As I wrapped up the previous post, I said the next one was optional for some people, hence why I kept it for last. In reality, photography in general is probably not optional, everyone wants some mementos. But there are FIVE big questions you will have to decide when it comes to photography.

A. Professional or not?

Picture this scenario. You’ve just spent six months planning what is likely the biggest event of your life. It probably comes third behind buying a house or buying a car in terms of the total cost, but maybe even second if you’ve never bought a NEW car. And the amount of work you put into it is way above the research you likely did on houses or cars. It’s BIG. And it all takes place in a single day. No rewind. No take-backs. No do-overs. We’re live, baby.

In 5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

Action!

And when that action is happening, who is taking photos for YOU?

Because you know you want some good photos to remember the day forever, to capture some of the moments. And YOU’RE not taking the photos, you’re busy. Your closest family isn’t taking the photo either, because they’re probably in a lot of them. So who are you asking to take the photos?

Sure, you can ask an extended family member or a close friend. They may be good, they may even be talented, but they’re probably not trained to do it. They may never have even done a wedding before. Are you really asking them and trusting them to get it right the first time they try it?

I know, I know exactly what you’re thinking. Well, it’s all digital now, right? Take a pic, if it isn’t great, take it again, right? Simple. But here’s my two cents…if you think just anybody can take the photos, and you’ll be happy with them, then you have decided two things:

1) The camera must be doing all the work; and,

2) The amount of money you spend on a photographer is not related to the amount you spent on the rest of the day (i.e. you’re really treating it as a separate expense, it’s not part of the rest of your investment for the day, hence optional).

For me, it was a no-brainer. I wanted a professional photographer because I know the camera doesn’t do all the work and the photography expense was part of my investment in the day. They went hand-in-hand.

Now, if you’re not sold on going the professional route, that’s your call. I would recommend against it, but your wedding, your choices. I will give you a couple of other points to think about before you decide. First, remember too that you are putting a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of someone else to take the photos. What if the photo of great grandma Bertie doesn’t turn out that well, and that was a KEY photo for you? What if they are so excited and nervous, they mess up big time and get hardly anything? You’re probably not paying them much, if anything, so you’ll get what you pay for…but are you willing to put that weight on a friend or family member? If you remember back to when I wrote about the cakes, we wanted something simple, just a simple cake made by a friend. Didn’t care about icing, or wording, or pictures, or anything. It would just mean something because it was made by a friend (plus it would be REALLY tasty hehehe). She was worried that if it didn’t turn out, it would ruin our day, which was completely the opposite of what we wanted. Nevertheless, she went WAY above and beyond what we were asking or hoping for…but she didn’t get much chance to relax for the day. And she missed the ceremony, which I feel guilty about…so remember that you are asking them to WORK your wedding. Which might be fun for about 30 minutes, and then after that, it is just plain work.

Second, you aren’t paying someone to take photos. You’re paying someone to capture the right photos with the right exposure and lighting, and to do so while staying as unobtrusive as possible. To fade into the background if possible. Obviously, they don’t when they’re taking posed shots, but our photographer took pictures during the ceremony and I was only vaguely aware of him. Equally, there is a shot of me with my mother getting ready, and I have no real memory of the photographer being around to take it. There is an art to taking photos without being in everyone’s face while they’re doing it, and inexperienced people rarely have it.

Third, if you are thinking of going this other route, do a dry run of sorts. Get a few of your wedding party together one weekend with your family member or friend, or whoever is going to take the shots at the wedding, go to a venue on a nice day, and take about an hour’s worth of photos. These are the EASIEST photos to take as they are posed. Everyone knows to look at the camera. Everyone knows when the photo is being taken. No chance of a candid shot catching someone at a bad angle. Then look at the photos and decide — are they “good enough”? Do they have good lighting? Are they, for lack of a better benchmark, the best photos you have ever had taken of you? A good photographer will give you good shots, regardless of your clothing or setting. They’ll make it work.

What do the photographers often have to contend with? A pressure-filled situation, dealing with Bridezilla and Groomzilla and their extended family, wrangling them all together, getting them to listen, and being able to decide on the fly between three different lenses, two different settings, and choice of lighting equipment to make it all work. To get it right the first time, cuz we’re LIVE, baby!

