Having been to a fair few weddings between us both as guests and photographers/videographers we’ve noticed some very different styles in the way the wedding day is run. From the most regimented to the most relaxed every couple keep a slightly different tempo to the day and this can often depend on the venue, the people involved in running the day and just how involved you want to be but just how organised do you need to be on your wedding day?
Let’s see if our two debaters can get to the bottom of it…
In the Red Corner, known in the office as the great organiser but this time fighting for the laid back, chilled wedding feel, it’s Dom “The Tog Bride”
In the Blue Corner, renowned for his relaxed and laid-back approach to life so naturally battling for the highly organised wedding day sticking straight to schedule, it’s Matt “The Gormless Groom”.
Structured and Scheduled Vs Free-flowing and Carefree
FIGHT!!!
.jpg)
Dom: Your wedding day is supposed to be a day of joy – the greatest day of your life. You don’t want to spend it worrying about what’s supposed to happen next and making sure you’re following every last detail to the letter, you should relax and enjoy it!
Matt: You put so much work into planning your wedding day and often have so many ideas of all those things you want to do on the day that without following a plan it’s incredibly difficult to fit it all in. Coming up with a schedule of events can help to make sure your wedding day is everything you wanted it to be.
Dom: However well you’ve planned weddings never go exactly to schedule. Things happen that you just can’t for-see and often they turn out to be the best bits of the day! If you’re always rushing off to the next planned event those little magic spontaneous moments can be lost.
Matt: There are certain parts of the day that fundamentally have to run to schedule, for example the ceremony and sitting down for the meal when the food is still fresh, and if you don’t plan the parts around it then everything can easily end up being too late.
Dom: A lot of venues like the bigger hotels have such a set way of doing things that it’s very difficult to break out of their structure and put your own stamp on the day. Your wedding should be an expression of you and your personalities – not restricted by what’s been done before.
Matt: Hotels and venues that have their own planner do tend to have a fairly structured way of doing things which for the majority of people who haven’t thought about every detail is really helpful and takes the pressure off in terms of making sure everything’s covered.
Dom: When you have people assigned to make sure things run to schedule and everything is so fixed it’s sometimes very difficult changing it if you suddenly decide you want more time for pictures or to chat to your guests or whatever activity you find yourself enjoying at that point in time. Schedules may be designed to avoid stress but they often end up causing far more of it than just having a relatively loose outline of the day.
Matt: Without a structure it’s very easy to get carried away and go with the flow too much and end up with everyone just waiting around. Whilst you don’t want to be stressed, having certain things firmly in place is actually very helpful for the guests and ensures no-one gets bored or ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time!
Dom: Planning a wedding, though stressful at times, is a really nice joint project for you and your partner and there’s an enormous enjoyment in that and a sense of achievement putting it together your way rather than sticking to regimented ideas and set structures imposed by others. You only share your wedding day once – don’t let someone else do it for you!
Matt: Planning your wedding day is hugely time consuming and, if you don’t have lots of prior knowledge about weddings, involves lots of research on every topic. Adopting a structure that’s been tried and tested by the pros saves a lot of time and unnecessary hard work whilst still allowing a little wiggle-room to put your own stamp on events!
.jpg)
So where do you stand? Is it better to have more of a pre-determined structure to your wedding or do you lean more towards going with the flow? Let us know by placing your vote below and don’t forget if you have any points you’d like to throw into the mix then let your voice be heard in the comments section!
[poll id=”13″]
Whether or not it’s someone professional it’s important to have someone managing any event – wedding or not. If they have the key scheduled points in their head (food/ceremony etc) they can allow flexibility for the rest. So I’m up for a pre scheduled structure with flexibility allowed for by an event manager. The only thing is (in the same way as everything else) making sure your event manager knows what’s important before hand and keeping up communication during the day.