SWP Episode 015
Planning your wedding day is a big job, and many bride-to-be’s just default to doing it themselves, but you need to ask yourself: Do you want to shoulder that responsibility, or do you want to be able to enjoy your day?
In this episode, MJ&Co. team member Melissa joins Matt in a conversation of how important having a structure to your day is, how to enjoy the most of your wedding without getting stressed, and when to delegate planning to someone else.
We tell your stories. This episode is a behind-the-scenes look at how we do that.
Transcription of the episode can be found below the photos.
TRANSCRIPT
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Matt: Hello, you are listening to The Sask Wedding Podcast. If you're a bride to be or just love weddings, we created this show just for you. I'm your host, Matt Ramage. I'm the owner of MJ&Co. Stories, a photography and film company based in Saskatoon. On today's episode, we have one of our own - Melissa Weir.
Melissa and I are photography team leads here at MJ&Co. We've been taking pictures for a while, a little while. Welcome here, Melissa.
Melissa: Little while. Hello.
Matt: I think this is your second podcast you're on?
Melissa: Yeah, I think so.
Matt: Or third.
Melissa: I've done a couple. I think we.
Matt: We did one or two.
Melissa: We did wanna about hair 'cause I used to do hair.
Matt: And then our republishing of a republishing of the SK Modern Wedding Summit. Yes. Awesome. Maybe it was "SK Modern". I, I, I mix it up. That came out right after our podcast was launched. So anyway, All good. So, thanks for being here. Today's episode is brought to you by us. We're the vendors on today. So every episode we've had so far has been a vendor based or something like that.
This one is just us. We are at the end of wedding season. It is the end of September, 2022 that we are recording this and we're gonna talk about timelines today. How does that sound, Melissa? That sounds. All right. So for our couples, one of the things we do is a week out from their wedding day is we finalize their wedding day timeline.
And so, a few of the main things we want to go over is, when I say a few, this is almost the list we want to go over, like start end time. So we wanna know when we show up mm-hmm. , to show up late would make me have a heart attack. I have nightmares about that actually. Yeah, this year was really busy, so I was kind of like triple checking everything.
And then I would actually send a text to all of our clients the night before or the morning of, We'll see you at 1:00 PM we'll see you. Don't forget your wedding. We'll see you at 12. Just so it would be like, Then I'd, No, and then, and then if they'd be like, Nope, we'll see you at 1230. And I'll be, Oh yeah, okay.
Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, we can do that anyway. But no it's really good to get those start times. We wanna know locations. Where are you getting ready? Hotel rooms. Yeah, that's important. You don't have those literally till sometimes the morning of. Yeah. I, that's actually pretty common. Maybe a day out.
Like unless you rented out the loft at, or sorry, the penthouse at the James or something like that. You typically don't know those room numbers until then. Addresses if it's like homes, pin locations if you're getting, you know, at someone's farm or an acreage. What else do we need? Backup plans for weather.
We go over that. Yeah. Sensitive family relationships, That one's important. I don't wanna put my foot in my mouth. I did that once. Actually. I won't tell the whole story, but Yeah. You know, things can happen in families. Good to know that stuff beforehand. Yeah. I try not to, I want people to feel comfortable.
Most of it's I don't want to add any tension, so I, that's one of our goals is just to make sure we know that ahead of time. You know, if someone passed away, You know, two parents don't get along or siblings, you'd be surprised at the things, you know, a little bit of drama that can happen over, you know, a family, you know, and then must have shots.
So those are those, those are the main things we go over. So one of the things with timeline that we think is really important is the second you picked your venue, you get engaged. We'll kind of back this up here to rate, when you get engaged, you get engaged, then you pick a day usually, or your venue at the same time.
Often you're picking those, like maybe you have a venue you for sure want, and so you're, you're planning it about, you know, around their availability. So maybe you pick the date then, so you got a venue, your main vendors, maybe you wanted us filming and photographing your wedding day. Maybe you wanted a certain DJ.
