5 Tips For Creating A Meaningful Engagement
we’re here to help you create a meaningful engagement.
Yes. All the yes. You’re engaged and that means so much more than what Pinterest makes it out to be. You have found your human, your best freaking friend and that singular other soul that can be as weird and quirky as you. You’re making a commitment that far surpasses what Instagram or the wedding blogs could ever put into words. It’s the 21st century and our ideas of weddings have changed in waves and the thoughts we have now in regards to marriage are so different than they once were. You’re promising to walk through life alongside someone you trust so deeply. You’re preparing to face all the battles life throw your way, knowing that a piece of yourself is interwoven through another being, one that will take those battles head on, hand in hand. It’s pretty fucking epic. It’s not always a romantic comedy, it’s real life, and I’m so excited that you found your person to live that life with.
I’m not all knowing, in regards to wedding planning… though I think we threw one hell of a wedding ourselves. As a recently engaged human bean, you’re going to read a lot of blog posts and books and Pinterest links, and there may be competing ideas and thought processes. It’s all good. That’s the beauty in this world. This guide is designed to help you eliminate that white noise, those nagging thoughts and tiny voices. Let’s break shit down and set you up for the most incredibly meaningful experience. You both deserve that.
Step No. 01 | Breath + Be With Your Babe
This is not a joke nor is filler content. I could have made my top 4 list and left it at that, but this really is an important step. It’s pretty easy to get caught up in the flurry that is a proposal, engagement rings, phone calls, cocktails or little thumbs-up on Facebook. Step away from the technology! Step away from the wedding magazine isle in your local book store and for the love of all that is amazing in this world, do NOT look at Pinterest. Yet. There’s a time for everything and please trust me when I tell you this time is for the both of you. The planning process will pickup speed and before you know it, you’re juggling a job, wedding planning, family and everyday insanity. Just take this time to be with each other and bask in the butterflies and excitement. And not because you reached a landmark that is romanticized and taken for granted in our culture. Understand why this moment is so truly out of this world incredible - you and your best friend are committing to each other on a level that many people never experience. You two are truly fortunate to have found your life partner, enjoy that feeling.
Step No. 02 | Be Honest With Yourself
I cannot stress this one enough. And please know, I’m looking at this entire subject as both a bride and a wedding vendor. We’re living in a current state of perpetual advertisements amongst a sea of likes and hearts. It’s increasingly easy to get swept away by trends and what we think we’re supposed to have surrounding us. We can break this down all the way to it’s foundation, and go way past dresses and floral arrangements. The first question you absolutely must ask yourselves, is what wedding experience do you want to provide yourself. Is it one surrounded by friends and family? Is it a private gathering? Is it just you two? Or perhaps a mixture of these things. Here’s an explanation of each to help you choose what makes the most sense for the two of you.
ELOPEMENT: How do you know if an elopement is right for you? This is a huge question and one that shouldn’t be rushed, unless of course you know in your heart this is the answer for you. Never doubt yourself. But it’s okay if you find yourself slightly stuck in your head and considering all the things your family have said or the images you saw on Pinterest. That’s life. But THE most important thing to remember: Be Honest With Yourself. I’ll say it again for the babes only reading things in bold… BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF. DO IT. Many couples find themselves planning a wedding for their parents, rather than for them. Years of tradition can cloud your personal judgements. If that’s the case, you may want to avoid those feeling of obligation and find a way to experience this moment with just the two of you. Elopements tend to provide a less stressful environment for many couples, while allowing them to truly focus on elements that matter the most to them: intimate moments shared together. It avoids potential family drama, social anxiety and factors that can create overwhelming stress for some people. Plus, they can be completely customized to exactly what you want. Hike the coast to an epic viewpoint? Camp throughout the night and say your vows as the sun rises? Travel to a new country and start your marriage as an epic adventure? Do it.
INTIMATE WEDDING: Intimate weddings are a beautiful way to combine your desire for intimacy while still inviting your best friends and family to join the experience. Perhaps you still want that meaningful experience amongst nature, but your closest group of loved ones are equally as important to you. Make it happen. Don’t let someone else’s wedding change the way you want to start this next chapter in your life. Keeping your attendance numbers small can eliminate some stressful factors and allow you to dedicate your time, focus and funds on other elements. Many venues provided cheaper prices for smaller groups of attendees, and your catering bill will be greatly reduced. Having an intimate wedding allows you to reconsider your timeline and how the order of events will go down. You can have an intimate ceremony with just the two of you and a beautiful reception with 50 of your closest friends and family! You can hike with just your babe and have a private and emotional ceremony, and another ceremony once you hike back. Or take some able-bodies friends on an epic adventure and say your vows with a close set of friends. Make the experience your own, and if that means including your chosen family, then do it.
