Going in, most bridestobe often don’t realize that, with the possible exception of your maid of honor, the person you will spend the most time with on your wedding day is none other than….(wait for it)….your photographer! In these days when candid story-telling is the most popular form of wedding photography, your photographer might start by meeting you at your hair salon and end by joining in your circle of friends at your last dance. If they are telling your story, they can never leave your side!

Does this sound like a person that you want to have met just that morning? No way! Make sure the person you talk with at the studio is actually the guy or gal who will show up at your door. Be certain that  you get a photographer that you WANT to have around all day. They need to be sensitive enough to stay in the background at the right times, and diplomatic enough to make friends while taking charge during your hectic family pictures. They need to know you well enough to know that what you’re going to want goes WAY beyond what you actually asked for. Your photographer will be your constant companion on your big day—choose yours wisely!

Copyright 2012 OvationImages.com, may not be reproduced in any form. These articles condense and combine all that our brides have shared with us over the years. OvationImages.com is the choice of Pittsburgh brides for elite wedding photography:  Pittsburgh Magazine Real Weddings Selection, 2012, 2012 Pick: The Knot Best of Weddings, 2012 Wedding Wire Bride’s Choice, and featured in Whirl Wedding Guide, 2012. 

FOUR: This is our fourth and final posting related to the biggest wedding day decision you have to make—your reception venue selection.  Most wedding reception venues will offer a package of wedding services or a selection of packages to choose from. These are well worth the time to consider in detail on the basis of price alone. But don’t stop there.

Some of the packaged services come bundled in such a way that your flexibility to customize your wedding becomes limited. In other cases, the bundled food and/or liquor may not fit your vision. Check the liquor service hours. Get it into the details—like “do the bars stay open during dinner?” “Can my fiance’s Aunt have a table for the Groom’s Cake she is going to bake?” And so on.

The point is that the details will end up making a difference. It is impossible to list all the exception cases we have seen. But keep your antennas up for extra charges for customization that you want to do for your reception—even subtracting a service  or changing your schedule can result in extra charges. You simply cannot ask too many questions when it comes to your package. So have your questions ready and get some sense of how flexible your venue is going to be when the inevitable changes to the plan are necessary.

Copyright 2012 OvationImages.com, may not be reproduced in any form. These articles condense and combine all that our brides have shared with us over the years. OvationImages.com is Pittsburgh’s source for elite wedding photography:  Pittsburgh Magazine Real Weddings, 2012 Selection, 2012 Pick: The Knot Best of Weddings, 2012 Wedding Wire Bride’s Choice, and featured in Whirl Wedding Guide, 2012. 

THREE: This is our third posting related to reception venue selection (and one more still to come—do you think venue selection is important?!).  Your guest list will also help you choose your wedding reception venue. How many names are on that list? Where are they coming from?

It’s pretty clear that the facility you choose must be able to accommodate all the guests on your list. Pick a size that is a comfortable fit. At the low end, say under 100 guests, there are some lovely restaurants and B&B’s in this area with delicious banquet facilities. They will deliver a memorable wedding experience. (Slideshow time! Two of our favorites are Hyholde in Moon: http://ovation-images.com/blog/2011/02/03/wedding-and-reception-at-the-hyeholde-restaurant/ and Morning Glory Inn on the South Side: http://ovation-images.com/blog/2011/03/04/pittsburgh-wedding-reception-at-morning-glory-inn/). At the other extreme, with 350 guests and up, the number of venues in this region that can comfortably accommodate your wedding without using outdoor space can be listed on half of a single page.

Where are your guests coming from? If they are almost all local, then that is an ideal situation. In that case, every available reception venue option is open to you. But if one family is not from Pittsburgh and large numbers of your guests will be coming in from out of town, it’s time to look closely at a hotel for your wedding reception. A hotel reception has so many advantages for out of town guests that the hotel option becomes nearly unbeatable. Cost (for your guests) is among the advantages, but convenience should not be overlooked—especially for the elders of the family. With a block of rooms reserved, many hotels will break out their top-drawer services, providing you with suites for getting-ready and private moments, plus a range of “free” add-ons to your wedding package that can range from special desserts to extended bar service hours. This is an area where a good wedding planner will earn their keep. An alternative to a hotel is a banquet hall or country club with shuttle service to nearby hotels. But the convenience advantage of a hotel reception is virtually lost once a shuttle service is required.

