You have started a sequence of events that may seem like a runaway train, carrying you along. There is so much to do, where do you start, what comes first?

This guide is planned from our first-hand experience, to help you in your planning. We want to help make organising a wedding the pleasure it should be.

Bridal Magazines are packed with information, which is some cases is helpful, but often a hindrance. Some publications are strong on selling cookware, and weak on making sure you get things booked in time! Many guides recommend that you set the date six months before.

In a perfect world, the first step would be to book the service with your Minister, Priest or registrar, however you will have to make sure that the reception venue you want is free on the day you prefer. It sounds crazy, but the best reception venues can get booked up to two years in advance for peak season Saturdays.

The wedding season used to start in earnest in March, and continue until the end of October, although these days, we find that the season extends from January right through 'till Christmas! It gets hectic between May and September, and is unbelievably busy in June, July and August. If you are planning on getting married in the peak months, you either need to book well in advance, or alternatively get married on a day other than a Saturday.

Fridays and Sundays have become more popular over the last few years, as it makes choosing a reception venue easier. Bank Holiday Mondays are always booked early.

Hotel or Marquee? The reception is likely to be the single biggest cost of the whole wedding, which is not surprising bearing in mind the amount of work that is involved, so your choice of venue is very important.

Hotels change owners, some improve, and some decline, so don’t just rely on past experience or reputation, you need to know how good the hotel is today. Find this out by paying them a visit.

Make an appointment, and judge the hotel on a number of factors, you can give them a total of ten marks for excellence, and less when they don’t come up to scratch. Then, armed with this information, you can make a comparison, which isn’t just using price as a guide. Over the years, we have experienced very expensive venues which have an impressive frontage and appalling management, and some less expensive places which make Fawlty Towers look like a paragon of profesionalism and courtesy.

You don’t need to live in a mansion for this to be viable. Marquee firms can put up a very attractive structure on modest sized lawns, but although holding the reception in a marquee is a less expensive alternative than booking a quality hotel, it does involve a lot of hard work, planning and emotional energy. You need to be the kind of person who is capable of organising without losing your marbles if you are to enjoy a marquee reception.

Caterers and Marquee Hire companies vary vastly, so it is crucial not to make a decision on price alone. Find out which friends or neighbours have had a marquee wedding, and ask for an honest opinion of their contractors. Marquees can be lined or unlined, and there is a world of difference between a well-maintained marquee, and an old tent, which has been used to house cattle at the local agricultural show!

Caterers can quote for a finger buffet including quails eggs and asparagus vol-au-vonts, or sausage rolls, and pork pie. Make sure you let them know what you want, so you can be given valid and comparable quotes. Also ask their policy about corkage - if you buy your own wine to consume in your own garden, caterers can charge you a set amount per bottle.

This depends on if you are going to stick to tradition, and if the bride’s father is either a millionaire or bank robber! These days, major costs are often shared, the bride and groom can even chip in.

However, the traditional split involves the bride’s father paying for;

Booking specialists

Once you have finalised the date in consultation with the hotel and church, you need to do some research, in order to book any other services that you think are sufficiently important to secure. You would be amazed how many people leave booking services too late.

You wouldn’t imagine that you need to book a cake maker, but good confectioners will only take on so many cakes in a given period. Leave it too late, and you will have to make do with second best.

Not every wedding uses a toastmaster - but those that do generally run without a hitch. Hotels vary in their provision of a toastmaster, or master of ceremonies, they may have someone whose services are included in the price of the reception

‘But I don’t need a toastmaster’, I hear you say.

If you are confident that your best man is capable of running the show, let him do that. If not, a good Toastmaster can make the difference between a modest and roaring success. It also allows the principal people to relax on the day and not have to worry about organising the sequence of events. A bad toastmaster (and there are a few) can prove to be a right royal pain however. If your toastmaster suggests turning up at the church, ask why? 99.9% of weddings do not benefit from having a toastmaster in the churchyard, their place is at the reception.

House watchers
If you have a house full of people on the morning of the wedding, or you are having a marquee wedding in your garden. The last thing you or your family want to be engaged in on a wedding day is boring, messy household chores. There are companies who specialise in helping you to relax and enjoy the day in peace. They brew up, wash up, clear up, lock up, and generally sort out the household to allow the participants to get on with the day’s business.

