Weddings are supposed to be perfect. At least, that’s what we’re told. From fairy tales telling of the prince swooping in, saving the princess, getting married, and living happily ever after, to wedding blogs toting “how to have the perfect wedding.” But my beautiful friend – there is no such thing as a perfect wedding. But in my and Zoey’s experience, the flawed and imperfect weddings are the ones that end up being perfect.

That leads to the question: How does one have a flawed and imperfect wedding?

You Can’t Plan the Perfect Wedding

I don’t care if you are exiting the most beautiful wedding venues in Dallas or wedding venues in Seattle with doves flying out the door as you walk through – where you get married doesn’t make the perfect wedding. It’s not being ahead of the wedding day timeline. It’s not even the day happening with everything going right. It’s the small moments that you remember.

For instance, let’s take the vows. Unless you are a public speaker, it’s  likely that you might fudge up a couple of the words you have prepared! We’ve seen it with every wedding we’ve shot. And do you know what happens? You both giggle at the slipped words. And that’s the smile in the moment you’ll remember – in the flawed vows.

Let me emphasize this though – an imperfect wedding is not one controlled by chaos. It’s contained by a plan with structure and intentionality.

How to Plan A Wedding

There are a million blogs that exist highlighting how to plan your wedding day timeline by a traditional wedding, and one with a first look. This isn’t it – and we’re always going to advocate for a first look, simply because of the tradition of why grooms didn’t see their bride before the wedding.

It starts with understanding yourself – are you meant to get married at a venue like the Arboretum, or should you elope to Ruby Beach or Alaska? Couples often feel pressure to make decisions based on what family and friends may feel should be done. Zoey and I want to encourage you that this is a decision that needs to be made for you and no one else.

Sometimes we make those decisions for others because that is what makes us happy too – the bottom line is this; make the decision based on what fulfills your heart.

Selecting the Most Important Vendor First

Once you know what you want your wedding to be like, it’s time to start selecting your vendors. This is a decision that should be made in order of what is most important to you.

If photography is the most important thing to you, book that first and book everything else around their eligibility. Your selection order may look something like:

• Wedding Planner
• Wedding Photographer
• Venue
• Catering
• Dj
• Etc.

What you want to do, however, is make sure each vendor really buys into your vision. Zoey and I LOVE to hear what our couples envision for their wedding. And we advocate so hard for them to do what they want! But if you go skydiving, we’ll capture the experience from 10,000ft below you until you land.

Finding the Rest

After you have the vendors that can only show up because of limited availability, that’s when you go looking for the other vendors and items that can be checked off. Florists, cake, dress…depending on who you hire will determine the availability.

Waiting for the Wedding

During all of this time, you are going to be waiting for the wedding. Don’t sleep on this! These are the final months you are together before you are married. After that, it’s all in! So make memories!

Go and drink too much while watching Netflix after a day of planning. Have the honeymoon before the honeymoon! Go and make mistakes and get into silly arguments that you laugh about tomorrow.

Planning a wedding does not give you an excuse to stop spending intentional time with each other. In fact, it’s every reason why you should spend more time getting to know each other – so you can be confident in knowing that this is right.

Being Intentional On Your Wedding Day

After everything has come together, and you wake up on your wedding day, it’s time to be intentional. If you partied too hard the night before and woke up with a hangover, drink some pedialyte and saddle up – there’s no room for being groggy today. But hey, more power to you for getting through the first hours of the day and getting ready!

Everything you do today needs to be done with one thing in mind – the love for your spouse.

I can guarantee you the groom and his groomsmen will get 15 minutes behind schedule simply because they’re on YouTube learning how to tie a bow-tie. You are going to trip on your dress so many times you will lose count. That’s ok. These are the little flaws that add up.

They don’t add up to take away from your wedding – they add up and make it more memorable.

So how do you have a flawed and imperfect wedding? You just have to know nothing will go perfectly, and enjoy the day with your partner.

Yours Truly,

Nathan and Zoey