Maybe you wanted whatever. Once you get that date though, you start, start penning down, or sorry, penciling out a timeline. So on this episode, we're gonna go over the things we think you should really think about and then some ways to actually do a good job of that. So this is advice for our, our own clients, let alone anyone else.
And no one's gonna really tell you this, like even. Wedding planners will go over some of these things, but like at the end of the day, you still need to think of what is gonna matter to you. And so you, you wanna look to your vendors for good advice, but you also want to have your own wants and desires, make sure they're accounted for.
So, let's get going. Oh, one more, One more little note. Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? Take a guess, Melissa.
Well, this is important for people to know. I mean, there's a lot of things that people will forget when they're trying to plan out their wedding day. And it can, it can affect your photography, it can affect a lot of parts of your day.
It can affect you know, the time that your guests have. So it's important to to really plan it out beforehand and make sure you're maximizing everything that day.
Totally agree. Yeah, you wanna have a good day. So, There's a, there's a thing, we, we've talked about this before, but like it's, any decisions you have to make on your wedding day takes you out of just enjoying the day.
Yeah. So pre-planning it, and we mentioned penciling it out, you should literally have a, a guide of what your day's gonna look like. You should have one that you're always working off of, and anything that's a must have should be on that list, So, so that you don't have to think about it. And then you can share it with people and.
you can have your phone turned off on your wedding day anyway. Yeah.
I don't think you can over plan. Like it's, it's important. It might seem like someone's overdoing it, but then when their wedding day comes, it's seamless. So.
So first question for you, Melissa. Yeah. What in your opinion, makes a good wedding day timeline?
Melissa: Ooh. I would say the most important thing, , the most important thing that I've seen over even the last year is just really making sure that you don't leave a lot of big gaps in your day where you're not sure what's going on, where people are kind of just standing around. So
Matt: now tell me, tell me what, what kind of makes, bring brought that up or why'd you bring that up?
What have you seen
Melissa: I've seen where people will kind of forget about the portion right after their ceremonies. So, some people will choose to have a receiving line some people don't. But usually that, that little stretch of time right after you finish your vows and you walk back up the aisle no one really thinks about that.
And so, If you don't, then you, you usually kind of get rushed by all your guests that wanna give you big hugs and, and that can end up taking like an extra half hour out of your day that you don't really expect. And then you get behind for things like photos and you're kind of panicked.
Matt: So impromptu we, I call it an impromptu receiving line.
Yeah.
Melissa: Basically, even when people don't wanna, they're like, No, we're not doing a receiving line. Then all of a sudden, all their guests rush them and they can't, they're kind of stuck there. They can't leave.
Matt: If you don't leave, you will have a receiving line whether you want to or not. Yeah. People
Melissa: will come up to you and wanna hug you afterward,
So that's good. If you want that, that's cool. But you gotta, you gotta kind of budget for that time, otherwise you get a little behind for
Matt: the day. Yeah. And 30 minutes is if you actually did a receiving line, 30 minutes is reasonable for 150 person guest list. Yeah. And it depends, you know, older styles of receiving line, like sort of the traditional way is like you literally have your whole wedding party and all the parents in a big line and a couple in a line.
That's the slowest way to do it. That can take 30 to 45 minutes. We've seen. If people do it, I would say How many people do you think actually do a receiving line? Like officially not, not the impromptu ones, but like maybe a third
Melissa: of our brides and grooms. I think a third of our couples.
Matt: Like it's not, it's more common to not do it than to do
Melissa: it. Yeah. It's, it's really traditional and I think a lot of people are moving away from that now cuz they see that, you know, you can just kind of say, thanks for coming and you don't have to stand in a line and shake everybody's hand one by one, but, And you see everyone after the reception too.
I think that's what a lot of people Decide to do is just, Oh, well, we'll see them later after dinner, so we don't need to spend the time doing it right now.
Matt: Yeah. Like then that's what we've seen too, is like even Okay, we're gonna, we, they, everybody wants to see everybody and at least talk to them once.