Cars
In this area we are blessed with a huge range of hire cars, from brand new Rolls Royces to the Buick formerly owned by the Duke of Windsor. As a guide, you will pay most for a well-maintained Vintage Rolls Royce, and least for an ageing Ford Granada. Where your requirements come on this list is up to you (and your budget), but if you have something specific in mind, book it quickly. Along with good photographers and Reception venues, the best cars are the first to be snapped up. Be careful with cut-price cars, we have known them try to rush a wedding along so they can get to their next booking! Also take care with certain kit cars. They might look fine with the topfloded away, but they can be very small with the roof closed!

Flowers
Floristry is a creative art, and florists vary in their ability, don’t assume that you will get the same service and quality from all flower shops. Personal recommendation is useful in choosing someone who can not only design and make great bouquets, but is sufficiently organised to get the right flowers to you at the right time, and dress the Church and reception with the minimum of fuss and maximum of effect.

It might not be alright on the night…
We all have a friend, or a friend of a friend, who does a bit of cake decorating, who enjoys flower arranging, or whose hobby is one of the services needed for a wedding. By making use of friends’ help, you can cut the final bill for the wedding, and if they fulfil their role well - success. But there are two negative points to consider. Doing this turns your wedding into work. You transform their attendance at your wedding from a pleasure into a chore. If they are not used to performing under pressure, you can end up with a disaster.

Wedding professionals do their job for a living and in most cases have proper training. By doing whatever it is they do time after time, they know how to do it right, which means you can relax on the day, knowing you are in the hands of experts. I have seen this in practice time after time. Will it go right on the day? - It always does when experienced, trained professionals are involved.

In over twenty years of weddings,most of the disasters I have encountered, are the result of enthusiastic amateurs, some however, are self-inflicted.

As you plan the most important day of your life, you need to rely on the experience and reliability of a professional photographer to capture the mood and magic of the occasion. You must have visualised how things will be on your wedding day, and want to be confident that your wedding album will be creative and romantic, turning dreams of the future into memories to be treasured forever.

Not all photographers are alike, as I am sure you will have noticed.

Since I graduated and started photographing professionally, I have developed a casual, relaxed style of photography which is very different from the run-of-the-mill and my photographs reflect this difference. You might already have seen albums of my pictures, through recommendation, or in the many books and magazines which feature my work.

One quality characterising the way I photograph a wedding is a fresh, journalistic feeling. I aim to make your album a truly individual storybook, revealing and recording the atmosphere of your special day. I aim to become an unobtrusive part of your day, balancing the formal element of the day, with natural informal, candid pictures.

In 1985 I received the award of Associateship of the Master Photographer’s Association in recognition of the standard of my wedding photography, and since that date I have developed a style of wedding photography which puts the wedding first. I sensitively record your day rather than dominate it, and produce pictures of exquisite professional quality. I take pride in offering a truly personal service, geared to your needs, and you are assured of my personal attention throughout.

I don’t use unqualified ‘Saturday Boys’ to shoot weddings for me, and only accept one wedding booking in a day to ensure the best possible service.

Question. Have you ever been at a wedding where the photographer has hijacked the couple for ages, or you have had to wait hours for the photographs to be taken? It wasn’t one of mine!

The secret of my way of working is unobtrusive wedding direction. After discussing with you how to get the best from your particular circumstances, I personally photograph your wedding advising and co-ordinating events to make your wedding run smoothly.

Being a professional photographer involves so much more than just being able to take good photographs. I plan your coverage with you to make the most of the limited time available. Every wedding is different, and everyone knows the style of photography they prefer. That is why we have developed coverage packages to suit all tastes and budgets.

You want to be sure that your photographer takes as much care over his, and his assistant’s appearance as have you and your guests. On the day I dress professionally, in the correct morning, evening or lounge suit. We plan to work as inconspicuously and efficiently as possible, becoming an almost transparent part of the day.

It is very important to choose a photographer using quality, performance and style as your criterion rather than price. After all, you wouldn’t buy a new car on price alone, you consider the quality, reliability and prestige of your purchase. Do the same with your wedding photographs.

A bad photographer can wreck the day, by taking too much time, or adopting a contrived, artificial way or working. A good photographer allows the day to flow, taking over at intervals, to achieve natural, relaxed photographs

At the end of the day, it is my photographs that will provide your lifelong memories.

I offer a number of wedding packages, to suit all tastes and budgets. All packages include a superb hand-made album and my prices include both the album and V.A.T. For full details click here.

