How We Chose Our Engagement Photography Style

We chose Paul as our wedding photographer because he came highly recommended by a close friend of mine. I loved her wedding and engagement photos. In our early discussions, Paul sent me his portfolio, and I saw a Central Park engagement photoshoot that was my “dream” engagement shoot. Our wedding photography package included engagement photos and we quickly scheduled our own Central Park photoshoot. I sent Paul an engagement photoshoot Pinterest board to share the overall feeling I liked. Putting the board together helped us choose our outfits and decide that we wanted a mix of candid and posed photos. I love that most of the photos feel like a date night, not a photoshoot.

How We Chose Our Engagement Shoot Location

As a native New Yorker, Central Park has always been my “happy place.” Josh and I usually take walks in the park every weekend, and it’s my favorite place to run. Since we are getting married in New York, I wanted our engagement photos to have a classic New York feel.

We took our Central Park engagement photos at some of my favorite spots: Conservatory Water, Bethesda Terrace, Bow Bridge, and the Lake, with a great view of the San Remo. If you’re deciding where to take your engagement photos, consider places where you enjoy spending time together.

How We Decided What to Wear for Engagement Photos

I tried on about a dozen white dresses for various wedding-related events and strongly considered wearing one for our engagement photos. I sent our photographer pictures of the top contenders, and he recommended my white Staud Wells dress. I almost wore it but ended up switching at the last minute to my pink Staud Wells dress. (My motto: If you like something, buy it in multiple colors.)

I think pink is better for my skin tone, and I knew we would have lots of photos of me in white dresses throughout our wedding weekend. I wanted to frame a few beautiful photos of us together with me wearing something that truly made me feel confident.

If you’re choosing an engagement photo outfit, I’d start with the colors and styles you already enjoy wearing. You can wear white, but you don’t have to limit your search to white dresses. Our photographer recommended avoiding dark colors, large prints, and busy patterns so our outfits wouldn’t distract from us.

Take a few photos in your outfit and move around so you can see how it looks from different angles and feels when you’re sitting and walking. I showed a few dress options to a friend who had beautiful engagement photos, and she recommended one of the A-line dresses because they move well for walking and dancing shots.

I suggest trying everything on ahead of time, including your shoes and jewelry. I like the look of sleek stiletto heels, but I knew we would be walking around Central Park and wanted to be comfortable. I wore white Stuart Weitzman Nearlynude block-heel sandals. I kept my jewelry simple, wearing my go-to bezel-set diamond earrings, a solitaire diamond necklace, and just my engagement ring instead of pairing it with other rings.

Josh looked handsome in a navy suit jacket, light blue Oxford shirt, and khakis. When you’re planning what to wear for engagement photos, look at both outfits side by side. The colors don’t have to match, but they should work together. You’ll probably want a similar level of formality, too.

Sharing the options with your photographer can also help. They can suggest what makes sense for the location, season, and time of day and offer another perspective on what will photograph well.

Why I’m Glad We Took Engagement Photos

First and foremost, we now have so many beautiful photos together in one of our favorite places. We had never taken professional photos together, and the engagement session helped us practice posing and being photographed before the wedding.

We like candid photos that feel like private moments. I thought spending time getting to know Paul would help us feel more comfortable, especially because he’ll be photographing such intimate moments as our first look and ceremony. There are sure to be some happy tears!

I’m so glad we have these photos from our engagement, and I’m excited to have Paul photograph our wedding in November.

The post How to Plan Engagement Photos: Tips From Our Experience appeared first on Elana Lyn Gross.

Wedding Venue

Your venue will likely be one of the first wedding vendors you book because it determines your wedding date and impacts many other decisions. In addition to finding out whether your preferred date is available, ask exactly what’s included in the price. Some venues provide tables, chairs, linens, catering, staffing, and other services, while others only provide the space. Our venue includes many of those elements, which meant we didn’t need to hire as many separate vendors. It also made it important to understand the per-person price, fees, and minimums.

