this DIY experience posted from a photographer and his recent experience. This is just to let you know....be very careful when you try to do it all. The information below is exactly the words from his post.
DIY disaster to share
Here is my DIY disaster from the wedding I photographed this weekend. To everyone who reads this, please feel free to share any and or all of it on your blog about DIY. I had a lovely, very artistic (because she is an artist) and creative DIY bride this weekend. She basically made all the decorations for the wedding with the exception of the table cloths & china. Her ceremony was to start at 4:30pm. We were to start with photos at 2:30 so that there would be little to no photos after the ceremony so that the cocktail hour and reception could be enjoyed. While the B&G had many friends and family helping, the bride was still making her centerpieces and bouquets when it was time to start shooting the formals & "First Look" photos at 2:30pm. All the helpers were helping, but weren't her, so needed a lot of direction and were asking a lot of questions of the Bride. Of course, her vision for the centerpieces wasn't quite working and now she was having to improvise and recreate the centerpieces. The site coordinator was nowhere to be found, and the hanging of lights and decorations by the site staff had not been done. The bride was running around directing the staff on where to hang everything. There were hundreds (probably closer to a thousand) fresh cut flowers everywhere waiting to be used, as well as candles, vases, favors, etc. Panic was setting in, and it was 3:00pm. The favors, candles, centerpieces, etc. were not in place. At 4:20, the bride still had not started to get dressed because she was still making centerpieces. Needless to say, the ceremony didn't start until after 5:00pm. Due to the length of the ceremony, we had very little natural light left for the family formals. One of the bridesmaids acted like she was the director and tried to direct posing for the photos. ugh. And after the formals with family were taken, the B&G were not interested in any more photos because they wanted to party after all their hard work. A videographer wasn't hired. The B&G had a friend use a video camera. Well, the friend got intoxicated and thought it was a great game to stand in front of the photographer when I went to take photos. The DJ tried to help out by distracting the guy, but it didn't work. I let the friend know that the B&G were paying for photos of their special moments & to please not continue to move in front of me. He thought it was a game & decided to play shove the photographer. more....
Then he proceeded to circle the couple like a hawk....staying less than a foot away during the circling process making it impossible to catch many photos of the B&G without a video camera or the enthusiastic intoxicated cameraman in the photos. It was a challenge. The DJ repeatedly tried to intervene. The groom thought it was funny. The DJ was constantly trying to corral the couple for the cake cutting, bouquet toss, etc. and they kept straying apart. I've never seen anything like it. A wedding planner would have made all the difference in the world. Thank goodness the couple had a "Rock the Dress" session scheduled for 2 days after the ceremony. When I arrived, before I could say a word, they profusely apologized for their friends misbehavior, and for totally being late for the entire day. The bride admitted that she should have hired a wedding planner. Did I mention that this was a destination wedding? Even for an artist, she had no idea how long DIY was going to take.
