Weddingbee Blog

As I wait for my final discs with our wedding pictures on them, I figure it’s time to come clean and explain to the hive a pretty big mistake that I made early on which almost risked the beautiful images I am waiting for!

When we first got engaged I wanted to jump head-first into planning; I wanted to book vendors and start crafting as soon as possible. We knew right away that we had a fairly long engagement in front of us and even though many vendors wouldn’t even consider talking to me that far out, I knew some would. Photographers in particular tend to book early and I was determined to get someone I liked. The problem with that was that I had no idea what I was doing. I hadn’t even discovered wedding blogs, never mind the treasure-trove of ideas and knowledge that is Weddingbee! I was too eager to slow down and do my homework, so with Mama Cloud in tow I met with a photographer that had shot a family friend’s wedding. Her results were good and she had even managed to capture a candid of Mr. Cloud and I that we had framed and put in our living room. We had a short and sweet meeting with her and hired her within a month of being engaged. I was ecstatic—not over her, though—just to feel like I was doing something when it was still too early to be doing much of anything. I made other mistakes at that point, too: I bought supplies for projects I never started or didn’t fit in, and researched hundreds of ideas that would never pan out. But with the photographer, I dropped a heavy deposit and scheduled a date for engagement pictures.

We took the pictures, and they turned out OK, but at this point I had discovered the ‘bee, and blogs—lots and lots of photography blogs, especially.

Secretly I was having regrets. We weren’t ‘glowing’ like the soon-to-be newlyweds that we felt like in our pictures. The whole shoot had been awkward and it came across in the pictures. I tried to brush it off as jitters on our part, but truth be told we just weren’t clicking with our photog. I’m a chatty gal (haven’t you noticed?), and even Mr. Cloud, who is normally very shy at first, almost always warms up and chats a bit. But during our shoot that never happened. A few weeks later we had a meeting with our videographer and he gave me the best advice I have ever received when it comes to choosing vendors: “on your wedding day, you only have to like a few people: your fiancé, your planner, your videographer, and your photographer. Those are the people that are going to be in your face, so you have to like them.” Shit. It’s not that I didn’t like her, I just didn’t LOVE her. I was worried.

After many conversations with friends, family, and other bees we knew what we had to do, it was time to break up with our photographer. Breaking up is hard to do, and a vendor is no exception, but it was the best decision I have made yet. Yes, we ate our deposit, which hurt, but in the end I’m looking at every single one of those pennies as worth it for my peace of mind. We were lucky enough to find an amazing photographer with our date open as a replacement as well—someone we loved and really clicked with.

I went back and forth on the decision to let our original photog go for over 20 months before following my instincts. Finally, I trusted the bees who wisely told me I would be better off to have an awkward break up conversation than to be writing a post about regrets.

Did you make any mistakes or have any regrets about planning too early on in the process?