Five questions to ask your wedding venue:

• Do you have an approved or preferred vendor list, and are we required to use it?
• What is included in the venue fee and per-person price, such as catering, tables, chairs, linens, place settings, and staffing?
• What is the maximum guest capacity for the ceremony and reception?
• Are there food and beverage minimums, service charges, gratuities, or other fees?
• How many hours are included for setup, the wedding, and breakdown?

Wedding Planner or Coordinator

Depending on how much of the wedding planning process you want to handle yourself, you may want to hire a full-service wedding planner, partial planner, or a month-of or day-of coordinator. Before hiring someone, clarify their responsibilities. A venue coordinator generally focuses on the venue and its staff, while a wedding planner or outside coordinator may oversee your full vendor team and the wedding-day logistics.

Five questions to ask a wedding planner or coordinator:

• What is included in your package, and when will we start working together?
• Have you worked with our venue or similar venues before?
• Will you help find vendors, review contracts, and communicate with vendors?
• Will you create and manage the wedding-day timeline?
• Will you be there for setup and breakdown?

Wedding Photographer

Photography was one of the decisions I cared about most, and I found it helpful to ask friends for referrals and look at photographers’ full galleries to get a feel for their style. A complete gallery shows how a photographer captures the entire day, including family portraits, candid moments, the ceremony, and an indoor reception.

Five questions to ask a wedding photographer:

• How would you describe your photography style?
• Have you photographed weddings at our venue or similar venues?
• What is included in your wedding photography package?
• How do you handle requests for specific photos, including family portraits?
• Will you help us create a photography timeline for the day?

Wedding Florist

The initial wedding florist calls were tricky because vendors kept asking me for my floral budget, but I didn’t know what different elements, like bouquets and centerpieces, cost. The calls became more productive when I created a Pinterest board with examples and discussed the price of each element. We were able to work together to figure out how to get a similar look at a cost that worked for us.

Five questions to ask a wedding florist:

• Based on these inspiration photos, what would you estimate for each floral element?
• What flowers will be in season around our wedding date?
• Which arrangements can be repurposed from the ceremony to the reception, and who will move them?
• Are delivery, setup, breakdown, vases, candles, and other décor included?
• Can we see a sample centerpiece or bouquet before the wedding, and is there an additional fee?

Wedding Caterer

You may not need to hire a separate caterer if your venue provides food and bar service. If catering is not included, ask your venue whether you can choose any caterer or need to hire one from an approved list.

The menu matters, but staffing, rentals, bar service, and dietary accommodations matter, too. As someone who is gluten-free and vegetarian, I would also want to know that a caterer can provide a thoughtful meal for guests with dietary restrictions—not simply remove part of the standard entrée.

Five questions to ask a wedding caterer:

• What is included in the per-person price, such as staffing, rentals, cocktail hour, and bar service?
• Can you accommodate allergies and dietary restrictions?
• Is a tasting included, and when will it take place?
• Are there service charges, gratuities, minimums, cake-cutting fees, or other additional costs?
• When are the final menu and guest count due?

Wedding Hair and Makeup

When you’re comparing wedding hair and makeup vendors, look beyond the price of the bride’s services. Minimums, travel fees, trials, services for additional people, early start times, and touch-ups can significantly change the total. If you’re working with an agency, I recommend confirming who will actually be assigned to you so you can review their portfolio and schedule a trial with them.

Five questions to ask wedding hair and makeup artists:

• Is a trial included, and will the same artists do my hair and makeup on the wedding day?
• Is there a minimum number of services or a minimum spend?
• Will you help create a beauty timeline for the day?
• How many artists will be there, and how much time should we allow for everyone’s services?
• Are travel, early-start, touch-up, assistant, and gratuity fees included?

Wedding Band or DJ

Your band or DJ will have a huge impact on the vibe of your reception, so make sure their style fits what you envision. In addition to listening to their recordings, ask who will actually perform at your wedding and how they handle the timeline, announcements, and song requests.

Five questions to ask a wedding band or DJ:

• Who will perform at our wedding, and can we see recent videos or recordings?
• How many hours of music are included, and can you also provide music for the ceremony, cocktail hour, and dinner?
• Can we provide must-play and do-not-play lists?
• Who will act as the emcee, and how will you coordinate the reception timeline?
• Are sound equipment and setup included, and what are the overtime fees?