I was originally trained in black and white photography, and although over the years as the proportion commercial photography has declined, it has become more popular for weddings. As we work 100% digital your pictures can be supplied in colour, black and white, sepia, or combining these if required.

This starts at home a few months before the wedding. Some of the best Bridal pictures are created an hour before the service, in the twenty minutes when we photograph at the bride’s home. If the weather is fine, the garden can provide beautiful pictures, all that is needed is the lawn to be cut, and washing lines, bags of garden waste etc to be hidden. You don’t need to have gardens like Bramall Hall to get great pictures.

The bride should be dressed and ready, at least an hour before she is due to walk down the aisle, not just to have her photographs taken, but also to allow her to relax into the day, to enjoy it without being rushed and panic-stricken.

Hairdressers and make-up people need to know their deadlines, and how important it is that they keep to them. Our all-time record is a bride being delayed 45 minutes by the hair and make-up team, she looked great, but had to rush to church in a desperate hurry. Her father had slaved over the garden for months, bringing it to perfection, for a few family photographs. We couldn’t use it, because she wasn't ready.

You have no control over the grounds at your church, but you need to consider where pictures are to be taken when you select your reception venue. Some, like the Stanneylands Hotel and Shrigley Hall Hotel have magnificent grounds, others may be surrounded by a car park, empty fields, or a boring flat golf course! When necessary, a diversion to a local park or garden, between church and reception, can provide a better location for portraits and need not take more than a few additional minutes.

There are few things worse than having a million formal photographs. Well there are, trapping your coat tails (or anything else) in a lift door is not pleasant, but I digress.

The most boring part of any wedding is having the formal group photographs taken, especially when people are deciding what they want as they go along. Uncoordinated, this part of the day can be unbelievably boring.

We have a simple system, where you can indicate which groups you want by ticking a list of suggestions. This means that on the day we know what your formal requirements are, and can take these quickly and efficiently, leaving you time to mingle with your guests and enjoy the wedding.

By pre-planning to a certain extent, it means that we can photograph around your core list of photographs, and get away from the photography being stiff and boring.

This depends on the plans you have made. Even in August it can pour down! If you have a reception venue which has only one room, then you are going to be squashed up with the waiting staff desperately trying to finish laying the tables whilst your guests make for the bar. Many hotels have separate rooms to accommodate your guests before you go in for the meal, this is much better than only having one room available.

I can only take photographs in the places I have available! In the very worst weather it is possible to set up a small studio to create portraits and small groups. Shrigley Hall’s William Turner Suite and the Deanwater’s Balmoral Suite have superb indoor areas, with plenty of space available. Halls, like Bramall or Arley, have plenty of space inside for photographs.

Take heart in the knowledge that it rarely rains for longer than seven hours at a stretch!

It is sensible to make a rough timetable to work out what needs to be done when. Start with the time you are due to leave for church and work backwards. We arrive to photograph about an hour before the Ceremony time, and aim to leave you 25 minutes later. You should be ready to step into the dress when we arrive, with hair and make-up complete. These last minute preparations make fabulous photographs, but you should allow a little more time for everything than you think you will need. The morning will flash past quicker than you could imagine, and the last thing you want is to be in a panic. The key to enjoying a wedding day is being relaxed, having time to take in everything that is happening. You can never have too much time to prepare, but it is easy to have too little!

Make-up & Hair
If you decide to have this done at the salon, book a very early appointment. I remember a bride arriving back home in a tearing hurry, and fuming with anger fifteen minutes before the service because the hairdresser had taken far too long. If you are going to the salon, you want to ensure that your hair is finished at last two and a half hours before the service. If the hairdresser is coming to you, you want to be finished mor than 2 hours before the service, to allow the make-up to be done in time.

It is a good idea to try out the hair-style a few weeks before to check that you like it. The morning of the wedding is not the right time to experiment!

Even if you don’t wear make-up normally, please consider it for your wedding day. The most naturally beautiful models all wear make-up to maximise their looks. You need a good matt foundation to make your skin look great.

If you have any blemishes or spots - and who doesn’t- these should be disguised with concealer before the foundation is applied. Eye make-up should be subtle, but sufficient to enhance your eyes - I am talking about the bride here, the groom can skip a few paragraphs. The eyes are a crucial part of every photograph, if you are too heavily made-up, you will look like an extra from a Dracula film. Too little and your eyes will look insignificant.

