Having a well thought-out morning of your wedding day is a more important aspect to your big day than you may at first realize.

Think about it, the morning before your wedding is a time which sets the emotional stage for the rest of the day! It can start off relaxed and fun, or it can start out running behind and stressful- which would you rather have?

Obviously no one plans to have a stressful morning, but as a wedding photographer I’ve seen this stress creep in due to some simple and preventable things, causing a less-than-ideal start to what should be one of the happiest days of your life!

Being intimately involved in the mornings before the weddings of my Kate Holt Photography Brides has given me a lot of insight into just how to plan a relaxed, stress-free morning that sets the stage for a perfect day, and what small things set you up for a morning of stress!

Every bride deserves to have a calm, fun and wonderful morning before her wedding day, so I’ve created this blog to help not just my Kate Holt Brides, but all brides everywhere! So take a gander through these tips and set yourself up for a perfect morning before your beautiful wedding day!

Tip #1

Schedule your hair and makeup to start AT LEAST half an hour earlier than you think you will need to.

Surprisingly the #1 reason wedding timelines get off-track is because hair and makeup takes longer than scheduled for. I can’t tell you how many weddings I experienced when I was first starting out as a wedding photographer where the hair and makeup went AN HOUR or MORE longer than it was supposed to!

Starting out your day over an hour late is definitely a perfect recipe for a stressful wedding day! As a photographer I also then had to figure out how to squeeze an hour and a half of portraits into thirty minutes! That makes for a rushed feeling to your photography experience which ins’t comfortable for you or your wedding party.

Now that I’ve gained much more experience, I know to create a great relationship with my Kate Holt Bride’s hair and makeup stylist, that way I can send her a timeline which has this minimum half-hour wiggle room built in. This makes for a much more relaxed morning if touch-ups and re-dos are needed in the hair and makeup department.

If you are having professional hair and makeup for not just yourself but for your bridesmaids and mother as well, consider an even bigger window of wiggle room. A lot of aestheticians underestimate just how long it takes for one or two people to do the hair and makeup of up to 10 women, especially if some of your bridesmaids are more particular about their look or have an insanely full head of hair!

Plus, if you schedule in this wiggle room and your timeline does run exactly perfectly then you’ve just bought yourself half an hour of time to be able to relax with your girls, laughing and enjoying mojitos or mimosas, how awesome is that!?

Tip #2

Pack a ‘To-Go’ bag or box of things you’ll need to bring to your wedding venue/reception space the night BEFORE.

Another thing that can throw your timeline off and make things feel stressed and rushed is having to rush around and put together your “to-go” bag after you’ve gotten into your dress and just as you are supposed to be heading out the door!

Things inside your to-go bag should include extra lip color, safety pins, a small pair of scissors, white thread and a needle or a small portable sewing kit, tissues, double-stick fashion tape, deodorant, extra earring backs, boutonniere pins, a protein bar, a water bottle, comfy shoes or flats for dancing, a compact mirror, eyelash glue, and band-aids. You can of course add to or customize this as needed, but that is a small list of the most common things I’ve seen needed that you should have to hand once you are away from your getting ready space.

Collecting these things together, placing them in a brightly colored bag that is hard to miss and assigning someone to be responsible for making sure it gets to the wedding venue/reception space is a great way to know that you’ve got all those emergency items ready! You then don’t have to go through a million scenarios in your mind the morning of the wedding on what you might need if things go wrong- you’ll already know you’ve got it all covered in your “To-Go Bag!

You’d also be surprised how often this bag will be used during the morning of your wedding, so make sure if anyone uses items from your “to-go” bag that they replace it back into the bag once they are done using it!

Tip #3

Schedule in 45 minutes to “get into your dress”

I know what you’re thinking…. 45 minutes…. to get into the dress? Kate, this is ridiculous, NO ONE takes 45 minutes to get into the dress!

This is 100% true, however if you plan for 45 minutes to “get into the dress” whatever left-over time you have can be spent on having beautiful portraits taken of you when your hair and makeup are at it’s freshest!

Especially if you have at least one window in your getting ready space, some really incredible Bridal Portraits can be created! Plus, that gives you extra time to enjoy all the reactions from your mom and bridesmaids when they see you all put together!