Often, experienced photographers have already dealt with contentious family issues too. Like, for instance, the parents are divorced, dad brought some skank that he left the mom for, mom is there with her boyfriend of the week, there are extra kids involved, and someone wants “the family photo”…experienced photographers know what to ask in advance, and then mix and mingle people at the session to both ensure the bride and groom get the photos THEY want, without starting a family war. People are being rotated in and out quickly, aren’t sure which one is supposed to be “the” big photo, and thus aren’t fighting to be in it themselves while keeping someone else out. Equally, an experienced photographer knows how to deal with the slightly larger bridesmaid who doesn’t look quite as comfortable in sunshine yellow as the three size 2 bridesmaids beside her, and to help them feel both comfortable at the time and welcoming of the photos afterward. I’m a larger guy, and the thought of 1500 pictures of me is borderline dread-inducing. But it’s a wedding, everyone will be taking shots of my new wife and I’m supposed to be in most of them. Like an accessory. Know what? The posed ones that the photographer took are ones I even LIKE, and I almost never like photos of myself. For instance, I have (at least) a double chin because of my size and body shape. So head shots are not my favorite thing either. Yet, as an experienced photographer, he knew that the best look for me would be leaning forward, with my head tilted up. Guess which photo is our “wedding photo”?

Okay, that’s the end of my sales pitch for hiring an experienced professional photographer.

Now, for a second, let’s look at the business model for wedding photographers prior to about 2003. Digital wasn’t very sophisticated yet, so the truly high-end photographer was still using film. Which meant they had total and complete control over the entire process. They took the photos. They developed the negatives (or had them developed). Then, they would go through small proofs with you, and you would order your prints from them. Along with books, enlargements, etc. It was basically a complete monopoly in each situation, a monopoly of one-to-one once you chose them. Then digital came along and people started asking for copies. The digital copies. And disruption entered the photo business.

While many photographers hung on to the old business model, others broke it into discrete elements:

1. Fee for working the wedding and reception (hourly or set rate for the day);
2. Fee for basic development of a “core” set of prints, including some retouching;
3. Fee for providing copies of some set number of e-prints, often in limited quality for format (i.e. low res for web, not good enough to blow up or do 8x10s);
4. Fees for providing other levels of quality of prints; and,
5. Fees for printing certain books or “photo” sets.

Basically, they created an “a la carte” menu, but if you wanted the same as traditional, you would just take a+b+e. It could add up quickly though, and it really didn’t meet my needs/desires. I was looking for other business models.

A friend of ours had found a photographer for their wedding by advertising at the local college in their photography program for someone who was looking for more experience, a set price for (a) above, and all the digital prints would go to the couple. Worked out for them, but it’s also a bit of a risk — what if the budding photographer screws up, because they’re not that experienced? Does that matter to you?

It mattered to me. I wanted more experience than that. Plus, not for nothing, every professional photographer out there will tell them (just read the blogs or discussion forums) that trading “exposure” and “practice” for their craft is really bad business for the photographer. It undervalues their output, which is what they’re selling. Some photographers are REALLY quite passionate about it, in the same way people complain about the exploitative nature of unpaid internships. Now, in my friend’s case, the photographer was paid (albeit cheaper than full-time photographer) and did a good job (one photo in particular is contest-quality, in my view), so it was win-win all around. But a bit more risk than I wanted to take. I wanted the best photos I could afford.

In our case, we reached out to three companies. One of them was very traditional. They would give us low-res photos for our website, but only a small number, and not good enough for even printing 4×6″ prints; everything else would reside with them, and if we wanted to print books or prints for anyone, we would have to go through them and pay the relatively extortionate prices that they all charge for that end of the business.

A second company was a bit more digital, and people would be able to view and order prints online, but again, we could have SOME prints electronically, but not very many. Most would reside with the company and if we wanted more prints ten years from now, we would go through them. All rights rest with them, and to ensure it, they hold all the files.

We kept poking around, and a friend of ours who had been married a couple of years before gave me the name of his guy. Bill was a retired press photographer, and while he liked working as a photographer, he had no real interest in controlling all the production factors for printing. Lucrative, but not the business model he wanted to spend time managing.

Instead, he charged us an upfront fee for the day to take all the photos, a combined rate to give us some basic retouching electronically, and about 1500 photos or so for us for the day. Full digital images, including the RAW image for about 500. He’d basically go through and weed out where he had, say, four copies of the same pose, or where one of the people was squinting or picking their nose for example. But everything else? It was all ours. He even offered to hook us up with some of the high-end printers, if we wanted to, but he noted that most people just used regular retail sites like Black’s to do their prints. No one else even came close to that kind of deal. So he was basically offering us (a) + (b) above, with complete copies of the e-versions and we could do what we liked with them.

And since I was adamant I wanted digital copies of everything so we could reprint at any time we wanted, and didn’t want to be locked into a supplier for life, it was an easy choice of the three.