Copyright 2012 OvationImages.com, may not be reproduced in any form. These articles condense and combine all that our brides have shared with us over the years. OvationImages.com is Pittsburgh’s source for elite wedding photography:  2012 Pick: The Knot Best of Weddings, 2012 Wedding Wire Bride’s Choice, as featured in the Whirl Wedding Guide, 2012. 

TWO: This is our second posting related to reception venue selection. There are two (more) questions you should ask yourself: 1. Can I have my ceremony and reception at the same location?, and 2. Can this location or can my reception location be outdoors?

If your family has strong ties to a local church, or if you want a specific minister who only works at one church or parish, then obviously you will want to use that church. Otherwise, having your ceremony and reception at the same location has worthwhile advantages including no limousine expense and no travel time in between. Staying in one place is also a big convenience to your guests. Many country clubs have great accomodations for indoor and outdoor ceremonies, as well as beautiful reception banquet halls. If you are not tied to a specific church, give some thought to combining your locations into one.

What about an outdoor event? The poets have referred to the great outdoors as “God’s Cathedral.” If you have ever been to an outdoor wedding under blue skies on a beautiful, sunny day, then you know how gorgeous and romantic an outdoor wedding can be. Obviously, the weather is the questionmark. But every outdoor venue will have a rain alternative—a covered area that you can use in a pinch. Equally attractive, outdoor venues are often less costly than a traditional church and reception banquet hall wedding. If it appeals to you, you should give some thought to an outdoor wedding. Here is an OvationImages.com example of how marvelous an outdoor wedding and reception in the same location can make your wedding day: http://ovation-images.com/blog/2011/02/09/pittsburgh-wedding-and-reception-at-shady-elms-farm/

Copyright 2012 OvationImages.com, may not be reproduced in any form. These articles condense and combine all that our brides have shared with us over the years. OvationImages.com is Pittsburgh’s source for elite wedding photography:  2012 Pick: The Knot Best of Weddings, and  2012 Wedding Wire Bride’s Choice, featured in Whirl Wedding Guide, 2012.

Choosing a reception venue for your wedding is BIG. Everything other choice you make will build on your choice of venue. There are a variety of considerations and we will go through them all in the nest several posts. They are: 1) Proximity to your church, 2) Reception and ceremony in one? 3) indoor or outdoor? 4) the number of guests you are expecting and where they are coming from, and 5) pricing and the total service package you want. Let’s dive in!

ONE: Proximity To Your Church. It is a hard fact that  the location of your church will limit your reception venue choices. The heart of this issue is the driving time for you and your guests after your wedding ceremony. 45 minutes is a long drive at that particular moment. The drive time will take time away from other things you may want to do like traditional pictures in front of the altar, intimate pictures with just the two of you together for the first time as husband and wife, a receiving line, or even just being able to attend your own cocktail hour! Drive time also adds to your expenses—like limousine service and anyone else who is being paid hourly.

So the first reception venue decision you have to make is “How far away from my church am I willing to drive?” — unless of course, your reception venue and your “church” are one and the same! We’ll look at that option in our next article.

Copyright 2012 OvationImages.com, may not be reproduced in any form. These articles condense and combine all that our brides have shared with us over the years. OvationImages.com is Pittsburgh’s source for elite wedding photography:  2012 Pick: The Knot Best of Weddings, and  2012 Wedding Wire Bride’s Choice, featured in the 2012 Whirl Wedding Guide. 

At this point, you realize that the availability of your church and reception venue is a big factor in selecting your wedding date (see Part 1 here: http://ovation-images.com/blog/2012/02/08/youre-engaged-now-what-part-1-of-30-its-all-about-the-date/). Well, okay—once you have your church and reception venue locked up, now what? Go dress shopping, right? WRONG!

Some wedding vendors can only do one wedding on the date you select. So if you love the photographer who did your best friend’s wedding pictures, call them now! If someone else gets there first, then you have to go shopping for photographers because they can only do one wedding on any given day. This is also true for good DJs, bands and videographers. On any given day, your favorite band can only play one gig. So if your band is high on your priority list, call them the very next minute after you sign the contract with your reception venue!

What about caterer, cake, florist and so forth? Well, actually they can and at the height of wedding season, they usually do serve 4, 5 or more weddings on a given day. So you can still get the ones you want later.  There is no need to be in a big rush.

Going back to our very first posting in this series about selecting a date, remember that from May through October, competition for the best services on a Saturday will be an issue. Your timing can make all the difference between getting exactly what you want and settling for less.  From November through April and on Fridays and Sundays, there are fewer weddings, so there is less competition for quality wedding services. In fact. Many vendors offer discounts for non-Saturday and off-season weddings for that very reason.

