Once the cake has been eaten, the champagne drunk, the bouquet tossed and the smiles fade, all you’re left with are blurry memories and sometimes just blurry pictures. To counteract that because if you were to ask me merely 4 months after my wedding what I did the day of my wedding it would probably sound something like this,
“There was sunshine and water and Tim forgot the rings and there was cake and it was awesome.”
I hired a videographer.
My first big mistake in my wedding was hiring all my friends as vendors. Yes, they will work extra hard because they love you but you also are willing to let things slide because you love them. That being said my hair, makeup, flowers, photos are awesome. However, as with everything in life it all comes down to the he said she said bull. My photographer (who is also one of my best friends) brought with her from North Carolina all the way to Hawaii 3 additional people – her roommate (who I don’t know but ended up taking some video for the wedding), her photographer friend (who I’ve met before briefly and we ended up hiring for videography in addition to shooting some photos) and her photographer friend’s assistant (who I don’t know but was supposed to help Emily with photos or something). I was pretty excited about having so many people to work on my wedding. No matter how stressed out you are on your wedding day at some point you do feel like a princess, like the prettiest thing in the room.
However because it was my friend or the dreaded friend of a friend, some wires got crossed and mass confusion ensued. I didn’t get photos of some of the things I wanted and to top it off my family wouldn’t listen to me and we ended up taking family pictures in the dark with NO SCENERY of the ceremony site. The biggest mess up (mostly on my part) was even though I mentioned things on the wedding day no one was writing things down we were all hoping our brains could cope with the massive amount of stress, busywork and insanity that was my wedding day. I found out that day that my wedding video was going to play more like a highlight reel which I am skeptical about and therefore insisted that our first dance and my hula be on the video in its entirety. The other missed discussion was deadline. I gave vendors a 3-month window and for the most part received everything – photo booth pictures, wedding pictures, etc. I figure at 3 months I would be sending out THANK YOU cards and therefore shutting the door on my wedding. Turns out with crossed wires comes great responsibility. The videographer would email me updates on my video and told me in the beginning of November that it would just be a few more weeks for me to get my wedding video. I felt there was no need or I assumed that having the videos by Christmas was a no brainer. Our wedding was July 30, I was hoping to get our video mid-December (3 months with some leeway). Of course, I never actually emailed or said that other than on the wedding day that I wanted the video by Christmas I just assumed it would all fall into place, just like my wedding. *shakes head* I should have known better.
He Said, She Said: Videographer told our mutual friend the Photographer the intricate details of hiring him as a videographer (or so he claims). Nothing was relayed to me because it’s not photographer’s job. I hired him, I’m paying him, I signed a contract with him. One of the things Videographer told Photographer is that he doesn’t normally do videography and given his hectic work schedule he wouldn’t be able to start editing the wedding video until Fall/Winter. This means I wouldn’t get my video by Christmas. (Even though he emailed me in Nov that it would be done soon). More drama: Roommate who was also taking video for the wedding was supposed to give the footage to Videographer. This apparently never happened.
Bottom line: even though we only see my husband’s family in Boston once a year at Christmas and NONE of them made it to the wedding. We won’t get to watch the wedding video with them this year even though our wedding was 4 months prior.
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| Photo stolen from Here. |
My wedding was beautiful and it was the best day simply because I am now married, to the man I love. I would now, however, pay someone to let me take a sledgehammer to my wedding. The wedding video was the last piece of my stressful wedding and I have to endure more?
Word to the wise: If you hire your friends, be firm with them. Set deadlines and remind them of it. Also, hire a wedding planner. One more thing, screw having a big family wedding do a destination wedding where only 20 people will show up, or better yet, get married at Comicon or get married at an event you’ll truly enjoy and minimize your stress.
