Planning your dream wedding offers a unique blend of excitement and challenge. As seasoned wedding photographers in NYC, we can capture the magic of your wedding day, but we also have some great advice to help make the stress and strain a little more manageable. Check out some of our essential wedding planning tips, which we’ve compiled after many years of shooting weddings throughout the NYC area.
1. Embrace A Planning Toolkit
Create a wedding folder where you store everything that has to do with your wedding. This can be a physical folder where you store everything from contracts to planning ideas, or you can even use wedding planning app. Creating this toolkit is a great way to get started with planning your special day.
Digital planning apps specifically designed for weddings can be a huge help. You can keep track of your budget, guest list, deadlines and vendor contracts all in one place. This centralized planning hub can save you time and reduce stress.
2. Prioritize Your Must-Haves
Sit down with your partner and decide on the three most important aspects of your wedding to both of you. This could be the venue, the photography, or even the food. Focusing your budget and energy on these priorities ensures that your most cherished elements will be as perfect as possible.
3. Leverage The Off-Season
Everyone wants that unforgettable wedding in June, right? Well, June is high wedding season, and you’ll pay a huge premium for venues as well as vendors, including your wedding photographers in NYC. It also can be tough to find venues and vendors that are available from April through September.
An autumn wedding or winter wedding in NYC can be absolutely magical, and it can be much less expensive with less competition for reception and ceremony sites. Planning a wedding on a Sunday or weekday also can be an option to consider. Instead of a Saturday wedding, why not plan a Friday wedding or a Thursday afternoon or Thursday night wedding?
While you might end up with a smaller guest list, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing because an intimate wedding day can be a lot of fun. With fewer attendees, you can truly spend more time with each guest and that can be a huge bonus in addition to the reductions in cost.
4. Create A Wedding-Only Email
Our inboxes are crowded enough as it is, and it’s easy for wedding-related emails to get lost in the fray or even end up in the spam folder. Create an email address specifically for everything to do with your wedding. This can go on your wedding invites and be given to vendors, as well. This keeps your personal inbox clear and ensures that all contracts, communications with vendors, and inspiration ideas are in one organized place.
5. Build A Wedding Website
A wedding website is such a great option for you and your guests. It’s easy to misplace an invitation, but if you have a website, guests can still access all of the information about your special day, including your registry list.
Building a website is affordable (many companies offer this as a free service) and you can have people RSVP directly on the site, which eliminates the cost and hassle of RSVP cards, which can get lost in the mail or misplaced.
6. Take Some Breaks
Wedding planning can start to feel overwhelming very quickly. It can be tempting to spend your weekends dealing with wedding hullabaloo, but it’s also important to hit the pause button and just enjoy some time as a couple. Everything doesn’t have to be about the wedding, so take a break and plan some other fun activities along the way as this can help you refresh and renew your wedding planning energy.
7. Select Experienced Wedding Photographers In NYC
Wedding photos are timeless images that capture your love story and something that you will cherish for a lifetime. Therefore, selecting the best wedding photographers in New York for your budget is essential.
The team at ETG photos has years of experience as New York City wedding photographers, and we strive to capture your wedding perfectly, including those little candid moments that will mean so much to you as the years go by.
Every couple is unique, so our goal is to showcase your personality as a couple and truly highlight what’s important to you personally. For some couples, this might be a more formal approach to the wedding photography, while others might want a more whimsical touch. Many couples want a mix of formal and candid shots, and we can take your photographic dreams and turn them into reality.
Of course, we don’t simply work as New York wedding photographers, we also serve as Brooklyn wedding photographers, Long Island wedding photographers and New Jersey wedding photographers.
Additionally, if you need engagement photography or a proposal photographer, we offer these services, as well. We also can help you dream up some amazing spots for your engagement and proposal photographers. These special moments can be so much fun to shoot, and some of our wedding packages do include engagement photos, so be sure to ask about these services.
ETG Photos: Experienced Wedding Photographers in NYC
Whether you are planning an intimate wedding or a lavish wedding or somewhere in between, the team at ETG photos is excited to capture your event in all its glory and romance. Contact us at any time to discuss your engagement and wedding photography needs. Again, in addition to working as wedding photographers in NYC, we offer our services for events in Brooklyn, Long Island, New Jersey and throughout the metro area.