Ahhh the morning of your wedding. The big day is finally here! There’s so much to do, so much to look forward to, and for some people…. there’s SO much stress and anxiety involved in the morning. It’s a big day ahead of you, and it can be daunting. I’ve collected some of my top tips for mixing up the morning of your wedding to reduce stress, and customise your wedding experience!

  1. Want to enjoy the wedding morning? First step (and it begins way before the morning of your wedding) – Plan a wedding celebration that you will actually enjoy.
    This one seems simple. But it is too often forgotten. You don’t need to do anything on your wedding day apart from have an officiant run your ceremony, with two witnesses, and two consenting adults with no impediment to marry. That’s it!! The rest (band, catering, guest numbers, style of celebration, etc) are all a CHOICE. That means that you can choose to include it, or exclude it.
    You don’t want to walk down the aisle with everyone watching you? Then don’t do it!
    You don’t want to wait til 9pm for your speech, and you wish you could do it early and get that stress out of the way? Then do your speeches early!
    You don’t want to run away for photos for 2 hours straight after your ceremony? Then don’t do it!
    You don’t want to be apart from your partner before the ceremony? Then get ready together! My fiance and I are getting ready together for our wedding in 2021.
    By now you surely get the point – if you are planning to do something you don’t enjoy then you won’t enjoy it. Simples! And your wedding day is there to be enjoyed.
    If you have a wedding that genuinely EXCITES you, then the wedding morning will be made a lot more enjoyable. You won’t need to be stressing about things, as you will have planned to exclude all the bad stressful shit later in the day.
  2. You can get ready together.
    It’s some old weird rule that you stay apart in the morning of your wedding. Some people enjoy that time with their friends, and the anticipation that results. But for others, it’s a MASSIVE stress, and they would be more comfortable hanging out together in the morning. Particularly if you have a late ceremony, you may want to spend more time with each other on your wedding day.
    So, chat about it – you might like to get ready together. I’ve had couples get ready in the same house, and spend time with all their friends at once. Then when the time came to get dressed, they have gone in seperate rooms and then met at the ceremony half an hour later.
  3. Do a First Look.
    Number one question whenever I bring up the idea of doing a First Look: “Jake, what is a First Look?!”. Basically, you see each other a few hours before the ceremony and get some photos taken. This takes the nerves out of the ceremony, and gives you a private experience of seeing each other for the first time, rather than in front of your 100 guests. It’s not for everyone, but my couples LOVE doing a First Look as it helps them to be more present in the ceremony, and reduces the amount of portrait time needed after the ceremony, which then leads to more time with your guests.
  4. This is the most basic point. But to really enjoy the morning, and get another step towards a stress-free morning, have your clothes/jewellery/shoes/bits and pieces all in one spot the night before, ready to put on. This is good for me too, as I like to photograph all your things before you put them on… but it’s mainly so you don’t lose anything and have to stress about where you put something right when you need to put it on!
  5. Don’t run around like a headless chook. Invite people to your house/Airbnb that you enjoy spending time with (you can have more people than just your bridal party), and spend time with your people. For Jim (below), it was a relaxed brekky at home with his family, and excellent coffee. You don’t need to make it a big occasion focused solely on ‘getting dressed’ – find ways to spend time with people, and watch your stresses f*** off real quick. I’m a people person, so I would love to have my fave people around me during a typically stressful time.

And there you go! I hope these tips help you enjoy the morning of your wedding!

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