LARGE WEDDING: For many people, a large and extravagant wedding is exactly what they want. Maybe you’ve been envisioning it since you were a child and you exactly what you want. Don’t let trends or anyone else force you to question that. Perhaps you always dreamt of a killer playlist, custom cocktails and your friends getting wild and dancing all night alongside you. Or maybe you’ve always imagined walking down the isle and seeing every person who has helped shape you into the person you are today. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with planning a large wedding, bet recommend carving out some alone time for just you two. These are some times and tricks for encouraging meaningful and intimate moments, even when hosting a large wedding.
➝ First Looks: We always encourage having a first look. If the rest of your day is planned and designed around group activities, then please take the time to embrace this moment of intimacy. The experience you have when first seeing each other can be highly emotional and we believe you deserve to have that moment in private. The security of that privacy can help nurture your honest and authentic emotions. Some people try to hold back tears when in-front of stranger or acquaintances, and having an intimate first look will allow you to embrace those emotions.
➝ Private Vows: Similarly to having a private first look, you can also opt to make other moments of your day intimate and void of prying eyes and eavesdroppers. My husband and I wrote very emotional vows to one another. Our wedding was rearranged after he unexpectedly lost his brother and both of our emotions had been very easy during the entire planning process. He wasn’t comfortable, yet, being vulnerable in front of anyone but me, so there was no way we were going to have the emotional experience in-front of others. We had our first look, cried our eyes out, and then read our vows together, privately, under giant oak tree while the breeze softly swayed the Spanish moss hanging around us. It was exactly what we needed. We read a children’s book (The Awesome Book of Love) during the ceremony, in place of standard vows.
➝ Unplugged Ceremony: I adore this trend, and I hope it simply becomes a norm in the wedding world. Most photographers will recommend this, because it helps avoid giant iPads in the aisle when you share your first kiss, but it also removed distractions for your attendees. This study explains the human condition referred to as the Photo-Taking-Impairment Effect. Basically, we remember things far less easily when we experience them through a screen. Next, imagine this… you’re standing under your alter, officially married, hand in hand with your life partner, and you turn to face the sea of supportive faces as you walk back down the aisle. All you see are the backs of phone cases, weird flashes and giant iPads. Where are you friends? Where is your family? Instead of making impactful eye contact with these people, you’re seeing a piece of technology and they’re not experience you in the real, non-digital, flesh. And lastly, you’ve most likely hired some badass creatives to document this magical experience (here’s some badass creatives!). If so, let them do their job! You’re paying them to document the day as it unfolds, so please encourage your attendees to be present and let the professionals take images and record the moments as they naturally happen. The rest of the wedding? Hashtag away! Get all those fun photos from your friends and double-tap away.
➝ Sunset Portraits: Step away and take a breather. First, eat some food. It’s easy to forget during big weddings and a diet of only champagne and french fries won’t get you through the rest of your day. Plus, you paid for that shit. Enjoy it! And then take that breather. If you book with us, you’ll aways be guaranteed a moment of solitude and reflection. We utilize that last 30 to 45 minutes, before the sun disappears, to photograph just you and your babe. The lighting is beautiful, the stress is gone and you finally get a moment to be with your human and reflect on everything magical happening around you. It’s literally my favorite moment of any wedding day.
➝ Day After Session: The best! The absolute best. Okay so you planned this big wedding, the timeline on the day of is strapped because, well, that’s just how it happens with large weddings. There’s a lot to accomplish and you don’t always get the adventurous experience you crave. No matter where you get married, the town you grew up in or a destination, you’ve chosen to be married here for a reason. So get out and experience it. And not just someday, but right away. Experience it with new eyes. Day after sessions are my freaking jam and I urge all out clients to book one. This gives you the opportunity to put the dress back on without the stress of getting it dirty. You can wear your shoes without worrying about scuffs and you can run around with your best friend and not think about planners, florists, caterers, and whatever else has been on your mind for months. It also allows you to step away from your wedding venue and create a meaningful experience in a location that matters deeply to you.
BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF!! This moment is for YOU. And if YOU want to have friends and family surrounding you when you say “I Do!” then DO IT! If you want to be alone with your babe, lost in a forest watching sunrise as you say “Yes, Forever!” then DO IT!
Step No. 03 | Be Wise + Plan Funds Appropriately
No one wants to have the money talk. I know it seems like I’m just a computer program writing a blog post pretending to understand you and your specific needs. I think my husband and I experienced a truly typical and average funding situation and we feel honored to have been part of a diverse collection of weddings and seen scenarios from people at all different stages of their life with different scenarios and predicaments. We roll with the punches and your wedding will be fucking fantastic because it’s exactly that: your wedding. Embrace whatever situation you find yourself in and know that the only things which truly matters, is your dedication to each other.
But the first real step in planning any wedding, is to decide what matters the absolute most to you. And then what aspects follow? And in what order? Is it important to have an In-N-Out truck at your wedding? Would you be heartbroken if you didn’t get that Rue de Seine dress you’ve been drooling over? Are you absolutely set on a certain venue or destination location? Or a certain live band? Maybe it’s the honeymoon you want to spend the most on… hell yes to that. Whatever is most important to you, allot those funds appropriately. Our biggest requirement was an incredible photographer and videographer. That was one of the first decisions we made. We planned our date accordingly and had a very small list of photographers and videographers that we trusted enough to document our day. From there, we reached out to a select few and made it happen. Both our photographer and film team were coming in from the west coast and we knew that would include travel costs. We organized all that information first, securing our date, venue, photographer and film team. From there, we were able to plan and sort our funding appropriately. Having a planner can be a total godsend when it comes to these things. They’re not there to control the details, they’ll simply bring yours to life and ensure your money is spent wisely. But there’s other ways around needing a planner, which brings us to our next step.
Step N0. 04 | Be Organized + Avoid Stress
My weakness is not everyones weakness. I suffer some crazy anxiety when my shit isn’t organized. The airstream may be a mess, I have too many files on my desktop and I can’t manage to master bullet journaling. But my wedding was insanely organized. Our businesses are systematic. If they weren’t, I don’t think I could get out of bed in the morning. Seriously. I’ve felt the weight of an insanely disorganized project and it usually results in me playing Rollercoaster Tycoon on my phone.
Our Approach: Organization is never not important. Start from day one. If you’re coming to us to shoot your intimate wedding, we’ll send you our wedding guide and work directly with you, or your planner, to ensure every detail is considered. If you’re coming to us to help plan and produce an epic elopement, we’ll be in touch quite a bit! My goal is to alleviate your stress while simultaneously getting to know you, your partner, and determining how we can make your elopement dreams come true.
Want to make your own lists? Want to micro-manage every element in your life? I don’t blame you.
I’ve made a list of my top 3 favorite organization program and I’m hoping they will help you in this situation. I didn’t have these available while I was planning my own wedding but I’ve since put my trust in them. These systems are what help me get shit done. Imagine have a customizable and searchable excel table that allowed you to post photos of products you’ve purchased or venues you’ve seen, categorize them any way you see fit, check things off when they’ve arrived or been completed, and have a comprehensive overlook of your wedding. Check out these applications and utilize them to reduce your stress and create a more enjoyable and meaningful engagement.
Step No. 05 | Plan An Engagement Shoot
Yeah, but seriously. And for so many reasons. We actually never got engagement photos done, we didn’t have an engagement party and we really took things pretty lax. Not a problem, no matter how you want to plan it (and I in no way regret not having a party - it wasn’t about that for us), but I really wish we had some photos of ourselves during our engagement. The twenty months we were engaged was pretty freaking magical and I don’t have anything to show for it besides my book of to-do lists. When it came time for making a wedding website, registry, gifts, bleeeeeegh…. it was all so impersonal because we never had photos taken of us together. I had to heavily rely on templates and random photos from friends or low quality selfies. The few months you share as an engaged couple is magical, and worth documenting. You have so much ahead of you, it’s a real honor to photograph engaged couples who can see their entire future in the eyes of their best friend. And many times, the couples we shoot have no professional images of themselves at all, and it kinda breaks my heart. Each and every one of you is incredibly special and you deserve to see yourself the way your partner sees you.
We’ll help you plan the perfect engagement shoot — let’s chat!
