Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Hire Professionals, Not Friends

: Sherrie Perkovich

After all the time you spend planning out your perfect wedding, be sure to stick to professionals and not friends when hiring vendors.

Wedding Mistake #2: Hired a friend for photographing our wedding.
A friend of mine is a wedding and family photographer. I thought it would be rude to not offer her the job of shooting our wedding, so we decided to put our gut instincts aside and go with our friend.

HUGE mistake. There were other photographer's whose style we liked a lot more. But friends are friends, so we went with our friend.

Wedding Mistake #3: Didn't get a contract
Not only did we choose our friend over a professional, we didn't get a contract. For the same reasons why we chose our friend, we weren't tight on the specifics of what we would get for our money.

Here we are, 8 months post wedding, still no photos. We are arguing about money, he said, she said and a whole lot of BS. With no contract and no photos, our "friend" has all the cards. Holding our wedding photos (memories) hostage while she decides whether or not to deliver them to us.

Lesson learned: Hire professionals, not friends. And get a contract... no matter what! You and your perfect wedding day memories will thank me.

Don't Skimp on a Wedding Video

: Sherrie Perkovich

It's your wedding day. You've found the perfect dress, perfect hair, perfect location and the perfect guy. The wedding is costing way more than you thought. But you've spent this much, be sure not to skimp on what will possibly matter most once the wedding dust settles... the memories.

You spend so much time preparing for the big day. All the way down to the tiny details. What you may not be prepared for is how incredibly fast the day goes. One minute it's Friday night before the wedding, you're sipping champagne with all your favorite girls and trying to talk yourself into a few hours of sleep. The next minute the reception is over and you're packing for your honeymoon.

The wedding ceremony itself felt like it lasted 5 minutes. The reception 30 minutes. We decided, regrettably, to forgo the videographer and stick to just photos. Why spend an extra couple of thousand dollars... we'll save it and spend it on our honeymoon.

Bad decision #1. Buck up the extra dough to have your special day professionally videoed. We had a friend stand at the back of our ceremony and take video. We thought that would be enough to capture the day. What we didn't count on was that friend being crazy hung over from the rehearsal dinner, having the shakes and the inability to find the zoom button.

Take my advice. Spend the extra money on getting a professional videographer. You won't watch it often, maybe once a year on your anniversary. But it will be well worth it. You'll be able to actually see and hear what happened at the wedding. See the people. See the party. And most importantly, watch you and your spouse exchange vows... from the heart.