But yeah. Right after the ceremony, it's a rush time to do it. Yeah. Cocktail hour, I've seen a lot of couples do that. It's actually probably one of my favorite things. They spend, they join the wedding. Group, or let's say the guests at the reception for cocktail hour for let's say half
Melissa: of it. Yeah.
That's always fun because then people can, if they, if they have the time for it that day, they can come back and join everyone for a casual drink before dinner. And it's it's pretty relaxed because you're, you're finished your photos and you're kinda ready for a drink anyway.
Matt: I find okay, here's, here's, I'll share my opinion after you share yours, but like, when you think of.
The pressure of a wedding day. What have you found like most couples feel is like af Like at what point is it like it's free time? It's like the good, you know, the good relaxing part.
Melissa: People will mostly, I think, loosen up as soon as family photos are finished. I think they're pretty wound up right before their ceremony cuz there's a lot of pressure there.
Everybody's watching them. And then they kinda get, a lot of people will get kind of stressed out about family photos cuz you gotta be like, Hey, get Uncle Jerry, he's walked away and you gotta round everyone up. So, And he took grandma. Yeah. So you gotta kinda, where's grandma bring everyone back into the, the photo area.
But then once everything is done with that, I think people are kind of like, Oh, okay, we can relax now. Let's go do our, our formal photos. So
Matt: what I find is Yeah, like I find the ceremony everybody, every couple's very different and sometimes you don't know until the day of, but like I find some couples, like the ceremony is a very worked up part for them.
You could say almost yeah, they're very stressed out about it. Maybe like it's not normal to be in front of people much in your life unless it's your job. Yeah. You know, like talking in front of just sharing vows for some people's too much. A lot of people even just do like that they'll do the first look.
because so first look is when you see your, your bride. Your bride and groom or groom and groom or bride and bride. When your couple sees each other for the first time, that's your first look. And so some people do it at the ceremony, some people do it earlier just because they're so nervous of what they'll look like at their ceremony.
You know, they don't wanna be in front of people when they first see their partner coming down the aisle. Yeah. So, yeah, there's a lot of this feeling of, you know, Being in front of people. That's hard. And then, and I find yeah, after the ceremony, that that feeling kind of can go away. So, I guess what I'm, what I'm talking about that is I think people should be aware of what they think they might get worked up about.
Yeah. And what's gonna feel like it's free time. and then kind of put that all together too. Like maybe that means if the ceremony's gonna be a thing working up to, it's gonna be hard. Maybe you don't do a first look. Maybe you do your ceremony earlier and then your photos after. Maybe you just wanna see your partner for the first time you know, prior to the ceremony because you don't wanna be in front of everybody, but you're okay with the ceremony.
You know, we've seen a lot of couples do vows when they do their first look, actually, which I think is actually maybe one of my most favorite things Yeah. That we've seen this year.
Melissa: Especially, I've had a lot of couples that have, have done the first look with some really private little vows right.
Beforehand, and it's, it's really intimate and it's usually really special. There's always tears and I think that's, that's a nice way to do it
Matt: for our feature films. I find those are, like my favorite part that Chris and Josiah put into the films when they edited is those, those little private moments.
Mm-hmm. , that no one was there to be part of it with. It's it's cool to see, like they get a full cut of it to watch later, but then they also, it really adds to the way you experience the day after it's all come and gone. Yeah. I'm gonna move it forward a little bit. So maybe just I'll dive down in that and then I'll talk, we'll talk about what we need as photographers, but to finish that off, our recommend is to like anything.
Every little item should have a piece on your schedule. And so that means when are you getting makeup started and hair started? You know, When's your mother or father, sorry, mother or mother-in-law getting makeup done? Or bridesmaids you know, how's that all looking? Maybe talk to your vendors. You know, if you have one makeup artist and a wedding party of seven people, ask them, are they gonna bring a second artist?
Are they gonna do it solo? You know, you need them to give you their expert opinion on how long it's gonna take. For us, we recommend doing that even to the ceremony and reception. Like, when do you wanna be sitting? You know, maybe you're waiting in a, a bus before the ceremony outside of the venue.
