Wedding Ceremony: Mistakes to Avoid

More and more new­ly­weds are turn­ing to the for­mat of out­door wed­ding cer­e­monies. And indeed, it is a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence, not sim­i­lar to the usu­al paint­ings in the RATS: a roman­tic loca­tion, select­ed decor, a unique sce­nario — every­thing is like in the movies 🙂 But small mis­takes can erase all the efforts of the new­ly­weds or at least great­ly smear the over­all impres­sion. In this arti­cle Chan­fash­ion will tell you about the most com­mon mis­takes of wed­ding cer­e­monies and how to avoid them so that every­thing hap­pens like in a fairy tale.

1. Do not direct guests before the ceremony

Yes, you can reset the sched­ule of the wed­ding day to the guests a mil­lion times and hang signs with all the tim­ings, but you should not expect that every­one will obe­di­ent­ly sit in their seats at the appoint­ed minute. The pre­sen­ter or mas­ter of cer­e­monies should invite the guests to sit down ear­ly. The best option is to start a kind of count­down in 15 min­utes, remind­ing every 5 min­utes about the immi­nent start of the cer­e­mo­ny. Then every­one will be in the mood, calm­ly fin­ish con­ver­sa­tions and acquain­tances, have time to choose seats and deal with drinks. If you for­get about these reminders, then the begin­ning of the wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny can be smeared, and some guests will gen­er­al­ly be forced to stand at the end or on the sides until the very end, because they will not be able to find a place for them­selves or move through oth­er invit­ed guests.

2. Do not remind to turn off the phones

In today’s world, almost every­one has a phone, so the vast num­ber of cer­e­mo­ny guests is no excep­tion. The greater the num­ber of invi­tees, the greater the prob­a­bil­i­ty that at a cru­cial moment some­one’s phone will ring or a loud noti­fi­ca­tion will come. Few things can destroy the atmos­phere as much as a long and intru­sive ring­tone from a grand­moth­er who can­not quick­ly find her way around and turn off this siren. The mas­ter of cer­e­monies or pre­sen­ter should repeat the request to turn off the sound or go to air­plane mode sev­er­al times before the start of the wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny.

A tougher, but effec­tive solu­tion would be to com­plete­ly ban the use of phones dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, not only for calls, but also for pho­tos. Let’s be hon­est, when the bride sees not the faces of her fam­i­ly and friends, but smart­phone cam­eras dur­ing her exit, it’s not very pleas­ant. It is bet­ter to warn about this in the wed­ding invi­ta­tions so that the guests are men­tal­ly pre­pared for such an unusu­al sit­u­a­tion. Explain that you want the guests not to be dis­tract­ed by their phones, but to be men­tal­ly present through­out the event, and that the pho­tog­ra­phers will take enough pro­fes­sion­al and high-qual­i­ty pho­tos with all the impor­tant moments. By the way, the absence of smart­phones will make the work of pro­fes­sion­als eas­i­er, because no one will acci­den­tal­ly spoil the shots, choos­ing the most advan­ta­geous places for the cam­era.

3. Not clearing the frame for the first kiss

This is a small detail of the cer­e­mo­ny script, but it is very impor­tant for great pho­tos. Dis­cuss with the mas­ter of cer­e­monies that at the moment of the cher­ished words “Now you can kiss the bride” he should move to a cer­tain dis­tance so as not to be in the frame between you. This also applies to your girl­friends and friends, if they are expect­ed to stand near the arch dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny. Dis­cuss the com­po­si­tion of this shot with the wed­ding pho­tog­ra­ph­er ahead of time so that every­one knows their place in the impor­tant moment.

4. Make the ceremony impersonal

Beau­ti­ful words about love are good, but beau­ti­ful words about your love are much bet­ter! Every­one can read long thoughts about feel­ings in poems, books or even in col­lec­tions of toasts, so do not ded­i­cate your own cer­e­mo­ny to such mono­logues. It is bet­ter to focus on your own sto­ry: how you met, why you chose each oth­er, what qual­i­ties you val­ue and what you man­aged to go through togeth­er. It’s like­ly that all the wed­ding guests are only famil­iar with the high­lights and high­lights of your cou­ple, so let them know more. You invit­ed them for a rea­son 🙂

5. Do not check the script of the ceremony

We under­stand that you want to keep the ele­ment of sur­prise, but the text of the cer­e­mo­ny is too impor­tant to leave it unchecked. Dates, exact names, details of a meet­ing, a pro­pos­al or your gen­er­al his­to­ry — there are so many details that a stranger can eas­i­ly get con­fused. In order to avoid unpleas­ant moments at the wed­ding and the sur­prised looks of the guests, it is nec­es­sary to coor­di­nate the text and script with a spe­cial­ist in advance, so that there is time to make the nec­es­sary changes.

6. Do not conduct a sound check

A gor­geous decor, a won­der­ful and non-triv­ial script, a roman­tic moment and… a nasty squeak of a micro­phone. Quite a com­bi­na­tion, right? This will spoil not only the impres­sion of the guests at the wed­ding, but also affect the video record­ing. Some tem­po­rary dif­fi­cul­ties with the sound are accept­able dur­ing the enter­tain­ment at the ban­quet, but the cer­e­mo­ny is the heart of the wed­ding, so it must go per­fect­ly.

Before the start of the wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny, you must con­duct a sound check: check the set­tings of the sound devices, para­me­ters, vol­ume and charge of the micro­phones, as well as the cor­rect­ness of the music files that will be need­ed dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny. Of course, it is nec­es­sary to make sure that all this is work­ing prop­er­ly, but the last check is nev­er super­flu­ous.

7. Do not look at the groom

The advice may seem strange and obvi­ous, but please, dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, look at the groom, not at the mas­ter of cer­e­monies or the floor. This is nec­es­sary not only for beau­ti­ful shots (but it is also very impor­tant!), but also for com­plete immer­sion in the process and expe­ri­enc­ing the bright­est emo­tions at the moment of the offi­cial birth of your fam­i­ly. You want to remem­ber not the face of the mas­ter of cer­e­monies in every detail, but the expres­sion in the eyes of the love of your life, right? 🙂