Tips for Planning your Chicago Wedding and How to Avoid Common Problems
After finding out that I could not work, plan a wedding and blog regularly about my wedding all at the same time I stopped updating the Chicago Wedding Blog a few months back. I did get married this past weekend and am ready to pass on the wisdom and things I learned from planning my wedding in Chicago to you so yours turns out even better than mine did. Some areas we ran into problems were timing-scheduling, photographer expectations, hairdresser expectations, time management and dress snafus. Here are some helpful hints to planning the details of your wedding in Chicago below:
The gallery of home grown photos may look better than the expensive ones we paid for since we were overly posed and could not hold perfect expressions for 10 minutes.
1. Plan out the photographer’s shots in detail, give very specific instructions about what you want in the time allotted. I had a big issue with my photographer from Modern Images Wedding Photography (which cost $2,300) even though she was very nice and took some very good pictures. Sometimes leaving things vague can bite you in the arse. I trusted her judgement and she took too long getting shots set up, the cameras set up and actually take the shots. She took about 15 minutes to do one flipping picture. If I could do things over again I would ask the photographers I was interviewing if they could set up a group shot in 10 min or less and if they could do couple shots in 5 min or less specifically, then look at quality. We had too many pictures posed frozen for 5 minutes where our smiles had fallen and our expressions were awkward. If you can’t set up the camera before the people or can’t catch natural expressions on the fly, you aren’t the right photographer, regardless of your portfolio.
She took about 30 variations of each set photo but what we really needed was one good one and to move on quickly because the beehive guy got me out of Mario Tricoci an hour and a half late. It was very frustrating because I did not have a shot list to give her and say, skip these, just do these in the time crunch and she kept reassuring me that we did have time to do all the shots she wanted and it would work out. The result may have been some good shots but it also meant that we had the entire bridal party and parents standing around for hours and we got back to the reception an hour late. This meant that guests were complaining about wanting dinner since they had been drinking during cocktail hour and needed food fast.
I was not allowed to wear my watch during the day (by everyone, because they said it looked bad, but that was a huge mistake) so I had o idea what time it was at any point to keep people on schedule. When you run late it always gets blamed on the bride, people always assume its the bride who wants a million pictures of herself and is taking too long. I really wanted to quit the pix of us and focus on the group shots only and then get to the reception by our deadline. That didn’t happen. Be sure your photographer doesn’t think they have the control of everything and determine this for you too. They are there to work for you and should follow your specific directions because if they run late you get blamed by the guests complaining about things being delayed.
2. Plan your day with extra time included between events-appointments or stages of your day for the oops moments and the extra time vendors take when they are behind schedule. Juan started a 1/2 hr late, the makeup person also started another 1/2 hour late. I left an hour and a half late from the makeup people. This would have been rant worthy in public except I planned in an extra hour between the 2. It still screwed the pictures, but that was more because of how long things took there than starting late because I could have been ready to start the group pictures at 1 pm like planned if she had not asked me to take the dress off and take pictures of it by itself with all the details. Sometimes no matter how much you like certain details, you have to be willing to cut them out to make the schedule work. All the vendors have the responsibility to keep track of the time and check in and ask what you want to do when you are not on schedule. If you say skip it, that means skip it and move on. Otherwise triple the amount of time you think you need for photos or do them the day after with 4-5 hours of time allotted and your own makeup & hair.
My dress was from Angelique and I laced the corset too tight and my cleavage showed too much. Luckilly its hidden behind the cake here and distracted by my beehive hair.
3. If you wear a corseted wedding dress and are heavy busted, don’t sit down very much if at all. If you do, go re-lace or re-position the wedding dress immediately after sitting for dinner and then stand for the rest of the night. I did not know this would happen. Basically when I would sit down my wedding dress would bend at the waist and slip down, I would pull it up and and my boobs would go up with it and look inappropriately visible, although not quite falling out. I had it laced too tight and I could not even shove them back into the dress without getting out and back in again. This also depends on how much cleavage you want to show and how high the front and back of the dress are compared with your torso length. I should have gotten a dress with a higher back to support the front of the dress, which was carrying all the boob weight. I didn’t think it dipped much in the back of mywedding dress, but one that is the same height in front and back would have been better. Or straps/sleeves to hold it up would have helped. I will be tossing a lot of pictures based on too much boobage showing.
4. Bring extra shoes. For everyone. We had 3 pairs of shoes break out of 10 people. (2 heels broke off and one entire sole same off) Dress shoes are not meant to walk very far or for very long. (plus shoes are made cheaper than ever these days many times just lightly glued together) Bring a nice looking but comfortable pair of shoes to wear when in route to the photo locations and before the ceremony that can serve as a backup pair if your shoes break. Men also should have a set of extra laces for their shoes in case someone breaks one.
5. Be explicit with your hair and makeup people before they begin, because un-doing things will make you late. I got a ball of fake blonde hair put into a bee-hive french twist in the back of my head at Mario Tricoci in Naperville when I never asked for that. (gee thanks Juan) Not only did it make me late I was fuming internally because I didn’t want to look like an alien with this potruding big hairdo. Get your hairdresser to agree to it looking exactly like a picture before hand and mention things like no fake hair added, no extensions, no teasing or no ringlet curls if you don’t want/like those things.
Likewise for makeup. I liked mine ok but some people don’t want a heavy makeup look and need to approve every color as it goes on to make sure it is ok so you don’t have to take it all off and start over again. Going in about 2 months before for a trial test run with hair and makeup is a good idea too, although it did not help me in this situation, he just decided this anyway without my consent. The pix look ok, but I really would have rather not have had that beehive and now I am stuck with it in my wedding pictures forever and out the $140 it cost.
The head table at my wedding reception at Cantigny, they set up everything beautifully with very little direction from me.
6. Be flexible. Besides the hair stuff (because I am pretty particular about how I look and don’t like beehive hairdos), I was determined to be flexible and improvise most of the wedding. I gave most vendors (the DJ, the Catering people at Cantigny, The florist, the alterations lady, the dress shop some leeway in how they did things. I trusted their judgement. They all had info sheets to fill out for them to use and then beyond what specifics they asked, and I answered I let them have creative license. I ended up with flowers aranged slightly different from the pictures I showed but they were the right kinds and colors so I was ok with it. Tulipia did a great job. The DJ (Chad V) did his thing after I just gave him 4 CDs of music and told him that we were very low key. The catering people set up the room per their regular arangement and I trusted that they would serve people in a timely manner and set up things in a pretty way. They did that very well.
7. Wear your wrist watch regardless of what people say it looks like. Get a dainty bracelet watch if you have to match it to the outfit. It is important since you are the one being blamed by the parents-vendors-guests if things don’t run on time.
Note: none of the pictures used in this post were from Modern Images Photography. These were from my friend Andre and his camera.