Maybe you're getting married in a church and there's like a side room where you wanna be sitting in so no one sees you as they come in. All these little things matter because you know, if you don't want your guests to see, People start coming to your ceremony for 45 minutes before it's to 30 minutes before it's I would say 30 minutes before is like the big rush.
Yeah. And so you wanna be like kind of aware of those little pieces too, because it's, you know, otherwise then you're gonna start your ceremony late because you need everybody to go into the, you know, the sanctuary at the church or whatever it is, or get seated before you can even come in the building.
And then, you know, I would, I would say a 15 minute late weddings on. Would you agree with that? Oh yeah. Yeah. At least I would say that's normal. 10 minutes is you know, pretty good. Five is like almost weird. And then on time is like
Melissa: on time is
Matt: almost unheard of. It's, I would almost say it's early.
Yeah. And so if you think about that too you know, I would, I think budgeting everything realistically into your timeline's good too. And then even the ceremony length, that's actually what we, I find we cushion that the most too is Yeah. Or you know, ask your efficient, how long is the ceremony gonna.
You know, it doesn't matter if it's like a, I don't even know what they're called, Commission marriage commissioner, or you have a priest or rabbi or whatever, ask them what they think and not necessarily even just like the pastor, but like your pastor, how long are they gonna take? Yeah.
Melissa: Yeah. That can be a surprise.
We've had that be a surprise for a few couples where they're like, Well, like we're doing a traditional mass and it'll probably be about an hour. And we've had some of them turn into a two and a half hour ceremony and then you're like, Ooh, we gotta rush for photos now. So it's good to know all that.
Yeah,
Matt: You did the one last year in like Munster, which is east of Yeah. Humboldt or something like
Melissa: that. Yeah. So we had to factor in the drive time out there and yeah, it's, it's important to really plan that out cuz that can eat up a good chunk of your day if you don't think about it.
Matt: And the sun for them, the sunset before.
Sorry. Yeah, the, the sun was on the horizon.
Melissa: The ceremony basically went until sun down, and so we had to go booking it outside right after the ceremony, just to try and squeeze a little bit of that sunset out. But it worked. It worked out. We got a little bit of golden hour, a little bit of blue hour, so
Matt: now they weren't too stressed about it, which is good.
Yeah, so knowing who you, what kind of person you. You know, every, I would say like the thing we've seen is like no one's, no two couples are the same. Yeah. What matters to one and what matters to another couple is very different. And so kind of based on those wants and desires you know, like we'll often cut our photo time even if they're couples like, Yeah.
I think, I think we're good with that. Yeah. And then I'll always be. Like I have that, like we have a safe playlist of photos kind of in our head that we run through of these are like minimum if we didn't get any other photos, we'd need all these. Yeah. And so then we'll be like, you know, or if they have a lot more time, then we'll definitely use more time.
If they want more photos, like sometimes you do a little bit of the same thing just at a new location. For us it's like easy to be creative over and over again, like you know, at new locations. But also we don't want you to get too tired as well. If we're photographing you, maybe you really love photos, but your partner.
not as much into it. Yeah. So we wanna make sure you guys are happy and engaged in all those moments. So, you know, it doesn't mean it, you won't necessarily get better photos if you shoot for three hours to, one hour or whatever, if you're having fun as the secret weapon. Yeah. For us, we're trying to make sure everybody's feeling good, looking good and you know, you can really just tell when people are enjoying themselves.
So, so. We kind of rambled there. I kind of went over it, but as photographers, we wanted to make sure we have your full day. So we kind of started the episode with those few things that we really need. So we're gonna be asking about family groupings. Family groupings are really important. We have our own photos lab in our studio.
And out of all photos, Melissa does all the printing. Out of all the print orders our clients do, how many of them are like from family photos? All of them. 90% or a hundred percent?
Melissa: Pretty much a hundred percent. I find that a lot of people say we really want the candid photos. We don't want anything posed, but they will always print the posed family photos and, you know, it's for grandma and, and things like that.
I think that's usually what they're printing them for.
