Planning Your Wedding – Groom Prep Tips
6 Tips for an Awesome Groom Preparation
With around 350,000 romcom movies focussing on the palaver of getting the bride ready for the wedding – it’s no wonder that people often forget that there’s almost as much fuss in getting the groom prepared for the big day!
From your buttonhole to your dressing room, there’s plenty of factors for you to think about and plan out. So, as part of our ‘tips for planning your wedding’ blog series, today’s post is going to be a light outline of just some of the groom prep tips that you should keep at the forefront of your mind when planning your big shenaniganza!
Groom Prep Tips – Location, Location, Location
Okay, so you aren’t going to spend three hours on hair and makeup (or maybe you are, no judgment here), but regardless, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t consider hiring a nice hotel room for the groom and groomsmen preparation portion of the day. Cramming a bunch of dudes into a dodgy Travel Lodge is never going to have the makings of a relaxing wedding morning. Not to mention the light in these rooms are notoriously awful. It’s just going to make it all that much more difficult to capture those special little moments and top notch banter with the lads whilst you are getting dolled up.
Be Creative When Location Scouting
But we realize that nice hotel rooms aren’t in everyone’s budget, in which case we recommend getting ready at home if it’s close by and not taken over by the bride – or even at a friend/family member’s house in the area. It can often come out cheaper to treat yourself (or your friend/family member) to a housekeeper for an awesome confidence-boosting house tidy than it would cost for a lifeless budget hotel room. If homes aren’t an option, it wouldn’t be considered too cheeky to ask someone in the guest party if they were already hiring a nice hotel room and if so, would they mind sharing it for an hour or so in the morning so you could get some nice photos.
Top Tip!
Don’t forget about the glory that is AirBnb! Air BnB has a wide range of just beautiful houses, cottages, apartments (even castles!) where you may be able to negotiate directly with an owner for just a morning hire. There’s also no harm in asking some of the nicer hotels for a short use rate. Many of them have unpublished rates for a few hours use which are often available at a dramatic discount.
Groom Prep Tips – Quick Pint?
Many grooms plan to have a couple of pints in the morning before the ceremony with their groomsmen. It’s a great idea, and really helps to take the edge off any of those pre-wedding jitters. But for crying out loud, don’t forget to check opening times, lads! It’s not unusual for grooms to rock up to the pub only to find out it doesn’t even open until noon. Not cool.
Groom Prep Tips – Bibbity Bobbity
Get your bits and bobs ready well in advance of the wedding morning. You won’t believe how many lackadaisical grooms have nearly given themselves an aneurysm on the big day because they don’t know to tie a cravat, or fold a pocket square, or how to properly iron a shirt and it’s only when they’re like, ‘oh hey, I’m getting married in an hour’ that they think to google how to tie a Windsor Knot. We literally had a groom once running around for two full hours trying to find someone -anyone- who could tie his tie for him!
Well, there’s an app for that, lads. You are welcome.
Oh Those Pesky Buttonholes
And don’t even get us started on your buttonholes/boutonnieres. Oh, the shenanigans we’ve seen! Have your buttohole sent to your prep location, not the venue. The moment you get to the venue, you’ll be meeting and greeting, and you won’t have time to fiddle around or search for the package. Take your jacket off and lay it on a table to affix the buttonhole to it, and lastly, another handy internet video for you just in case you forget how to do it.
Groom Prep Tips – Zone of Awesome
Something about getting dressed seems to make men hide like wounded animals into the darkest corners of the room, and it’s only going to make you look super creepy in the photographs. When we arrive at the location, we’ll direct you to the best spot in the room to get dressed in and we’ll dub it your ‘Zone of Awesome’. Although we don’t like to interfere too much, we will give you some loose boundaries to work with so that you’re going to end up with great photographs to remember these moments by. The ‘Zone of Awesome’ is going to be your best friend in that regard!
Groom Prep Tips – Pretty As A Picture
Don’t forget to set aside ten minutes or so during the prep process (this can be at your prep location or at the ceremony venue) to have some portraits taken of you on your own. During this time, we will get photos of your fancy schmancy outfit (watch, cufflinks, shoes, etc) whilst they are still looking neat and unsquashed from hugs, or unstepped on by little girls dancing on your feet. Please schedule this time either right before you leave your prep location or first thing when you arrive at your ceremony location as you will quickly get swept up in the sea of family and friends and we don’t want to distract you.
We hope this post has cleared up any questions you might have about what happens during groom prep on your wedding day. Feel free to get in touch in have any comments or questions!
Want more tips?
For more helpful advice on planning your wedding from some photographers who have been there, done that & took the picture visit our Wedding Planning Advice page.
