Si­mone Sant-Ghu­ran

Food short­age

Sad to say, I've been to wed­dings where some menu items ran out quite ear­ly dur­ing the re­cep­tion or where dessert was giv­en to the few who man­aged to make it to the dessert buf­fet ear­ly. Nei­ther sce­nario augers well for your guests. To avoid this, get an ex­pe­ri­enced cater­er and don't be afraid to over-cater a lit­tle. Food will not go to waste; fam­i­ly mem­bers or wed­ding ven­dors can have some to take home or ex­cess can be giv­en to char­i­ty. These choic­es are both in­fi­nite­ly bet­ter than hav­ing starv­ing guests, who will no doubt tell all and sundry that the food ran out. Re­mem­ber that every­one at your wed­ding, even for years to come, will re­mem­ber the food.

An un­pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er/video­g­ra­ph­er

Your pho­tog­ra­ph­er or video­g­ra­ph­er is not on­ly cap­tur­ing the mo­ments of the day but re­al­ly, they are pre­serv­ing mem­o­ries that will be viewed by gen­er­a­tions to come. That's a heavy re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, so be sure to se­lect a pho­tog­ra­ph­er and/or video­g­ra­ph­er who has an im­pres­sive port­fo­lio of work to match your bud­get. Al­so, be sure to have pre-wed­ding day meet­ings with him/her to en­sure that he/she is aware of the key peo­ple at your wed­ding and that he/she knows the mo­ments they should record for you. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, please in­sist on their punc­tu­al­i­ty and re­spect them as well by be­ing punc­tu­al your­self.

The venue

I'm sure you've heard a few hor­ror sto­ries about wed­ding venues-too many func­tions go­ing on at the venue at the same time; near­by loud nois­es or ad­ja­cent road work that are dis­tract­ing to your guests, poor wash­room or kitchen fa­cil­i­ties, poor light­ing or ven­ti­la­tion and so much more. Your re­cep­tion venue is ar­guably the cen­tre fo­cus of your big day, apart from you and your groom of course. It's where you and your guests will spend the most time. Choos­ing a good venue is im­per­a­tive for many rea­sons: the com­fort of your guests, its suit­abil­i­ty for pho­tos and for your own peace of mind.

The bride's make-up

There are a mul­ti­tude of prob­lems that arise here: from the make-up artist not show­ing up, the bride not be­ing pleased at the fi­nal re­sult or make-up that is not suit­ed for bridal pho­tog­ra­phy. It's im­por­tant to get pro­fes­sion­al­ly ap­plied make­up on your wed­ding day since the re­sults will be pre­served for pos­ter­i­ty in your pho­tos and video. This is not some­thing I would rec­om­mend that you do your­self un­less you are pro­fes­sion­al­ly trained in make-up artistry. Go­ing on make-up tri­als be­fore-hand is a must. Al­so, be sure to look at your­self in bright day­light and not on­ly un­der the make-up stu­dio's lights.

The DJ

Mu­sic can mean the dif­fer­ence be­tween a swing­ing shindig or a snooze-fest, that's why en­sur­ing that your DJ can en­ter­tain your crowd in a pro­fes­sion­al way is crit­i­cal. I once went to a wed­ding where the DJ kept an­nounc­ing his name and why his DJ com­pa­ny was the best to hire! Please cou­ples, tact­ful­ly ad­vise your DJ that your wed­ding is not an ad­ver­tis­ing medi­um for him/her and that his good qual­i­ty mu­sic should be enough ad­ver­tise­ment in it­self. And don't for­get to men­tion to your DJ that he/she should be ap­pro­pri­ate­ly at­tired for your event.