Wedding Cake

Your venue or caterer may provide your wedding cake, or you may need to find a bakery yourself. We chose one of our favorite gluten-free bakeries and had a good time trying different cake and frosting combinations to find the one.

Five questions to ask a wedding cake baker:

• Do you offer a tasting, and is there a fee?
• Can you accommodate dietary restrictions?
• How much cake do we need for our guest count?
• Are delivery, setup, and a cake stand included?
• Do you have cake designs we can choose from or customize?

Questions to Ask Every Wedding Vendor

There are also a few questions worth asking almost every vendor before signing a contract.

Make sure you understand exactly what’s included in the quoted price and what could cost extra. Ask about deposits and payment schedules, overtime or travel fees, and insurance. You should also ask about cancellation and rescheduling policies and what happens if the vendor is unable to provide the agreed-upon services.

Read the entire contract before signing it, even after you’ve had a great consultation. You want everything you’ve agreed to—from hours of coverage to specific services—to be reflected in writing.

I’ve also found it helpful to compare proposals line by line instead of looking only at the total. One florist may include vases, candles, setup, and breakdown while another lists them separately. One photographer may include a second photographer or engagement session while another charges extra. The lower quote isn’t always the less expensive option once you compare what’s actually included.

Keep Track of Your Wedding Vendors

Every wedding is different, so you may not need every vendor on this list. You might also need additional vendors, such as a videographer, tent rental company, transportation company, or wedding stationery designer.

I found it helpful to keep a spreadsheet with everyone we needed to hire, who we’d contacted, pricing, and whether we’d signed the contract and paid the deposit. Once you start booking vendors, also keep track of final payment deadlines and anything each vendor needs from you before the wedding.

There are a lot of decisions involved in planning a wedding, but you don’t need to figure everything out at once. Start with the vendors who will have the biggest impact on your date and wedding, then work your way through the smaller details.

The post Top Questions to Ask Wedding Vendors appeared first on Elana Lyn Gross.

Just Engaged:

It’s early in the journey and you’re just starting to get a handle on what you want to plan.

Do: AI to synthesize your vision
Sit down with your partner and use the voice dictation function on your favorite AI chat. Describe your vision and the overall vibe you see for your wedding and let AI put it together as a vision statement. Continue refining this between the two of you, and bring it to vendors to help easily convey your vision.

• The prompt: “I’m going to describe how I want my wedding to feel, like the atmosphere, the emotions, the experience I want for myself and my guests. I want you to listen and then reflect back a clear, specific vision statement I can use to guide my decisions and share with vendors. Ready? [then voice dictate or type freely]”

Do: Use AI to Check your priorities
List out your top priorities for the wedding together as a couple, then ask AI to break down or flag where priorities are likely to conflict. This will help surface any tradeoffs you likely have to make and questions to ask yourselves before you start putting money down.

• The prompt: “Here are the things my partner and I both want for our wedding: [full dance floor all night, food people rave about a year later, conversations with every guest, etc.]. We haven’t set a budget yet. Can you identify where these priorities are likely to conflict with each other, what tradeoffs we’ll probably have to make, and what questions we should be asking ourselves before we start making decisions or spending money?”

Don’t: Use AI to research and recommend specific local vendors
This is the most dangerous early mistake. AI will confidently name vendors, describe their style, and even quote approximate pricing. Some of that information may be outdated, hallucinated, or simply wrong. Vendor businesses close, change ownership, and shift in quality. Always make sure to verify any specific vendor recommendation independently and never shortlist someone based solely on what AI told you about them.

Actively Wedding Planning:

Things are heating up! You’re in talks with vendors, signing contracts and tasting cakes:

Do: Identify your blind spots
Now that you have a sense of your vision, you need a team to help you bring it to life. Hiring professional and well-vetted vendors is one of the most important aspects of this entire journey. Use AI to help you suss out what questions to ask as you determine the right fit within each vendor category.

