Weddingbee boards

Hi Bees, I was wondering if there were any other FULL TIME wedding vendors out their planning their wedding?  My FH and I have run a successful photography studio in MA for the last 5 years.  We decided when we moved across country and opened our studio that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. But we wanted to get ourselves established and build up our company before we spent the money on our dream wedding.  We had more then a few conversations that went something like "new camera or ring... new computer or ring"  Last December the ring finally won and now instead of helping everyone else with their dream wedding I get to plan my own.... Becuase of this year's busy wedding season I realized I've been engaged almost a year and have had zero of my own planning done.   I am designing Save-the-dates for weddings that take place after mine and I'm starting to develop anxiety over it. 

I would love to connect with other wedding vendors who are also planning their own weddings.

Ash

Me! I'm a wedding Celebrant, currently planning my own wedding for October of next year.  It's hard, but we've actually gotten a lot done, but I do worry about what's going to happen when I get into wedding season next year and my planning will be second up until my wedding.  Hoping to get a lot done over the quieter winter months.

Yeah, I pretty much put plans on hold until Jan. just so I can get though my stack of albums that just came in for the holidays.  I'm not sure if its any easier.  Yeah I go to weddings for a living I get to see first hand what is working and what isn't but i'm having a hard time locking down a vision.  Maybe I've just been so over saturated with ideas that I just get overwhelmed and can't commit to anything.... who knew my commitment issues would be with deciding on a venue or colors or theme... lol.  I'm glad there are others on this board who are going  through the same thing.  Oh and the other thing is that so many of our friends work in the industry in some form or another and I'm torn because I love what they do, and would love to hire them all, but how do I pick one over the other with out hurting any feelings.  I know my issues are not the norm, but I'm happy to have an outlet like this forum to help me through it.

I completely understand what you're going through!  I'm a sales/catering director for a chain of resorts and have definitely spent more time planning my clients' weddings than ours.  We've been engaged since February and the wedding is November 2010.  I've gotten little things done...card stock all ordered for invites, STD's printed, venues booked, photogs booked, DJ booked, florist, etc.  Like you said though, all of my vendors are my friends, which makes it easy and hard at the same time.  In this instance, it's fortunate that we live in a small town and there aren't too many choices when it comes to vendors (I truly believe mine are some of the best though!).  With just a year to go, I'm starting to panic a little...especially when I look at my booking calendar at work and realize I don't even know when I can schedule a weekend to have a bridal shower!  The part I hate the most about this process while being in the business, is how much it desensitizes you to the whole process.  I wish I was feeling all the excitement about the little things, like my brides do.

Yes - completely inundated with wedding ideas and plans.  I tend to not mull over big decisions, because then I'd mull over them for months (like our wedding officiant!), and, so far, I'm still loving all of the decisions I've made.  It is hard picking vendors when they are your friends - I started out my planning so early that I wasn't really that too in the industry yet, so many of my vendors don't know I'm in it until I tell them.  I like that to an extent because I want to be able to choose who I want...

My biggest concern is that I'm going to have to turn down weddings in October for my own wedding!  And I'm excited, but a bit sad about that :(

LOL, I understand the turning down weddings as well.  I really want to get married in Fall because we are having the wedding here in New England and all my family and old friends are in CA and want them to experience the amazing colors.  I picked a date, then met an awesome couple who had that date and wanted to book it then it happened again.  So I settled on a date, a Friday so my vendor friends wouldn't have to give up a sat, but other then that I've made no official plans and i'm 10 months away!!  I get stressed out thinking about the three weeks I have now blocked off for my own wedding for nex year (wedding vendors plan out their lives in years, I can already have weddings booking in 2011!) which means three less weddings this year and we are paying for it ourselves. 

jessie I think you are right, i'm mulling to much!  It's funny because I help my couples with these same decisions every day. I need to just lay everything out and execute it. 

gretchen - i totally understand where you are coming from with the desensitized part.  My FH (also biz partner) and I want to do something super funky and offbeat to try and set ourselves apart form what we see every weekend.  Not that its a bad thing, we just want something different. 

I'm glad you guys are here, I feel much better ;)

Oh, we're out there :) Good luck!! I'm sure it'll be an awesome wedding, no matter what!

I'm a photographer as well, but I recently made the leap to full time after graduating from law school.  I planned the wedding while finishing up law school and growing the business, so I wasn't in the exact same boat as you are.

Have you picked a photographer yet?  I agonized over the decision, but had it figured out by the time we got engaged :) We booked the photographer before anything else, and just told him that he would be there on April 5, 2009 and we'd figure out the rest later.

I can understand about not wanting to step on your vendor friends' toes and hurt anyone's feelings.

I think you have the advantage of seeing so much of what works (and what doesn't) in the weddings of others that I'm sure you'll have a GORGEOUS day with fantastic details :)