Top 8 Wedding Day Tips to Have a Stress- Free Day

1. Hire a photographer that you trust & resonate with

Truly this can make or break your wedding day. Your wedding photographer is the number one vendor that you are literally going to spending your entire day with. They show up when you’re almost done getting ready, there to help you get your dress on, following you through the ceremony, guide you through family photos, your paparazzi during your reception, and like a fun third wheel during your bride and groom portraits.

 You’ll likely have them contracted for about 8 hours and they will physically be near you for 6 solid hours, if not more. So you should enjoy being around your photographer (booking an engagement session will be a good look ahead into how your photographer interacts with you) because the last thing you want is this person that you’re “stuck” with all day to ruin your day for you. 

I always am very clear with my couples about how hands on I am during your day, and where I take a back seat. I personally care more about you enjoying your wedding day and making sure that you aren’t worried about timeline, what time it is, what we need to be doing next, or anything of that sort, rather than make your whole wedding day about photos because it’s not. Photos take place on your day but your wedding photo is not a big long photo shoot.

So I guide when I need to, you’ll never hear from me that we are running behind, ever, because we purposely leave lots of room in our timeline to avoid a mishap.

2. Hire a day of Coordinator or Full Wedding Day Planner

Listen. Hiring a professional in this area, like Your Perfect Bridesmaid, Have & Hold Events, or Hand in Hand Coordination, will be super helpful to making sure the rest of your vendors (caterer, cake, florist,etc) are exactly where they need to be is so beyond valuable. But if you’re on a tighter budget after splurging on your venue, photographer,etc. having someone with good communication skills, and can direct those people could also work!

As long as they’re not a family member, it’s beyond helpful! The point is to avoid a billion people asking you or family members where someone needs to be, or what something needs to be set up like, so you can just be pampered and enjoy your day. 

3. A Wedding Day Timeline with lots of buffer time

A good photographer or planner/coordinator is essential in making your timeline run smoothly! I always highly highly highly recommend that we leave at least an hour between any photos and your ceremony so if we are running a little behind then we have space and time to make up for it without needing to rush through photos. This buys us at least 30 minutes because that’s when guests start arriving!

My goal is to always make up for any delays during family photos, and we just crank them out as fast as we can! 

4. Hire a Hair & Makeup Artist

I know that in the moment that this seem like a silly thing to pay money for when you might know how to do your makeup and hair better than anyone could do on you, but someone who does bridal hair and makeup know exactly how much time they leave, and they know how to work on a tighter timeline, and know when you as the bride should get started to be ready for photos.

Pro tip: get a trial done before your wedding if you can so you can make any adjustments if you think you want a style so you can see it before your actual wedding day. 

5.SCHEDULE IN ALONE TIME

I feel like this one detail actually gets missed so often on wedding days because we get so focused on the next thing, but I ALWAYS make a point to at least give my couples 10-15 minutes POST ceremony to have alone time, and like truly go hide away. Speaking from experience, if you just walk far away but within eye sight, theres always someone, whether it be  Aunt Judy, or your best friend is gonna run up and want to talk to you and celebrate you, so go hide in the bridal suite and just check in. Especially if you’re having a wedding with more than 50-100+ guests, you will likely be “on” the rest of the night, and will appreciate the minute to be alone and be like “HI HELLO HUSBAND AND WIFE”. 

Colin and I took like 5 minutes to ourselves because we were so excited to see our people, but I’m so glad we had those few minutes. I’m very much an extrovert and I love being around people but all the eyes we had on us, got overwhelming very quickly so that was a beautiful time for us. 

If your photographer or planner doesn’t originally plan for that time, ask for it and say it’s very important. They will make sure that you guys have those minutes to yourselves! It’s worth it, I promise! 

6. PUT YOUR PHONE AWAY

I feel like in this day in age, this one can seem controversial, especially with the rise of tiktok/ instagram stories, etc. because you’ll want to do some fun trends and videos and get hyped on social media on your wedding day, but I’m telling you.. The peace you will have by just being in the moment, and soaking it all in, will be so worth it. If you want to get those video trends and have fun that way, tell your bridal party, or hire a Content Creator for the day so you can still get those behind the scenes moments without being the one to create them. 

Also, this also doubles as... don’t look at the clock. If you’re anything like me, I love to know what time it is so I can plan how long I need to take with the next thing, but having a great team in place, and you trusting them fully to help you maneuver through the day, you won’t need to worry about the clock. If someone needs to get ahold of you, which they shouldn’t, but there will be other people in the room that have phones that could let you know if there is truly an emergency. 

We did a master list of phones of all vendors, and bridal party members, and other family members and an order of calling if there is a question on wedding day. Parents and bride and groom should be the ABSOLUTE very very last person to call – I’m sure someone else can answer that question. 

I actually always ask from my couples, if there is someone that will be with the bride (I see brides first on wedding days typically) that I can call if I get lost, that’s NOT the bride. It’s actually pretty rare that I do need it but there have been times where I’m not sure on the room, or I’m at the wrong building or whatever, and I do not want to be bugging the bride on her wedding day and worrying about me. 

7. Embrace the WEather

So, as a photographer in Oregon, it rains here about nine months out of the year, so if you’re getting married outside of June - August, it very well COULD rain on your wedding day if you’re doing anything outside. And it’s one of those things that no one can actually control.

Have vendors (day of coordinators or planners) in place with back up plans in the event of weather so they can move things ahead of time so you don’t get rained out. If you see a chance of rain on the forecast and you still want to get married out in the elements, I would consider some clear umbrellas so you can see through them but hopefully save you from the majority of the rain! 

People do say, it’s good luck if it rains on your wedding day! 

8. LOCATIONS MATTER

If your venue does NOT have great getting ready spaces or photo locations, or none at all, you’ll likely be getting ready off-site from the ceremony location. I would strongly suggest finding those AirBnB’s or hotels within a 10-15 drive time from your ceremony location. 


Basically the least amount of travel time in between locations will save you so much money, especially when it comes to your photographer. The majority of photographers start coverage upon arriving to the first location, and don’t “go off the clock” in the middle of the day after they’ve already started shooting so if you’re driving 20, 30, 40 minutes between locations, you’re eating into photographer time and might want to consider adding an additional hour or two to your photographers time to capture everything you want! 


Most photographers assume that everything will happen on site when creating timelines, so make sure your photographer knows well ahead of time if you’re doing any sort of drive time in between locations.