A good make-up artist will enhance everyone's looks.

To tan or not to tan.....................
There is a great temptation to spend a few months on the sunbed, or in the garden topping up your tan, so that you don't look too aneamic on the day -or start your honeymoon with a head start in the browner skin department. Bear in mind however, that both of you need to be equally tanned! We have has many experiences of a bride having a tan like David Dickinson, whilst their hapless spouse looks as pale and wan as a snowdrop, which can look very odd on your photographs! The same goes for bridesmaids. I have lost count of the number of times, one has been on the sunbed for weeks to look great, or has just returned from Tenerife as brown as a berry, making the other maids and especially the bride loo anaemic!

The final hour before the service should be relaxed an unhurried. At the bride's house photographs are being taken, and at the church, the following timetable gives a good guide as to when the principal people should arrive.

More than 30 Minutes before.

Ushers arrive to help early arrivals.

Groom and best man arrive, along with groom's parents to complete the church formalities, check the register details with the minister or registrar, and be photographed.

Bridesmaids arrive with bride's mother.

Bride arrives to have photographs taken and check details with the registrar, prior to entering on time.

Being Late
Ask any minister what they think of the 'tradition' of the late arrival, and the reply will be along the lines of "It is rude and inconsiderate". It is also wearing on the nerves of even the most confident groom!

The best time to start the walk down the aisle is within a few minutes of the correct start time.

Some venues have weddings every hour in the peak season, so being only five minutes late can throw out the whole day's timings. Being late for a civil ceremony can have more dire consequences, as the registrars will certainly have to move on to another wedding and only allocate a certain amount of time per wedding.

If you have never experienced 'wedding crossover' when one is arriving before the last has left, count yourself lucky, it is not a pleasant experience!

There is no such thing as an 'average' wedding, but surprisingly, most weddings fit into a similar timetable.

This is of course a gross simplification. What if the reception venue is next to the church, or twenty miles away? What if the speeches only last twenty minutes? What if the receiving line takes almost two hours? (We have experienced this).

The trick with a receiving line is to have your toastmaster, or function manager announce a quick lead-through, and to have the least possible people in the line up. If you have the bride, groom, parents, bridesmaids and best man in a line, and receive 100 guests, that can add up to 1,000 mini conversations before you have everyone sat down. A quick "it is lovely to see you, we will have a chat later", is best for all concerned, especially those at the end of the queue!

You obviously need to take these things into consideration, and of course the weather can change timings, everything takes much longer when the heavens open.

A word about round tables - these have always been popular, but in recent years some couples have chosen the informality of a round top table. Bear in mind that during speeches someone on the top table will have their back to the whole room, missing everyhting that is going on. Also, if you are having the day recorded, from where will the people speak?

This can be a diplomatic nightmare, who do you choose from your family and friends? More important, who do you leave out of the bridal party?

The duties of the best man are rather like the meaning of life, everyone has an opinion. Contrary to popular opinion, it isn’t to get the groom blind drunk and chained to railings without trousers in the middle of Manchester.

He is supposed to be the groom’s guide, support, banker, timekeeper, and therapist. He is responsible for arranging the stag night (and deleting the pictures in case the Sunday Sport print them). A few days before, he should collect any hire clothing (and make sure they are the right size and colour).

On the day he will be the groom’s valet, making sure the groom is dressed with his buttonhole pinned on as if a baboon wearing boxing gloves had done it. He must make sure the groom turns up on time at church 30 minutes before the service - no later. The minister will want to sort out the financial side of the wedding (if you haven’t already done so, and the registrar will want to make a final check of the register details.

It is not the best man’s job to give a saucy speech about the groom’s past conquests - this is excruciatingly embarrassing! One speech we heard was the closest thing to a character assassination I have ever heard, yet he was the groom’s best friend - and a doctor to boot!

These do have a function and should be useful, not just decorative. They should be old enough to look after the bride and not need looking after themselves! If you are considering very young children (Under 5) as bridesmaids or page-boys, be sure what you are letting yourself in for! In over 20 years of weddings, I can count on the fingers of one hand the ‘little angels’ who actually turned out to be so on the day.

Young children and half-hour long services don’t mix, and whilst your adult guests are happy to stand and chat for an hour or so, very young kids want to have fun, watch television, get messy and run around. It might be that some adults also start developing thoughts like this, especially if the speeches are too long, but instead, they will develop a glazed eye and wooden ear.