I confess I had a bias against the previous model. Back when my father retired some 20 years before, my siblings and I got together and had some group photos taken. It was all film-based, we got some proofs, and we did a large blow-up of the best of the bunch. We could have ordered more stuff individually, and we all thought about it but never got around to it. Fast-forward about 10 years, and my father had passed away. I was interested in getting a set of pics made for each of us, and I tried to reach out to the photographer. Guess what? He wasn’t a photographer anymore. Sure, he had tons of boxes of photos and negatives sitting in his basement, a flooding disaster waiting to happen, and there were no backups. He wasn’t even sure how long it would take to find them. I was asking him about buying the whole set — proofs and negatives — and he didn’t really want to sell me the negatives. So, in the end, I cheated. I just scanned the proofs I had. I didn’t want big blow-ups anyway, so scanning was fine for my purposes. I’d rather have had control of the negatives for the future, but well, that wasn’t his business model. So when it came time for our wedding, I wanted full digital versions both for archival purposes AND to be able to put them on the web or print at will. Am I likely to print often? Of course not. But I paid for the photos to be taken…I wanted the flexibility to be able to control what I did with them later. I couldn’t enter them in contests or anything, or sell them, they weren’t “fully” mine, but they were fully licensed to me for our use.

B. Video

Originally, when people started offering videography for weddings, it was a bit hit-and-miss in my view. At the low-end, it could look like the movie, The Blair Witch Project, with shaky handheld cameras and rapid cuts. In the middle, people would take modest quality cameras and put them on tripods with a “set” view for the ceremony, speeches, and most promisingly, the first few dances. I have a video camera, and I shot video of my brother’s wedding and it isn’t bad, but far from professional. I also used our little hand-held camera to capture my sister-in-law’s ceremony and first dance, and it is good for the ceremony (a bit basic), but looks BAD for the first dances due to low-light conditions. I used the same camera at my wife’s friend’s wedding, same time-frame as our own wedding, and I had to edit the ceremony and dance videos to even make them VISIBLE due to similarly low light. Okay as a souvenir, but not ideal. At the high-end, people were walking around with the cameras you see camera crews doing roadside interviews or weather reports with, which isn’t surprising since often they were the same cameramen using borrowed equipment from the TV station.

Fast-forward 10-15 years, and you have huge growth in video due to the high-quality you can get from cellphones now. And so videographers have had to up their game. The big trend is the use of GoPro on small stands (easy to get closer to the action) and, wait for it…drones. Of course, drones only make sense if you have a venue that includes an outside component that will benefit from a birds-eye view. You might try flying a small drone in a church during the ceremony, but it’s a recipe for disaster and distracting, plus the Minister will likely freak on you. But it can be quite impressive.

Personally, I think a lot of the smaller cameras now make the “added” value of professional videography a lot lower. It’s hard to do it unobtrusively as the big cameras come with huge lighting options, but if you can get close with a cellphone, or a stand-alone DSLR, why not? Some of the DSLRs will even shoot in HD and even 4K. Way overkill for what you need, but if all you’re doing is putting it on a tripod somewhere and letting it run for awhile, that’s not rocket science and may not be worth the larger cost to have it done professionally. Just personal preference though — it wouldn’t be worth it to me, I’m fine with the photos.

C. Venues

One of the benefits you frequently get with a professional photographer from the area is knowledge of all the different venues around…ones that look good in early morning or late afternoon, ones that are great in case of rain, ones that aren’t 20 couples all lined up waiting to get in for their shots that day (there’s an arboretum in Ottawa that looks like Grand Central Station on Saturday afternoons in July — there are BRIDES and GROOMS everywhere!).

We did a few impromptu shots near our wedding venue, as a block from the site was a place my wife and I considered our “corner”. When we were first dating, we both lived in the same neighbourhood. I lived on Nelson Street, she lived on Besserer. If we were going somewhere, maybe out for dinner or just over to the market or the mall, we would meet “at the corner” — i.e. Nelson at Besserer. It was about the same distance from both our places and en route to commercial areas, so it was a good place to meet. On the way home from work, we’d frequently part there too. Later at night, I’d walk her home, but if we were just commuting, it was “the corner”. So we took some pics there, nothing that really stood out, just for fun.

We then moved on to more formal pics (having done a few at the theatre already) to a site that is actually under a bridge in the downtown on a walkway. I know, I know, you’re thinking, “Under a bridge?”. Partly why it is popular with certain photographers is that it isn’t super busy, and the backdrop is cool. But more importantly, it’s also covered (i.e. dry) with lots of natural light coming from the sides. I was a bit doubtful at the start, but it turned out great. Plus, we did some shots at the boat with various configurations at the bow of the boat.

D. Photo checklist

So, one of the first “planning” questions that you will get asked by the photographer is if you have your “list” of desired shots. They’ll take lots, they’ll have ideas of their own, etc., but do you have a “set” playlist so-to-speak of your greatest hits? There are obvious ones:

• Bride and groom;
• With parents, alone and together;
• With both sets of parents;
• With siblings, etc.

And so you’ll likely come up with 20 or so “must-haves”. And a good photographer will keep that list handy, ticking them off as they go, although it will be interspersed throughout the day. You may, for example, decide that you REALLY want a good shot of you dancing with your great grandfather, and that will happen near the end of the day. But you may also want some of you getting ready, and that should be on your list.