• The prompt: “What are the most important questions first-time couples forget to ask when meeting with a [photographer / florist / caterer / venue / DJ] for the first time, especially the ones that lead to regret, surprise costs, or problems on the wedding day? Please focus on the non-obvious ones that a first-timer wouldn’t think to ask but an experienced planner would always cover.”

Do: Compare key vendor terms
You’re in talks with a strong list of vendors and now you need to read and understand the fine print. Use AI to help you identify and compare key contract terms so there are no surprises.

• The prompt: “Here are my wedding vendor contracts: [upload contracts]. For each one, pull out the following: cancellation policy (mine and theirs), payment schedule and due dates, overtime or additional fee clauses, and anything unusual or worth flagging. Then compile everything into a comparison table so I can see all the key terms side by side.”
  Note: you may need to do this in batches, depending on the number of vendors. Check the summary against the original contracts and ask the vendor to clarify anything unclear.

Don’t: Use AI to tell you what things should cost in your market
AI can estimate national averages or general ranges but it may not have reliable, current information about what a florist in your specific city charges right now, what the going rate for a DJ in your area is this season, or whether catering costs have shifted since its training data was collected. Use AI to understand the categories of cost and what elements might affect pricing, rather than a source of actual numbers you take into a negotiation.

Wedding Week:

It’s the week of your wedding and the end is in sight! Keep your sanity as you watch all the details come together:

Do: Create contingency plans for last-minute changes: Even the most organized couple might themselves rearranging seating cards the morning of the wedding when a guest cancels at the last minute. Use AI to help you make a list of all the things that need adjusting when someone changes their RSVP at the final hour.

• The prompt: “I’m getting married soon and a guest has just canceled last minute. I need to figure out everything that’s affected by this change. Please ask me questions about my wedding setup so you can build me a complete checklist of everything I need to update or notify.”

Do: Build your wedding morning schedule: The challenge of organizing an efficient yet realistic morning timetable shouldn’t be underestimated. When you’re juggling a lot of moving parts the morning of your wedding, use AI to help develop a plan to get everyone beautified and out the door on time.

• The prompt: “Help me build a getting-ready schedule for my wedding morning. Here are my details: [number of people getting ready, number of hair stylists and makeup artists, time per person for each, photographer arrives at X, we need to leave for the venue by X, first look yes/no]. Build a realistic minute-by-minute schedule that works backwards from our departure time and flags anywhere we’re likely to run behind.”

Don’t: Use AI to draft communications to vendors on your behalf without careful review: AI doesn’t know the relationship you’ve built with your florist over six months, the informal agreements you made verbally, or the tone that fits that specific person. A message that sounds perfectly professional in isolation can land wrong with someone who knows you. Always revise the message in your own voice before sending, or at least read it carefully before hitting Send.

Hannah Roze is the founder and CEO of Plannerd, a modern wedding-planning platform she created after realizing there was no true project-management tool designed for today’s brides. A Seattle native with an MBA in Technology Management from the University of Washington, Hannah previously helped scale high-growth tech companies, including equity-management unicorn Carta. She lives in Seattle with her husband and young daughter. 

The post The Right and Wrong Ways to Use AI to Plan Your Wedding appeared first on Elana Lyn Gross.

I’m making a list of everything I want to save so we don’t miss anything. When in doubt, I’d save something and decide what to do with it later. You can always throw away a menu or cork a few weeks after the wedding. You can’t get it back once the reception has been cleaned up. If you’re also wondering what to save from your wedding, here are some sentimental wedding keepsakes I hope you’ll be glad you saved.

Save Your Wedding Flowers

I love flowers and knew I’d want to save my wedding bouquet, but I didn’t realize just how many wedding flower keepsake ideas there are now. You can have your wedding bouquet professionally pressed and framed, dried and displayed, or preserved in resin. I’ve seen companies turn wedding flowers into jewelry boxes, jewelry dishes, vases, trays, bookends, and other home decor. If you’re crafty, you can find great DIY tutorials. Also consider preserving other flowers like your partner’s boutonniere, a corsage, or flowers from your chuppah, ceremony arch, or sweetheart table.