Matt: And we're gonna make sure you look bomb and beautiful and have those candid shots, but Those safe shots. The reason we call them, like we call the playlist, the must haves is because we know what people ask for if we've delivered a few weddings over the years where it's Do you have one of this?
And it's not like some amazing photo they're looking for. They're just looking for like an alternate grouping of Oh, did you get one with just my brother? And it's you know, Then we go back and look, I mean, this is years ago. I remember the last time this happened to me, but we'll look for it.
And it's Oh yeah, we got one. Yeah. You know, sometimes, sometimes we. Overlook something like one person changed. We only took two shots of it and we forgot to put it in the edit, but it's, it's interesting like how important those, those groupings are. So, you know, talk to your photographer about those groupings.
We have our own list of must haves. And we have the same thing for wedding parties. And then I would say as far as time we need for all of that two hours with family photos, one and a half. And you can squish that down a little bit if you don't need to drive anywhere.
Melissa: Yes. Yeah. The driving time is something a lot of people don't factor in.
Matt: So looking at a schedule for a wedding day, what do you think of people penciling in some wiggle room? I think
Melissa: that's super important. I think it's good to yeah, if you can schedule in.
Matt: I guess when I say that, I mean like a maybe planned, relaxed time.
Melissa: Totally. Yeah. I think it's really important for people to, to take a moment, to just have nothing planned and to just have a second for them to spend a little bit of time together amidst the chaos and, and kind of take it in a little bit cuz it goes by so quick.
And yeah, spend a little time together. Take a little breath. Maybe even stop somewhere and have a drink or something. You know, it's we've had a few couples that will make a point of scheduling in time to stop at a local pub or something, even just with their whole wedding party and have a drink and relax and, and often we'll follow them in there and get some photos of that.
And that can be really fun. And yeah, I think it's important to have a little bit of downtime, not to completely book yourself solid so that there's no room. At all.
Matt: Yeah. It's like how do you even fit a bathroom break in if you don't have it? Yeah, Yeah. Like it's not easy to go to the bathroom,
Melissa: which I should add is really tough for most brides in their wedding dress.
It usually takes some extra time. So
Matt: if you're a groom, you can just do it on the side of the road, which we see a
Melissa: lot. It's easy . Yeah.
Matt: Yeah. Limo buses and keeping everybody together. What's your thoughts on that?
Melissa: That's a, I mean, that's a good idea. You wanna kind of have everyone in the same place, otherwise you're gonna lose, you know, the best man somewhere.
You might make a stop on the way or something, and then everyone's waiting there at the photo location. So it's good to have everyone together, especially if you've got a really big wedding party. We've seen a lot of really big ones this year. Now the C'S over. Yeah, everyone's doing the big wedding thing.
Like we've, it's been pretty common to see a, like a 14 person. or even bigger wedding party this year. So it's been fun
Matt: though. And there's, there's good bus options and a lot of them will even cater to they'll provide the drinks. Yeah. You know, And then actually we're gonna talk about this on another episode, but food you mentioned maybe making a plan stop at a, a bar or something.
Yeah. Let's say you do a venue. See, I'm gonna talk about a couple things here. Drive time is actually kind of downtime. If you're all together and you have a limo bus, if you're all in separate cars, it's actually kind of stressful because yeah, people are like, you know, you got one groomsman who's outta town?
The bride knows the place, but she can't drive. Like driving in a wedding dress doesn't work. You know, so she's not driving. So kind of keeping everybody together. We can just talk with your driver. We give 'em a Google pin and then they. Go there. And that usually they've been there before. It's not like a lot of the photo locations from around here.
They, if I'm like, Okay, the place by at the university overlooking the river, and then I give them like the building, they're like, Yeah, okay. I know what that is. Yeah. And then we make sure they know what our cars, I make sure we have the driver's phone number in case. And then what I've found is I don't want my brides to have to, or, or grooms, or couples to need to have a cell phone.