I sort of screwed up on our list. We had the standard shots that we wanted, and since we don’t have multiple sets of parents with extra spouses running around, there was no family drama to work around in that sense. So we wanted shots of us, shots of us with our families, shots of our friends (mostly candid), and shots of some of the milling around at the ceremony / reception / etc. (all candids). For formal stuff, we wanted Andrea getting ready, me getting ready (an addon), the ceremony, after shots at the theatre, shots at our corner, formal posed shots with the wedding party and parents, and some posed shots at the boat. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. We didn’t do a shot-by-shot list, and often those are discouraged anyway as they get a bit pedantic at the loss of spontaneity. The photographer worries about it, you should not be during the big day.

How did I screw up? I oversimplified something. Let me show the progression:

Andrea getting ready:

Pre-ceremony i.e. me getting ready:

The main ceremony:

Post-ceremony “meet the couple”:

Formal pose at the theatre:

Under the bridge:

Now, if you look at that last photo, you’ll see a small, well, imbalance I guess. Andrea and I, check. Her parents (in between us), the maid of honour in blue (her sister, plus her husband up tall and her daughter), her grandfather and my mother. Or, put differently two from “my side” of the family and six from “her side”. We didn’t try to take all my siblings for these photos, as we would catch them later at the boat.

And that’s where I made my error. I said, “Okay, check, we have Andrea’s family covered, now we need to make sure my family is covered”. Except, we didn’t have ALL of Andrea’s family covered, we only had immediate family. I had over-simplified in my head. We went off to the boat, did a bunch of photos at the front of the boat. Mostly with my family. Andrea with her new brothers-in-law, my mother with her grandchildren, different siblings and their families with and without us, all the new sisters-in-law together.

The photographer was up on the dock, looking down and snapping away:

For my family, they are some of the best photos I have ever seen of us, partly as it had been so long since we did that kind of posing with all of us. The one with my brothers? Awesome.

We were starting to run a bit low on time. All those photos and milling about were taking precious minutes. I passed by one of my new cousins, and she asked if it was time for them yet. And in my head, even that question wasn’t enough to trigger a re-consideration. I had in my head “Okay, we have all the photos of Andrea’s family plus now my family, soon it will be time to do all the friends and guests at once.” I didn’t even twig to the idea of Andrea with all her extended family. We would love to have photos of her with her cousins, great aunt and grandfather, aunts and uncles, etc. And because I had checked off the “Andrea and family” box, at least mentally, we moved on to the “friends” photo.

A better checklist would have solved that problem. And, to be honest, that’s also not on the photographer. Bill was up on the dock, we couldn’t even communicate very well, he had no idea who we were rotating in and out, he was just snapping away for us. At the end, I would have said quite confidently we had “everything”. Sigh.

Now, here’s a small question-mark. How long would you want your formal photographer to be around? Most suggest they stay until dinner and then bail. Why? Because they’re being paid by the hour (or a set rate for the day), and that day is getting pretty long for them. They were working while the bride was getting ready, as early as 11:00 for us and well nigh on to 6:00. We wanted him to keep doing candids and the first dance, which created a small wrinkle. Once he was on the boat, it wouldn’t be easy for him to just “hop off” and go home. So we arranged for the boat to dock early (after dinner, after some dancing) so he plus a few others could “escape” for the night. Then we danced some more and called it a night. While some parties routinely go until 2:00 or 3:00, ours was over in advance of midnight. I’m a bit disappointed with some of our dance photos, but it was also a difficult lighting situation and we didn’t want to lug all that extra equipment around on the boat too. Good enough, sure, but a little more difficult than it would have been if we were at a traditional venue.

Oh, and by the way? If the photographer is working through dinner, it’s kind of a good practice to feed him or her. 🙂

E. What and how are you printing?

Back in the pre-digital days, your choices for printing were rather limited. You went with a photographer and they would have a predetermined set of printing options — a big book for you, some smaller books for the parents, and options for producing individual prints for lots of people. All with extortionate mark-up rates.

Now, you have a plethora of choices. There are tons of sites out there with basic photobook options — not photo albums where you insert photos, but actually printed books based on what you upload. And almost all of them come with some pre-set wedding themes and mockups to use as well as an option to let THEM design it for about $10-$20 more. Or you can go with ones that are specially-focused on wedding photobooks. It’s all a bit DIY, and you may be better off letting someone else design it for you if you know someone good who won’t ask for your first-born child as payment. Again, there’s some choice involved.

Or you can just print a bunch of photos and stick them in photo albums.

Extras

I will also mention a few other things to consider as you’re working through your photography needs.

1. Ask those extra amateurs to take a whack of extra photos and share them with you. We had a nephew, niece and family friend all taking lots of extra shots and they gave us the e-versions. One of my favorite photos from the boat — a semi-posed shot — is actually from the friend, not the formal photographer who was shooting right next to her. His are good, but just for timing of shutter snaps, his missed part of our smile and hers was perfectly timed.

