The 4 Worst Pieces of Wedding Planning Advice I’ve Read

For Brides

November 9, 2017

Let’s face it! There are SO many wedding blogs out there now that are providing brides with highly pin-able material. And I’m not just talking about pretty pictures of flowers or wedding dresses. I’m referring to those professional blogs and magazines that give brides and grooms advice on how to plan their weddings, what questions to ask their vendors during consultations, and even advice from a bridesmaid’s point of view. With so much information floating around it’s really difficult to discern where your focus should be. I mean, do these blogs really know what questions to ask your DJ if these writers have never stood in a DJ’s shoes? (You don’t know what you don’t know.)

Over the past few years the wedding industry has caught fire with sharing wedding magazine’s articles that have provided couples with – well – BAD advice. Unfortunately, as a wedding vendor myself I’ve seen some of this translate into my own consultations with couples and it has left me with attempts to educate couples with what they really should be concerned with and where their focus should be.

Here’s some of the worst pieces of wedding planning advice I’ve seen come from professional wedding magazines and blogs. Are you ready? Some of these are doozies.

 

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4 Worst Pieces of Wedding Planning Advice I’ve Ever Read

  1.  In 2016 Vogue released a list of 10 wedding rules to break. Once of these rules were to NOT hire a wedding photographer. Instead, they advised couples to rely on collecting guest’s pictures through Instagram and Facebook posts, as well as the possibility of giving them disposable cameras to capture your wedding from their point-of-view. Vogue’s reasoning…“It made sense back in the olden days, pre–Facebook albums and Instagram hashtags, when the whole world didn’t have phones with cameras on them. Having the actual leather-bound album on your coffee table seemed like the only evidence that the whole thing actually took place. If social media is not your thing, why not scatter some disposable cameras around the party and let your drunken guests go to town? You’ll end up with hilarious and candid pictures without the pressure of “likes.” While this may be a fun addition to your professional photographer’s captures, I do NOT recommend that this be the only way you capture your wedding day. Think of it this way, you and your fiancé likely spent a huge amount of time, thought, love, planning, and money into your wedding celebration. After the cake has been cut, champagne has been drunk, and the flowers have wilted the only thing you have left from your wedding day are your new husband/wife, your rings, and your wedding photos. Do you really want to look back on your wedding images 20 years later and only have blurry and dark photos that “your drunken guests” captured? I think not!
  2. Bride’s Magazine released a piece written by wedding planner Sandy Malone titled Which Vendors Do You Have to Feed at Your Wedding? What I thought ironic about her article is that she supported the notion of providing meals for SOME of a couple’s vendors, but not all. She states…“Your wedding planning team, for example, will probably be on deck from the crack of dawn until your reception is over. You’ll be required to feed them.” However, after a HUGE amount of backlash from the photography community the article was eventually retracted and Bride’s quickly changed their tone soon after. The reason for this is simple. The majority of wedding photographers will arrive while the couple is getting ready and often stay until the couple has their grand exit. Oftentimes our days are long, we have about 5 minutes to inhale our dinners so we don’t miss toasts or dances, we don’t sit at all unless we are able to eat – and when we do we sometimes find ourselves sitting on the floor of an empty room or closet so we’re out of the guest’s way. We try to remember to bring power bars and bottled water with us just in case we don’t have time to eat lunch, and most wedding days the only meal that we do eat is the meal that is provided to us during the reception. I would highly, highly recommend feeding your vendors. Especially if you don’t want them passing out from lack of energy.
  3. As if Bride’s Magazine hasn’t already done enough damage, they’ve also been published telling couples not to hire photographers who don’t use “Canon or Nikon” equipment. In their article titled Essential Questions You Need to Ask Your Wedding Photographer they encourage couples to ask their potential photographer about back up equipment, archiving procedures, their assistants, to see a full wedding gallery, and what equipment brand they use. While all of these are great questions to ask the photographer you’re considering hiring, by no means should the BRAND of their equipment matter as much as their reputation, style, and professionalism. Sony may not be the “go to” brand for photographers but they are quickly increasing in popularity. In addition to that, I use a Contax 645 medium format film camera as I’m a hybrid photographer. (Meaning I shoot in film and digital formats.) But if I were interviewing with a couple who read this article and I told them that I use a Contax 645 I may not get hired because this article completely mislead a couple into thinking that Nikon or Canon were the ONLY professional camera brands out there. This simply isn’t true. And (again) shortly after releasing this article, the backlash Bride’s received from the photography community prompted a swift apology from the writer.
  4. Now, this piece of advice doesn’t necessarily fall under the worst I’ve ever read. In fact, it’s not really bad advice at all. But it has caused some confusion with American couples recently. Here’s how…The wedding blog Wedding Ideas Magazine recently caused a stir in our local vendor community with an article they released in 2013 titled 10 Questions You Need to Ask Your Wedding DJ. A question was presented to a large group of vendors from a concerned bride who is in the throws of planning her wedding. She followed this list of questions during her recent consultation with a DJ they were considering and when the DJ didn’t answer one question favorably, this naturally caused concern for her. After some digging, the DJ vendor community discovered that the article was written for British couples. Our laws and regulations here are very different than the requirements and requests put in place for overseas vendors. So it didn’t surprise me that this misunderstanding caused some major confusion – for the couple looking for a DJ, as well as for the local DJ’s who have never heard of what they were asking! The question? “Ask your DJ if they have PAT testing (Portable Appliance Testing) it means all electrical equipment has been checked in the last year and the DJ should have a certificate to prove it.”In the United States, DJ’s aren’t required to hold PAT testing, nor have a certificate to prove it. So before you ask your wedding vendors some questions that may seem a bit strange to you, try to do a little bit of research on your own to make sure this is something that is actually required in the US. If you don’t you’ll probably be greeted with a response that lends itself to a little bit of confusion. Even so, your vendors should always be willing to look into it for you!

 

 

 

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