I'd prefer they don. Yeah. And if they, even if they do, it doesn't matter because they're not looking at it, hopefully. Yeah. And so, you know, being able to communicate with the driver, getting everybody to where they need to be that drive time with your wedding party is actually pretty relaxing. It's a great bla like a place to kind of decompress,
Melissa: throw some music.
Yeah. Everyone gets the tunes. Go in some of the, some of the party buses have a stripper pole. That's been fun to photo.
Dirty. It's always
the guys that do it though. It's always the . It's always the, the best man that's had a, had won too many beer
Matt: usually, or so much fun, or just the right amount, maybe.
Who knows? Yeah. Which leads me to the other flip side of that. If you have a, a one location venue, so, you know, you can do this downtown Saskatoon, like at the Ramee in the Alts, everybody stays and comes to the Ramee. They could stay at the a. Which means that no cars are needed. Parking's not needed.
Yeah, it's really nice. We can do all your photos without even leaving in those scenarios. Then you have a lot of time you don't need to drive. So it's actually really nice for just relaxing. You know, you can build in a little bit of a break to just, you know, grab a drink. You could, you know, what's the, what's the other venue?
Barnett Win's Edge. Yeah. You can buy bar service from them for your wedding party for the day. And so you can also just be there. Don't have to worry about limo. Bus is leav. I would say there's no right or wrong way to do it. It's just think about it and think about your day.
Melissa: Yeah, I think mainly like you can do it however you want, as long as you plan it out and consider all those little things that might kind of end up being an afterthought, and then you're kind of panicking and you don't want that.
You want it to be really relaxed. So the more you plan beforehand, the less you're gonna panic the day
Matt: of. You'd be surprised if you have backup plan. Like what if something doesn't work and you have a plan for it, or you just understand that it may not work, you know, let's say an outdoor ceremony.
Yeah. How many weddings did we shoot at the barn at one's edge this year? Oh, 10 lots. , it might be 10 altogether. Probably
Melissa: one of our most popular venues
Matt: this year. We shot there so many. We photographed outside ceremonies. Did we even do
Melissa: one outside zero times? Yeah. They're all inside.
Matt: The ones that were planned outside were just moved inside.
Yeah. And so, you know, to have, to be able to make that call is really nice. I think having backup plans is great. To have it outside at a farm, you should have a backup plan. Yeah. What if it rains? If you have that, at least you know what you're gonna do. If the weather's bad. And kind of just figure out when you need to make the call on, when that gets switched over.
You know, and well, as far as photo locations, we have really good ideas. We can work with anything. I, I, I think wedding photography is the hardest job as far as photography because you have to go with the flow. Mm-hmm. , if you shoot family photos and it's not nice outside, you can reschedule.
Yeah. If you shoot a commercial project and something doesn't happen, like a model doesn't show. You can reschedule, but on a wedding day, you go with it. All we do in this once, like literally . And so you need to be able to go with it. You need to be able to find the, you know, where, where it can work.
And that's where we can help with that. So if it's not so nice, we'll give our best ideas. We're gonna keep it around where your things are. One of the things we do as a team is if your ceremonies at point A and your reception's at point B often we'll keep everything. In a line from point A to B, or we'll make a loop if you wanted to leave site and then kind of go somewhere special then we'll do that so we're not zigzagging all over the
Melissa: city.
Yeah. You wanna zigzag all across town that eats up a lot of your day.
Matt: Yeah. And so, you know, if it matters, do it. And if if you don't have any ideas, you know, you can talk to your vendors and they can give you really good guidelines. Let's talk about wedding planners. Not everybody has. . And I think, and I'm not talking about day of coordinators, not the people who just help on the wedding day itself, though, that's really helpful too.
But have you seen a trend brides who have wedding planners, Have you noticed something about them, like in your opinion, about how their day goes or about
Melissa: They're a lot less stressed out if they have a wedding planner. Usually ,
Matt: I would say like for sure, like I can't, When I was writing the notes for this show, I was like looking back at all our clients who had planners and then I think to the wedding day itself, and it was like they didn't really have to think about anything.
Yeah. And if they didn't know anything, they knew who to talk to.