Copyright 2012 OvationImages.com, may not be reproduced in any form. These articles condense and combine all that our brides have shared with us over the years. OvationImages.com is Pittsburgh’s source for elite wedding photography:  2012 Pick: The Knot Best of Weddings, and  2012  Wedding Wire Bride’s Choice.

A good wedding planner costs a lot but saves even more. And we’re not just talking about money!

Once you’re engaged, we recommend that you talk with local wedding planners and get a sense about whether a planner would work for you. Wedding planners are the absolute experts. And like any expert, you must pay for their expertise. They will assemble the right package of services for your wedding, select the best vendors for those services, secure discounts for you on every service and make sure that your wedding day will be memorable for all the right reasons.

Best of all, a professional wedding planner can save your romance!  Face it—pricing chair cover options and deciding the exact make-up of the 120 dozen cookies that you need are not the most romantic parts of your wedding. In fact, when you add up all these “little” tasks, with their associated quotes, confirmations, payments, delivery schedules and checking to see that what you paid for is what you got, the romance of the day can easily get buried. Romance might be the last word you think of on your wedding day—because the planning effort  and level of detail might just have sucked it all out of you. If you are a natural detail person and love this kind of thing, then go for it—you probably wouldn’t want a planner involved. Otherwise, consider your options—meet with a few planners and look closely to see if a professional wedding planner would be a good fit for your wedding.

Copyright 2012 OvationImages.com, may not be reproduced in any form. These articles condense and combine all that our brides have shared with us over the years. OvationImages.com is Pittsburgh’s source for elite wedding photography:  2012 Pick: The Knot Best of Weddings, and  2012 Wedding Wire Bride’s Choice. 

Once you get engaged, the B-word is likely to become a familiar part of your wedding planning process. B is for BUDGET.

After you have considered your date carefully (read Part 1 here: http://ovation-images.com/blog/2012/02/08/youre-engaged-now-what-part-1-of-30-its-all-about-the-date/), your next thought might be “I don’t want to spend more than $X”. If you want it all and can afford it all—awesome! Go for it! Otherwise, WAIT! Set your wedding day priorities first. Reception venue selection will be covered in the next four parts of this series—that’s a biggie. After  your reception venue, rank your other purchases like photography, DJ or Band, Videographer, food, cake, liquor, photo booth, ice sculptures, and…..your dress (why the dress is last on OUR list is explained in Part 10!).  Re-rank your list until you have it in the priority order that fits your vision of your wedding day. Then comes the hard part—keeping your priorities straight as the amount left in the budget dwindles!

At one of our weddings last year, the bride’s family was from the old country and the groom’s family were just Pittsburgh folks. The bride wanted an exciting and fun reception for both families. So one of her top priorities was TWO bands—one to play classic old country ethnic songs in the best tradition, and another to rock the house. Her other priorities?  To her the dress was not as important as her families, and she got a relatively inexpensive gown from David’s.  She looked gorgeous.  THAT is the bride knowing her priorities and sticking to them. And her wedding day? To die for! That is what prioritization can do for you. You can see our video of how her wedding turned out here: http://ovation-images.com/blog/2011/05/16/engagement-and-wedding-at-fox-chapel-golf-club/.

Copyright 2012 OvationImages.com, may not be reproduced in any form. These articles condense and combine all that our brides have shared with us over the years. OvationImages.com is Pittsburgh’s source for elite wedding photography:  2012 Pick: The Knot Best of Weddings, and 2012  Wedding Wire Bride’s Choice. 

Probably one of the first things you will think about when you get engaged is when? When will we get married? Stop right now and take a breath!  The date you select drives every other decision you will make and choice you will have about your wedding—so choose wisely! The availability of your church and reception venue are the most obvious date issues. But what about the B word—Budget?  The date you choose will make a big difference to the final cost of your wedding.

Every wedding vendor we know has different rates for the same service depending on the date. Non-Saturday weddings cost less. Winter weddings cost less. This can be a huge factor for one big part of your wedding cost—your reception venue. Ask them about these discounts. Then explore the calendar carefully for opportunities. For example, in some years, at some venues, Memorial Day weekend is still considered “winter” and you may find exceptional deals available to you on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. Yes, look to your heart to set your date! But don’t forget the B-word!

Copyright 2012 OvationImages.com, may not be reproduced in any form. These articles condense and combine all that our brides have shared with us over the years. OvationImages.com is Pittsburgh’s source for elite wedding photography:  2012 Pick: The Knot Best of Weddings, and  2012  Wedding Wire Bride’s Choice.