The same family friend also thinks it is a great “gift” to give to the couple — copies of the photos from the wedding, sometimes even before a professional photographer has shared any.

2. It isn’t really required anymore since so many people have smartphones, but some couples will put small special cameras (like pinhole cameras or just small digital ones) on each table and ask the guests to fill up the memory card through-out the night. My experience is that there are interesting ones where you see people interacting who only met through the wedding — like your high school best friend talking to your wife’s grandfather — but the overall “benefit” of the photos is a bit low to justify the expense.

Instead, give people a URL or have them share on FB, say ten photos they take at the wedding with their smartphone. Turn it into a small challenge. Tell them too that the bride and groom CAN’T be in any of them to make sure they get all the candid ones of the crowd.

3. Plan ahead to use your photos in multiple ways. Lots of people get their shots, share a few on FB, print a brag book for the parents and a souvenir book for themselves, and they’re done. Not me. I’ve done the books. I printed some smaller prints for souvenir frames for the wedding party and parents. I put them on my gallery website. I re-used them to produce a calendar for my wife, with all 12 months having shots from throughout the whole six months of experience planning and having the wedding. I copied them over to a digital photo frame so they can run randomly. Some people do mugs, or puzzles, or handbags, or notebooks, or fridge magnets. Maybe NONE of those things appeal to you, but I bet you can think of some other use besides just photo albums.

4. Find something creative to do for the photos when they’re being taken. There are lots of shots out there on the web where people have pretended they were running from something, and the photographer photoshopped in Godzilla. Or there’s the somewhat overused photo booth idea. If you can, find something meaningful to you. I even just loved the rocks in our formal pics as props. I’ve seen some great shots online where people took pics in classic hotel lobbies or lounge rooms with a bunch of different heights, and an old-fashioned filter added to the shots. Throw in a couple of props like gin bottles and Tommy-guns, and you have something fun and different. Don’t go crazy and try to have everyone in a giant tree, but you can do something other than the standard everyone in a row.

Just saying…

And that’s what we did. We organized our wedding in six months, and even though people told us we were crazy, everything we “needed” worked out. A few compromises here and there, but nothing that was a deal-breaker for us. We just had to remember that inflexibility in one area (six month window) meant we had to be flexible elsewhere (venues).

Even though you are planning the biggest party of your life in six months, even though you have lots of other things to do to, it isn’t like life just stops because you’re getting married, you still have to go to work, walk the dog, maybe take the kids to daycare, whatever, no matter that you have all this going on, people are going to throw MORE parties for you.

Engagement parties.

Wedding showers.

Bachelor parties.

Bachelorette parties.

Rehearsal dinners (although you might do that yourself).

Post-wedding brunch (again, you might organize that yourself).

Parties upon parties upon parties. And the important thing is that the parties are not about you. They’re not. Someone else wants to throw you a party, and your role is to say, “Thank you” and get out of the way. Usually.

Which isn’t to say that you won’t enjoy them, or appreciate them, you will. Yet often it is hard not to think, “But what about the 17 things I was planning to do this week and haven’t gotten to yet? I have to update the tracker on Sunday and I’m way behind!”. Doesn’t matter, there’s a party in your honour, and you’re going.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. What if I’m an introvert? Doesn’t matter. What if I’m busy? Doesn’t matter. What if I just plain don’t like parties? Doesn’t matter. None of that matters. Someone is giving you a gift, and pretty much any response except “thank you” makes you look like an a**hole. Suck it up, buttercup, you started it — you announced the first party, and they’re responding. If you don’t want people being happy for you and celebrating you and your spouse-to-be, elope instead. Trust me, more than once in six months that thought will occur to you.

Are parties really a challenge? Let me put it this way. My wife and I work Monday to Friday, meaning a lot of our “extra” work (like planning a wedding) happens on weekends. Buying this, meeting with that person, etc. Six months to organize it all means 26 weeks, and 26 weekends. You’ll see below we had 1 engagement shower, 1 wedding shower, 1 bachelorette party and 1 bachelor party. Four different weekends. Or roughly 15% of our weekends taken up with parties. That puts it about fourth in the time commitment column for all the items (behind ceremony, reception, and invitations).

Showers and engagement parties are two sides of the same coin, basically. Showers have traditionally been afternoon things, often aimed at women only but often now for both bride and groom, while engagement parties are often evening events for both parties. Showers are often thrown by extended family members, engagement parties are often thrown by parents or friends. But honestly? There’s no real difference. It’s a pre-wedding party, there will likely be cake, gifts, and a toast of some sort from the host, with extended family invited. Particularly perhaps some who might not be mobile enough to travel all the way to the wedding or not “close” enough to make the A-list. And, if there is more than one by different sides of the family, often it is mostly people from that side of the family at one or the other.