Melissa: And yeah, if you're not a planner, then getting a wedding planner is a good idea. If you're a, if you're typically a pretty organized person and you're on top of all the little detail stuff, then. Then it's a good thing that you can handle.
But if you're, if you're not really into that stuff and you kind of just wanna say, Hey, then it's totally worth hiring a wedding planner. And yeah, you won't even have to think about anything. It's great. You don't have to be stressed in the morning. You can just sit there and get your hair done and sip your mimosa.
Matt: If you don't have a wedding planner, by default, you are the wedding planner. Exactly. And. If it's a full-time job for someone, then obviously it means, it, it, it, it's that way because it's work. It's a lot of decisions that need to be made. And if you're not gonna do it you do need to be really strict and good with your timeline.
You need to make sure you have it, you have it detailed and you have it communicated to everybody. So grandma comes to family photos, your mc knows. You know, like saying your, I'll give you like a little anecdote story here, or maybe just like a little scenario saying your receptions at 6:00 PM doesn't mean much to anyone.
You know, You wanna go back to Okay, when does cocktail hours start? When should the mc tell people to start getting seated? When does the grand entrance, are you doing that? When does food get served? Is someone doing a blessing for the. When does that happen? How long do you think dinner service will take?
Are you doing a full service plated meal, that's where you have servers giving the food? Or are you doing a, a buffet? When are you doing all your speeches? Did you wanna go do some sunset photos? When is the sunset? Do you have some games? Are you introducing your wedding party? How many speeches are there?
Is there a slideshow? Like all these little pieces?
Melissa: Yeah, I think in general, like from what I've seen, And you probably have too, is when people are really relaxed about it and they're like, ah, we'll just kinda let the day flow. It doesn't flow. Like the only way it can flow properly is if there's a little bit of organization.
Cuz if, if people don't know where to go for certain things or when to be there, it's not relaxing for them. They're, they're concerned about where to be and what to be doing.
Matt: And if people don't know what they're doing, Who are, who are they gonna come ask on the wedding day?
Melissa: Yeah. You don't want everyone asking you what's going on when you're sitting there having dinner at
Matt: your wedding.
Yeah. Your makeup's getting done and then it's Oh, who's bringing the flowers? Oh crap. Who has the rings? Oh crap.
Melissa: Like I actually had to retrieve the rings at a wedding last year cuz people didn't really think about it. And I can't remember exactly what happened, but. I was, we had left the the getting ready location and then I got kind of a panicked call as I was in my car behind their bus of the wedding party and they're like, We forgot the rings.
Can you loop around back and get them? So I got to be the savior of the day. That was kind of cool
Matt: doing the Lord's work, Melissa. Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy. Happy for you. Guardian of the rings. Yeah. So I think that's pretty thorough. We could probably wrap this one up with little Bow Let's leave them with the tips.
What's the tips? Write it down. Have a
Melissa: plan. Have a plan. Definitely. Even if it's simple, just make sure that you think about things like. Traveling and
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Have a plan. Write it down, share it.
Melissa: Get a planner if you can.
Matt: Highly recommend help on the wedding day is good. If you don't have paid help, you're gonna have to ask people, you know, make sure they know what's expected.
All of this is. Is it's, we're giving you this advice because we wanna have couples who are having a great day enjoying it. The, the day flies by so fast. And every moment you can be present for is like another moment you remember. And then you're not just we're, we're proud to say people lean on their photos and videos to remember their day, but you know, we want it to be all of it.
We want fond memories. We don't want you to look back at your day, be feeling stressed. And maybe at the end of it we don't want you to come off the wedding weekend feeling I'm glad that's over. I'm glad it's over. That's what we don't want spend. Yeah, you wanna relive it. You spend thousands of dollars to have a great day.
And I think if you did this, just took these steps in to make the timeline really bulletproof, you're gonna have a good day. So that's it. You can find us on instagram: @mjand.co and see all of our work there and some more of our podcast stuff as well.
Melissa: Follow us.
Matt: Thanks for listening.