When small bridesmaids are chosen, they, rather than the couple become the focus of attention. You can’t just let them run loose, so people have to keep them amused. On photographs, instead of making sure everyone looks their best, the photographer has to concentrate on keeping the child's attention. We even had one young bridesmaid insist on tavelling with the bride and groom in their car. She was fast asleep by the time they reached the reception, so instead of getting on with the day, the couple had to child-mind for almost half an hour, until the child's parents turned up!

How many bridesmaids you choose is up to you, the fashion in America is to have loads, up to twelve, which is over the top in anyone’s books, (and costs a fortune in dresses). Traditionally bridesmaids are single, but if the senior bridesmaid has already tied the knot, she becomes the Matron of Honour (I keep seeing Kenneth Williams calling out "Oooh Matron..."). Her job is help the bride prepare, be a second pair of eyes, and an extra pair of hands to ensure that the bride looks great throughout the day.

The other bridesmaids stand around looking pretty and chatting up the ushers - Only joking.

Their job starts half an hour before the service at the church, where they hand out the orders of service, or hymn books, and ensure the guests are seated - Bride’s Family to the left, Groom’s to the right as you walk down the aisle. The head usher should help the Bride’s mother to her seat (as if she doesn’t know where to go, she was at the rehearsal a few days before, but that’s tradition for you). Remember to make a comfort stop before leaving the pub lads - not many churches have loos!

When all the guests are in, the ushers wait at the back of the church to seat any stragglers. They are the last to leave for the reception, to make sure you haven’t left Auntie Ida stranded in the churchyard.

Most weddings that we photograph have the men attired in a morning suit, which come with black, grey or blue jackets, all these look smart, and have a distinct cost advantage over buying a new suit. They also don’t date, so you will look as good on your photographs in ten years time as they did yesterday. Shame you can’t say the same for haircuts. Each year new colours of morning suits are introduced, as are different cuts, such as frock coats. Nothing looks as well-cut as a traditional morning suit however.

Fashionable colours - like plum, or green, or unusual cuts of suit have the disadvantage of quickly going out of fashion, dating your pictures. Traditional cuts and colours never date.

Top hats worn on the head make most people look a right prat, but they are very useful to give you something to do with your hands, and to keep your nick-knacks safe. Hats are great for photographs, because they prevent you from 'standing with both your arms the same length'.

Whatever you wear, PLEASE try them on at least the day before. Oh how everyone laughed when the best man arrived seconds before the service as his trousers were more suited to Rick Waller than Ricky Martin. Or when the usher turned up in the wrong suit - the same as the groom's. Fortunately the wedding was a hundred yards from the hire shop, so embarrassment was limited - until the Best Man's speech made the most of it!

Whatever you choose to wear remember to try it on again, a few days before the wedding. We have seen mothers frantically letting out seams, taking in seams, and taking up hems in the moments before the wedding when they should be getting ready and relaxing. These last minute alterations should be done days before - don’t wait until the morning to check everything is ok.

Booking a winter wedding (November-February) may seem appealing because you can book the reception venue and church of your choice. Have you thought why? Yes, there can be beautiful winter days, but more often than not, they are cold, dark, wet, miserable or a combination of all four. We got married in deepest winter and were lucky with the weather but it was very cold!

Our experiences photographing weddings in East Cheshire for the last twenty years has proved to us that if you are planning a winter wedding you need to do a few things.

As Michael Caine would say, "Not a lot of people know this".

If you have booked your honeymoon as a package deal, make sure your travel agent lets the operator know that it is your honeymoon. You can get all manner of perks, like room upgrades, drinks and other freebies. Some airlines may also upgrade you on scheduled flights if you are suitably dressed.

If you have never travelled business class and an upgrade is offered to you, bite their hands off! You will never want to travel economy again. It is important that the best man, travel agent or someone makes sure the airline know, and it is logged on the computer. Some airlines, like Virgin are more generous in this respect than others. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does, it makes you want to use that airline again!

Don’t forget that charter airlines mostly operate single class planes, but they sometimes offer newly-weds complimentary drinks and an extra big smile.

We travel quite a lot, supplying travel companies with brochure pictures, and produce very short practical guides to a number of long haul honeymoon destinations for our honeymoon couples.

If we can assist with your wedding plans - please contact us, we would love to help.

Neil McAllister (B.Ed.(Hons) A.M.P.A. Photographer