Without blocking out this time, this really beautiful part of your day can be rushed, creating a stressful feel to what should be a moment where you can be completely present and experience all of the emotions that come once you are fully in your “Bridal Look.”

For many brides, seeing themselves in the mirror, fully done up, is when things suddenly “become real.” This is a very emotional moment, and you should have the time you deserve to soak it all up, tears and laughter and pride and all!

Most of the time, some aspect of your morning will have run a bit longer than scheduled anyway, so planning 45 minutes to “put on your dress” will much more commonly turn into 20 or 30 minutes to do so.

Thus again, adding in a little time buffer to your morning helps you experience it in a relaxed, stress-free way knowing you have time to enjoy every part of it and still making your exit from your getting ready space to your venue right on schedule!

The reaction of this set of parents to seeing this Kate Holt Photography Bride for the first time is priceless!

Tip #4

Trial-Run your hair and makeup before the morning of your wedding!

Your hair and makeup are a big part of your final wedding day look and most of us have a pretty specific vision in mind. Even if you don’t have a specific idea of what you want on your wedding day, I’ll bet you have specific ideas of what you WOULDN’T want for your hair and makeup am I right?

Well, the best way to not take a gamble on this is to schedule a trial run! Most aestheticians include this trial run in their bridal packages as they know how much stress comes from creating a look the bride is displeased with on her wedding day.

I’ve literally seen brides return from the salon to their getting ready space with tears in their eyes, walk straight to the bathroom and wash off all the makeup that their stylist just spent the last hour doing! When this happens, stress builds as now the bride has to somehow manage to re-do her makeup and get into her dress in the amount of time which was only allotted to dressing.

More times than I care to admit I’ve seen brides turn to their moms or maids of honor once their makeup artist leaves the room and exclaim that they don’t like the shade of their lips, or that the foundation was put on too heavy.

A trial run handles all of that. Instead of being forced to make the decision of living with a look you don’t love, or washing it off and re-starting, putting your entire wedding day timeline in jeopardy, scheduling a trial run to work out all the color and style kinks with your stylist in a relaxed environment prior to your wedding is 100% the way to go.

I would especially caution brides who are more minimalist and prefer a more natural look to consider scheduling a trial run. Some makeup artists are great at the natural look, while others just prefer a more bold statement and so even if they say they can do a natural look, what might fit the definition of natural for them could be way over the top for you!

Scheduling a trial run is a wonderful way for you to start your wedding day off on the right foot, feeling confident and beautiful with your wedding look!

Tip #5

Schedule in some time for fun!

The morning of your wedding is spent with those you love the most. Schedule in some time to just simply enjoy the morning with them!

I remember at one wedding, the bride’s amazing maid of honor had orchestrated a scrap book of memories shared by each member of the wedding party. We spent almost 20 minutes that morning devoted to the giving and enjoying of this beautiful gift. Because I built in thirty minutes of extra time in between hair and makeup and getting into the dress, this Kate Holt Bride and her bridesmaids had the luxury of enjoying this moment without feeling like they were racing “against the clock.”

In another instance, another Kate Holt Photography Bride had made a beautiful gift for her mother which was really personal. We took fifteen minutes for these two to sneak off to a separate room where the bride could give this beautiful gift to her mom and they could hug and cry together, enjoying this gorgeous and moving moment.

Yet another Kate Holt Couple went a slightly non-traditional approach and scheduled in a couple’s massage and romantic ocean-side breakfast where they could just relax and enjoy each other the morning of their wedding and before the bride started to get her hair and makeup done.

The point is, take some extra time on the morning of your wedding to fill it with things that bring you joy. Taking the time to schedule in these things will not only bring you a peace and calmness, but will also extend your wedding day experience, preventing the day from slipping away quite so quickly.

What an amazing gift this was!

This Bridal Crew had plenty of time to enjoy this sweet moment!

I hope the ideas above gave you a new outlook on the morning of your wedding!

It dosen’t have to be a rushed experience that slips away before you know it. With a few mindful additions you can have a relaxed, wonderfully personal experience that you will treasure for a lifetime to come!