If you know you want to preserve your wedding flowers, research your options before the wedding. Depending on the preservation method, you may need to ship or drop off your bouquet shortly after the wedding.

Save Your Wedding Invitation and Other Paper Goods

Set aside at least one pristine copy of your entire invitation suite before you send out your invitations. I registered for a double frame so we can frame a wedding photo on one side and our invitation on the other, but I’ve also found more unique ideas. For example, you can frame your entire invitation suite together, frame your invitation and pressed flowers, have an artist create a custom art piece, or make an invitation tray.

Don’t forget about other paper goods. I want to save our menu and place cards, but you can also save extras like customized napkins or coasters. These are the kinds of little things that could get cleared away before you think to grab them.

Save Your Wedding Cards

I want to save all of our wedding cards and use CardKive to turn them into a book. Instead of having dozens of individual cards sitting in a box, you’ll have one book you can easily pull out and flip through. This way, you can keep everyone’s original handwriting and messages without having loose cards in a drawer or shoebox.

Save Fabric From Your Wedding Dress Alterations

This is one of the sentimental wedding keepsake ideas I never would have thought of on my own. Ask your seamstress to give you any usable fabric, lace, or appliqués removed during your wedding dress alterations.

You can repurpose the leftover material. I’ve seen people add wedding dress fabric or appliqués to personalized sweatshirts, but you could also eventually use the material to create a handkerchief, tie, clutch, framed artwork, or another family keepsake. I love the idea of getting a piece of my dress sewn onto my fiancé’s wedding tie or suit.

Save the Shattered Glass From a Jewish Wedding Ceremony

One of the wedding keepsakes we’re already planning for is the shattered glass from our Jewish wedding ceremony. We’re planning to have the glass made into a mezuzah for our home. I love the idea of turning something from the actual wedding ceremony into something that will become part of our life together afterward.

Broken wedding glass can also be incorporated into other Judaica, artwork, jewelry, or decorative pieces. If you want to repurpose yours, make sure someone is responsible for collecting the pieces and keeping them safe after the ceremony.

Save a Slice of Your Wedding Cake

It’s a tradition to save the top tier or a slice of your wedding cake and eat it on your first anniversary. If you want to do this, make sure your wedding planner, caterer, or venue knows ahead of time so the cake gets packed up rather than thrown away at the end of the night. Wrap and freeze it properly when you get home so you can enjoy it a year later.

Save Your Vows and Speeches

If you write your own vows, save your vow books. I also love the idea of getting wedding vow art that you can display somewhere private like your bedroom.

I wouldn’t have thought of this before doing some research, but ask family members or friends who give a toast to send you a copy. You’ll cherish it forever.

Save the Little Personalized Details

You spend months choosing little details for your wedding. Save one personalized cocktail napkin, favor, coaster, menu, kippot, or other custom item you particularly love. You don’t need to take home a lifetime supply—just set aside one or two before the wedding so you’re not searching for them at the end of the reception.

Don’t forget to make sure someone brings home your guest book, too, especially if you’re doing an alternative guest book with individual notes, Polaroids, or other pieces that could easily get left behind.

Save Digital Mementos

Not all wedding memory keepsakes have to be physical.

Before you take down your wedding website, save screenshots or PDFs of the pages you want to remember. After the wedding, you can also create a shared album where friends and family can upload their pictures and videos. Your photographer will capture the important moments, but guests may have funny, candid photos and videos that you’ll want to keep too.

At my cousin’s wedding in the ’90s, she had a Polaroid camera on every table so guests could take photos. I think we’ll print a few QR codes at the wedding and invite guests to upload their photos to a shared album.

Save Your Wedding Signage

You probably don’t need a giant welcome sign or seating chart sitting in your house or apartment forever, but you may want to save smaller signs, especially if they include your names, wedding date, monogram, crest, venue illustration, or another custom design. You may be able to repurpose a sign into artwork for your home. At the very least, take good photos of larger custom pieces before you get rid of them.

The post Sentimental Wedding Keepsakes: Things I’m Saving From Our Wedding appeared first on Elana Lyn Gross.