My wife and I had the honour of being celebrated twice, once for an engagement party organized by two aunts on my wife’s side and once for a shower hosted by my mother and supported by my siblings. Both featured pandas prominently.

Engagement party:

Wedding shower:

Of course, people insisted upon giving gifts. Some group gifts, some small or individual gifts. And 80% of the people also attended the WEDDING. So again, you feel guilty people are buying you gifts instead of, you know, just joining you for a ceremony and party.

Doesn’t matter, just go with it. It’s not all about you.

The next two parties are often viewed as the more exciting “fun” parties. The Bachelorette and Bachelor parties. So let me talk for a brief minute about these parties, and it applies to both sides. First, they are often left to the bridal party (maid of honour or best man) to arrange and coordinate. Quite common in fact. With lots of possible attendees offering suggestions. Second, the degree of activity is varied. Some are quite simple — golfing, for example. Others are quite sophisticated and elaborate — weekend trip somewhere. Third, they almost always involve a series of activities, not just one thing. Fourth, there is almost always some form of alcohol consumed. And fifth, the honoree usually doesn’t know what the activities will be, exactly, or perhaps not even the date — there’s a surprise element. As a result of the five elements, the party-goers are generally friends, siblings, cousins, etc…parental units are sometimes invited but gently discouraged.

Now, the groups are usually comprised of a wide spectrum of interests and tastes. If I go with the stereotype for males, i.e. bachelor parties, there is one person who is a complete anti-social, anti-fun, stick in the mud. Usually the designated driver. At the opposite end is the frat party wannabe. And somewhere, sometime, someone is going to say, “it’s not a bach-party without strippers”. The presumably funny part is that you’re celebrating your last nights of “freedom” before becoming institutionalized by marriage. And you know, nothing says love and commitment like dancing with naked strangers. If you’re into it, go for it. My point isn’t to slam it, my point is that about 50-60% of the honorees have ZERO interest in having or seeing strippers at all. In fact, their mind is going in the completely opposite direction…a bunch are more like, “Why aren’t we having a buck-and-doe party instead? Partying together with our mutual friends?”. Yet someone is likely to not only suggest it is REQUIRED for the party, but insist upon it quite passionately.

Neither my wife and I are wild partiers. It’s not who we are. She is more open to it than I, I’m the stick-in-the-mud, no fun type. An analytical introvert.

For the bachelorette party, her and her friends decided on going to an aerial park in the afternoon — something a bit adventurous — and then a nice fun dinner in the market. She quite enjoyed her evening, by all accounts. Not that I necessarily know or need to know everything that happened, but I never worry about these things — I trust her to be her. The woman I loved then, the woman I love now, the woman I will love forever.

For the bachelor party, let’s go back to the five things I mentioned above:

• Organized by the best man — I didn’t have one;
• Simple or elaborate — I definitely didn’t want elaborate;
• Series of activities — I’m not super adventurous, so the aerial park type activity wouldn’t be at the top of my list;
• Alcohol consumption — I have little to no interest in being part of or around a drunkfest, so it would have to be more responsible than that; and,
• Surprise — I am not a spontaneous guy.

Okay, let’s face it, I have control issues. The thought of a bunch of guys showing up at my place to go out and do a bunch of things they thought I might like — or not — is kind of horrifying. I wouldn’t enjoy it at all. And while a bunch of idiots out there think, “Oh, it’ll be fine, you’ll relax and have a blast”, the short answer is “no, I won’t”. I’m an introvert, not a wannabe extrovert.

Yet I also didn’t want to completely miss out on the experience. So I organized my own bachelor party (insert pity party here, go on, I’ll wait). Okay, back now? I have always wanted to go golfing with a bunch of my friends and family. So I organized a small outing of what turned out to be about 8-9 of us. Then our intent was to go to this indoor go-kart track in Gatineau, but I had no idea that you needed a reservation for it. Oops. We had plans later for a nice steak dinner at the Keg, and a few of us killed some hours in the middle playing pool and eating unhealthy snacks. It was kind of an ideal party for me. And fortunately, no strippers in sight. Although, of course, the idea was floated somewhere during the day, cuz of course it was a bachelor party. Someone had to propose it (nixed by me).

So you attended the showers and / or engagement parties. You did some bachelor and bachelorette parties. You tracked all the gifts, figured out your schedules, etc. And you’re thinking, “whew, time for the wedding.”

Not quite.

There’s often a rehearsal dinner. So, if you’re getting married in a traditional venue, you probably have access to it the day before (like a church). And the bride-and-groom-to-be go there with the Minister, wedding party, parents, support people and walk through the basic schedule. Who will go down the aisle in what order, blah blah blah. It’s not a rehearsal in the normal sense like a play, it’s a walk-through for the next day so everyone is on the same page. Sometimes it is bland, no big deal. Other times, you suddenly realize that NOBODY IS ESCORTING GRANDMA!!!! And you have to adjust your schedule. Or cousin Bob, who is also the Best Man, didn’t realize he had to greet everyone when they arrive and he thought he would be at the front.

