for the detail shots and for your first look. Often they are delivered in water and need to be dried off before use. Having towels handy can help. This is especially true if the girl’s dresses are made of chiffon, which water can stain and leave marks on.

Have them get dressed early!

If you’re planning on having a first look with your bridal party or a parent, they often feel more comfortable being fully dressed in their wedding attire. Also, let’s not kid ourselves here… it looks better in the photos too!

Add “FLUFF TIME”

If your reception is at a separate venue, add some “fluff time”. So that we can run over to the venue to capture it while it’s still “untouched” by guests. Trust me when I say you will want this. I promise! you spent months planning and dreaming this up. You should remember it all set up how you envisioned and planned it those last 9-12 months!

Hide 30 minutes before

We always recommend the bride go into hiding 30 minutes before the ceremony at the absolute latest. Guests typically arrive early to weddings and if you don’t want to be seen this is a must! Also, this will give you time to do last-minute touch-ups without feeling rushed.

Family Portrait List

To help make family portraits go smoother, it’s best to have a breakdown of what portraits you’d like. We recommend both sides of the family have a chance to have their input on what portraits they’d like before the wedding. That way there is no confusion during portrait time. Then supply your photographer with a list ahead of time. They can go over it and make sure they shoot things in an order that is efficient and won’t leave anyone out. This way you ensure you are getting all the images you will want later. We always bring our handy dandy clipboard just for this! Bring on the family!

GO TO YOUR COCKTAIL HOUR!

Cocktail hour is a great time to grab those photos of friends and extended family you didn’t grab after the ceremony. Everyone is usually relaxed and it makes a great time without interrupting the day to get photos with all those people that came to celebrate with you, that aren’t a part of the immediate families. Once the party starts and dancing begins grabbing guests for photos is virtually impossible.

Have a tentative timeline for your wedding day photography

We always work on a rough draft photo timeline with each of our couples to ensure the wedding day goes smoothly and everyone has an idea of the flow of the day. Photo timelines can be very different than your day-of timeline so we always recommend chatting with your photographer to get the rundown of how you want the day to flow. This will ensure 0 stress and tons of time for the most important photos.

We hope that these 9 tips helped you out a bit in your wedding planning. Since we are planners by nature we have an awesome bridal planning guide for all of our amazing SRS brides. It details all things wedding planning from timelines, to engagements, to wedding day prep to image delivery. Want to learn more or get your hands on our VIP planning guide. Send us a message and we are happy to send it over!