Wedding Planning Tips and Advise 

Hello Bride, 

I appreciate you taking the time to read this blog post on some wedding planning tips and advice that I would love to pass down to the next girl planning their wedding. As a former 2023 bride myself and now a Virginia wedding photographer specializing in the Roanoke and Lynchburg areas, I can say I have picked up on a few tips of do’s and don’ts from my own wedding and from photographing other Virginia weddings local to not only Roanoke and Lynchburg but also surrounding areas in Lexington, Charlottesville, and Christinasburg. I’m going to be real honest and maybe a little blunt with this, because I will admit, I was one of the brides that went full on out, had the “BIG” wedding and went thousands over budget where there was absolutely no getting out due to vendor contracts.

 I’m going to say right now upfront that as soon as you get engaged, please do not immediately start planning. It’s okay to start making a pinterest board, and talk about ideas.. but let the “high” of being freshly engaged and the excitement simmer down a bit before you dive head first into wedding planning. Sit down with your partner, and have a serious conversation about your wedding budget, and financial goals in the next 1-2 years. You do not want to be tied down with  paying for a wedding and then also trying to buy a house at the same time. Trust me on this!! 

Start researching wedding vendors! The average central/southwest Virginian wedding is $20,000-$30,000 easily! Yeah girl, you read that right. It will add up so quickly you wont even know what happened.

 The first vendor you will probably start researching is the wedding venue. Where you get married, will set the tone for your budget and overall wedding experience. When searching for a venue I highly recommend booking a venue that has an inhouse wedding planning team! You will hear some people tell you differently. But on your chaotic wedding day you are going to want a team that literally works with each other every single weekend that knows that venue inside and out to protect and nurture the flow of your wedding day and experience. Trust me on this. PLEASE do not hire your aunt Karen that always helps with birthday parties to orchestrate your wedding day and a few besties outside the wedding party as just helping hands.

Make sure that your venue does have a recommended vendor list, but also still lets you bring in other vendors outside of their recommended list. This will help you decide on great vendors they recommend but will allow you to still budget accordingly and not get sucked into wedding vendors extremely out of your budget. 

Alright bride, you have read this far so you are probably wondering how in the heck I went thousands over my budget and what the secret sauce is to budgeting a wedding. 

Well the truth is, there is no “secret sauce” every wedding is different, every wedding couple is different and prioritizes splurging on certain vendors! For example, some couples have a micro wedding or elope somewhere beautiful and only spend $5,000 but spend a huge chunk of their budget on a photographer and videographer totalling $8,000-$10,000 in wedding photography and videography coverage. I know, crazy right? I could make an entire blog post of why you should absolutely no exceptions prioritize wedding photography over anything else on your special day..but I won’t here. What I will mention though that I do see a lot and it saddens me is I see so many brides that plan these gorgeous weddings and then book their photographer as one of their last vendors, not doing research in the beginning of wedding planning on how much the average skilled wedding photographer is in their area and have to either hire a budget photographer leading to potentially not being happy with their experience or final product of their wedding portraits or they do not hire a wedding videographer at all. Your wedding day deserves to be documented and preserved. Not just through snap chat videos or iphone pictures. But professional image artistry that also prioritizes your experience while capturing the smallest moments and details that not everyone would even notice. Images that will allow you to feel that moment again and reminisce forever and ever with the legacy and generation you will create and one day leave behind. 

With all of that being said, wedding planning has to start with researching pricing of vendors and the type of services you want on your wedding day. Please have that deep conversation with your significant other on your goals as a soon to be family, and where you want to be in a few years. What is most important to you right now in the moment of the high of happiness and excitement from being newly engaged may change in a year and a half once the thick of wedding planning begins. Have that conversation about who else will be helping pay for the wedding like your parents or even grandparents. Your wedding planning process and day does not have to send you into a spiral. So take this advice with a grain of salt and add it to your own wedding vision.