And then you all go for dinner. There are three options for the rehearsal dinner. First, you all go to a restaurant somewhere. Second, someone (often the groom’s parents) will host at their house. Or third, the couple will host themselves at their home. So, restaurant or someone else’s home or your own home.

The best option? On everything except cost and mingling, the restaurant. No muss, no fuss, everyone orders what they want, it’s a relatively set amount of time (say, 90 minutes plus or minus 30 minutes), and then everyone leaves with promise to “see you tomorrow”. Often with the plan to get a good night’s sleep. Sure, it might deteriorate into the wedding party going for drinks somewhere and it runs later, but at least there’s the hope.

Hosting at a parent’s home is an option, but whoever the host is, bear this in mind — they too have a big day the next day with a wedding and a long reception. Do they really want to be hosting a big party and cleaning up afterwards?

We chose to host at our house, which was the stupidest thing ever. Now, don’t get me wrong, the night was fine. It was very informal, which was great, everyone got to mingle, some of my family got to meet some of the extended family, it was nice and relaxed.

The social side was great. But then here’s the problem. When we finished, everybody left, most of them had a big day tomorrow too (as I said) and my wife was going to the hotel for the night with her mother. All good.

Except that left me at the house doing a bunch of clean-up. No big deal, initially, but then I realized that I had more stuff than would fit in one dishwasher load and some didn’t go in the dishwasher anyway. Plus I was going to be essentially gone all the next day, and partly on the Sunday too, and so I couldn’t leave dirty stuff sitting for two days. By the time I was done, I was exhausted. It had been a long couple of weeks doing all the final finishing touches, and then I was up to 1:00 the night before doing dishes. Plus, not for nothing, I had planned to use some of that time printing the final versions of my speech (and truth be told, editing it a bit) and detailed program for the next day. So I had to do that too. It was probably about 2:00 or so before I finally crashed.

All of which would have been avoided if I had really asked myself a simple question…”Do I really want to host a party at my house the night before the biggest day of my life? Does that seem like an effective planning strategy?”.

Last but not least, after doing all those parties, you would think we would be partied out? Apparently not. Often, or at least more recently apparently, there is a next-day brunch. Sort of a casual, come as you are, brunch. Some people are even stupid enough to host this at their homes. See problems above. Instead, we got that right, and we just did it at the hotel. We had a small area of the restaurant for us, and we just hung out while the people in the hotel came down for breakfast, ate, kissed us congratulations again, and left for home. Some people use the brunch time to open all the wedding gifts too, others wait until later when they’re home.

For me? I think the brunch was a great way to signal to ourselves “the stress is over”. Obviously, though, if you’re going on a honeymoon and leaving immediately, you probably won’t make it to brunch.

The next three items are relatively easy, but there are a few little nuances here and there. But since they’re not complicated, I’ve lumped them all in the same post.

Accommodations

The accommodations question comes up if you have many out-of-town guests — they need somewhere to stay, presumably. And most people organizing a wedding will suggest location x or y, somewhere near the venue (or if you’re in a traditional banquet hall, perhaps the attached hotel itself). Hotels will sometimes be helpful when you book these rooms. If you’re doing a wedding with them in their ballroom, they know you’re spending a ton on food and alcohol, so they might give you a small group rate on the rooms. You can negotiate for better rates than they first offer you, but often they’ll only give you a better rate IF you guarantee the rooms. For example, they’ll offer you a special rate of $150 a night, but if you guarantee all 25 rooms for that night, they’ll reduce it to $125. Great deal, unless of course you end only needing 20 of them. Then your guests are paying for their individual rooms and you’re covering the extra 5 empty rooms yourself. Most couples don’t want this, and so it’s hard to get a great rate. Which means most couples set up a preferred/recommended hotel, a basic group rate that isn’t guaranteed, and tell people to “book early” to secure the rooms.

We visited three different hotels as we were trying to decide which hotel to recommend — one was in a good location downtown and would be the location for Sunday brunch after the wedding; the second was right next to the theatre where we got married; and the third was closer to the boat where we were having the reception. Everyone opted for the first one, which was the best option anyway. [Week 5-6]

However, we had some extra accommodations needs too:

• Andrea went to the main hotel the night before, stayed with her mom, and then got ready the next day at the hotel (so I wouldn’t see her before the wedding), so we needed that room the night before (however it was her parents room, so no “extra” room required, but some people get a separate room for the bride for that night);
• We went to a small inn for our wedding night, a little more intimate and romantic than a room with the cast of dozens at the main hotel, and therefore a bit more private, but we needed that booked, with EARLY check-in since during normal check-in times, we’d be at the CEREMONY and late check-out the day after [Week 15]; and,
• Since Andrea was going to the hotel for Friday night, wedding all day Saturday, inn for wedding night, and then Sunday brunch the next morning, she had to pack for both the pre-night and the wedding night, including all her jewellery for the ceremony and extra events.

