Everything Wedding…

I’ve previously provided tips and suggestions for brides and photographers to generate discussion. Who ever said a blog was easy! I thought I’d try something a little more controversial this time.
I have in the past offered wedding packages that included an album, in fact, all of them. Allow me a brief flashback to a woman who had been married 17 years prior to our meeting, and was looking for someone to put together a wedding album. At the time she was married her and her husband could not afford a wedding album. Life being what it is she put it off even after they could. 17 years later she had 45 prints of assorted sizes she had purchased in the hope of putting together her own album, stuck into a manila envelope. The photographer had long since passed away, and along with him, all of his work, and what she had in that envelope was of course all she had. I helped her out even though they weren’t my images, being who I am, but the experience convinced me a bride should have an album. What has continually amazed me is how difficult this is.
I know there are photographers who provide an album with little to no input from the bride and groom. There is merit to this approach, but suffice it to say I have believed the bride and groom (OK, the bride) should have some say in the images that appear in the album. All I ask is that the bride select an appropriate grouping of images to include/select from. I’ll design a straw album using those images, and we can use the straw album to arrive at a final design with a little back and forth. These days, this can easily all be done online. And yet the average time to get to the design phase is three years from the wedding date! As I said, life being what it is… I can think of no other profession where a client makes a purchase (the album is already paid for) and then says I’ll pick it up in three years!
For the photographers out there, the business implications are obvious. First, you’re collecting income without the expected disbursement (supplies, labor, etc.), with the associated tax penalty. Second, pricing structures change over time, and the supplies, labor or other expenses involved in producing the product increase during the interim – your expenses may exceed your initial calculation when you priced the package. Third, when you are finally contacted, you are in the middle of your present clients’ work, and you try to fit it in when you can.
For the brides, consider this. As in the true story above, disaster can strike. Hard drives melt, computers crash, files corrupt, floods, fires, tornados, and a myriad of other eventualities occur. Why tempt fate?

Planning your wedding is a tremendous undertaking that represents the largest single gathering most people will organize in their lives. You know about cakes and clothing, gowns and footwear.  But when it comes to actually mapping out how your wedding day will flow, experience fails.  Some develop pages of minute-to-minute lists, while at the other end of the scale others wing it completely.  The single largest omission I see is not adequately planning for how long it takes to accomplish seemingly simple maneuvers.  Let me provide the following example.  You plan for the ceremony to end at 2:00 in the afternoon.  You’re having a receiving line, you budget 15 minutes for that, 30 minutes for family pictures and 15 minutes to drive to the reception venue.  It sounds reasonable and you produce a timeline that looks like the following:

            2:00     Receiving line

            2:15     Family pictures

            2:45     Leave church for reception

            3:00     Cocktail hour

            4:00     Arrive at reception.

What you’ve forgotten is how long it might take to actually perform each of those activities and the amount of time needed between the activities.  Let’s explore your timeline more closely.  Remember, we assumed the ceremony ended promptly at 2:00.  This may vary, but let’s keep that assumption.  You’ve recessed down the aisle with your wedding party right behind you.  Hey, you just got married, and believe it, there’s a tremendous release of emotion.  All the planning, the waiting and the anxiety – released.  Your bridesmaids and groomsmen are congratulating you as your guests line up.  Wait. With all the congratulating, you’ve burned up 5 minutes (or more), and your receiving line budget is down to ten minutes.  In fact, it took 1 minute for you and your wedding party just to recess, so you’re really down to 9 minutes.  More than that, as the reception line winds through you find you’ve misjudged.  You’ve got 120 guests at the church, and it’s looking like your receiving line is more like at least 30 minutes, what with having the entire wedding party receiving.  So now its 2:36, the receiving line is done and you’re ready for the family pictures.  Or not.  The first task is to round up the wedding party and family and get them to the front of the church.  No easy task.  The best man went out for a smoke, Uncle Jack went to the rest room, Aunt Audrey went to find a drink of water, and everyone is in conversations with everyone else. Realistically, figure at least 10 minutes just to round everyone up and get them up front.  The clock now reads 2:46 and you’re supposed to be leaving for the reception!  Now the pressure’s on.  Everyone’s antsy to get to the reception as your photographer starts the family pictures.  OK, what happened to the best man and the groom/husband?  Do we wait?  Do we skip and come back?   The family pictures that were going to take 30 minutes are now dragging out to 45 minutes as you hunt down the missing participants.  The wedding party is chomping at the bit to get to the reception, Uncle Jack and Aunt Audrey are not so quietly wondering why it’s taking so long, the limo driver is watching the clock because he’s got another gig in 30 minutes and you’re exhausted in your 10 pound dress with an 80 degree church and no food.  Finally, it’s done.  It’s 3:31 and you’re 30 minutes late for the cocktail hour.  It takes you 5 minutes to get everything picked up and into the limo, it’s now about 20 minutes to 4:00 and you know under the best of traffic conditions it’s going to take you 15 minutes to get to the reception venue.  Even though you had planned with the photographer to stop at Sunshine Park on the way to the reception, you’re out of time and decide to go directly to the Reception.

The story you’ve just read is true – only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.  And this was just one small portion of the day.

What happened?  Simple.  The timeline, while sounding good on paper, didn’t reflect reality

It’s OK to have a timeline – you should have a timeline, but remember these basic truisms:

1.  nothing happens instantaneously.  Build enough extra time into your schedule to absorb the transition from one activity to another. 

2.  directing people is much like herding cats;

3.  nothing goes exactly according to plan.  Plan for the unplanned.  Your timeline may seem proper in the cold light of your planning 6 months before your wedding, but unless you’re a drill sergeant, your wedding day may be nothing short of mildly controlled chaos;

4.  if your timeline is segregated in 5 minute intervals, throw it out; 

5.  there are some things you just can’t control. Accept it and relax;

6.  listen to your vendors.  They’ve been through it a hundred, a thousand times.