You know what else often goes into this category? Identifying any extra things to give out of town guests, like suggestions for other entertainment during their stay…after all, the wedding only ties up part of their weekend.

Flowers and Decorations

Guys, I know you probably don’t give a rat’s butt about flowers or decorations. Stereotypically, this is also where a lot of people get stressed and end up fighting. One person (often in the stereotype, the bride) really wants to debate all the floral options; the other person doesn’t CARE. And after already dealing with a couple of dozen decisions around venues, and ceremony elements, flowers can often be the breaking point for discussing wedding stuff. I know three couples who got along fine about just about everything, regardless of everyone turning into squirrels, but they fought about the flowers. Because one person was “whatever”, and the other was “do you like this or this flower?”.

The half-saving grace on this element is that regardless of whether you are using a non-traditional venue or a straight-up church plus banquet hall, the florist is usually the same outside contractor doing it. Pick your florist of choice, tell them you’re getting married, and they’ll say, “Great, option A or B or C or D…or Z”. They have a FULL menu, and just like with traditional venue, they will guide your fully through all the options. Some will upsell the crap out of you, others will keep within your budget. Depends on the florist. But you know what? The florists at Loblaws can do it too. Seriously, they have options. And they’re quite reasonable. [Week 8]

We chose a florist that Andrea knew near Peterborough, and I wasn’t completely convinced it was the best of ideas. It would mean that the parents of the bride would have to do pick-up and bring everything with them to Ottawa. So we supplemented some of the “bigger” pieces with Loblaws and we picked them up ourselves. However, we did get the personal bouquets from the first one.

What are your frequent options?

1. Bouquets for the bride, maid of honour, and potentially each bridesmaid (although they may be more corsages)…we did two bouquets, for the bride and maid of honour;

2. Corsages for the mothers of the bride and groom, and potentially for other female members of the immediate family (we didn’t do those ones);
3. Boutonnière (lapel flowers) worn by the men, which some people do for the groom, fathers of the bride and groom, all the groomsmen, and then often any extra “men” helping — brothers, brothers-in-law, ushers, etc…we did them for myself and the father of the bride, and we somehow missed doing one for the grandfather;
4. Pew bows — flowers to go on the sides of rows of seats at whatever venue you have (i.e. the sides of pews if you’re in a church, to line the main aisle); and,
5. Free standing floral displays that combine colours and flowers with the boutonnieres and corsages and bouquets, oh my.

We did the last ones through Loblaws, using some of the same flowers as the others items from the other florist, and it was all good. We had them at the theatre when we were doing the ceremony and then at the boat.

Do you see a small catch there? Someone has to get them to the theatre, and put them up. Then someone has to take them down and move them to the reception and set them back up. And then after the event, they have to take them with them too. Particularly if the stands are returnable to the florist (often they’re loaned bases). So you need people to volunteer to pick up the materials for the decorations, pick up the flowers, deliver them to the venue, decorate before the ceremony, clean up and transport to venue 2, redecorate, cleanup at the end, and take the flowers home. Fortunately, I had siblings and their young adult children who helped with all of this.

Transportation

While guests are usually on the hook to get themselves from venue to venue, there are some people who often have different transportation needs:

• Groom has to get to the ceremony — if he drives, will he be driving away later, or going in a limo? Where does his car stay? Does someone take it for him?
• Bride has to get to the ceremony — often, if you have a limo for the day, the limo is with the bride since the bride has all these extra layers of dress to deal with, and a limo makes it easier (or a mini van with a wide loading door and the middle seats removed), otherwise someone has to drive her…in short, she’s unlikely to be driving a car in a wedding dress;
• Wedding party is likewise potentially limited for movement — do they all meet at the venue, or as is tradition, do all the bridesmaids attend the bride for initial makeup, getting dressed, getting to the ceremony, etc., and how do they get around the rest of the day?;
• If there are formal photos somewhere, and the wedding party plus immediate family are going off to do that, how are they all getting to the same place in time?;
• After the photos, how is everyone getting to the reception?;
• After the reception, the bride and groom would most likely leave by themselves — so if anyone came with them, how are they getting home or back to the hotel or back to their cars?;
• If there is alcohol at the reception, are there arrangements for designated drivers to get everyone home safely? Are there buses back to the hotel?;
• If the bride and groom are driven to a hotel by a limo, for example, how do they get home the next day?; and,
• If anyone super important (i.e. parents or grandparents) have mobility issues, is someone responsible for helping them get to the event?

Few of these issues are insurmountable or difficult but they can be a bit nebulous to nail down. And no one wants grandma left at the church while everyone drives off to the reception. [Week 14-18]