Planning a wedding can be very exciting and a lot of fun. It can also be stressful at times and you’ll probably find that almost everyone has a bit of "helpful advice." At times you may even be getting fed up with all the input of everyone else. After all it is your wedding and wedding day disasters only happen to someone else. Right??? Well, let's hope they don't happen to anyone!

If a friend or relative offers a service for your wedding is that automatically a setup for a disaster? Not necessarily, but it can be. So how do you make an informed decision when a friend or relative offers to provide a service for your wedding? After some long, hard thought I am personally offering 10 questions you should consider before you jump to say yes or no to any offers. Initially, I didn’t want to write this article because it would involve injecting my own personal advice and it definitely is a piece of "don’t let this happen to you" advice. I also personally did not want it to sound like my advice was to urge you to spend more than you can afford on your wedding. (Obviously, this site is made possible by our advertisers and sure it would be great if everyone on the site had an unlimited wedding budget, used all the services on our site and mentioned AtlanticCityWeddings.com everywhere they went - but from a personal standpoint I would hate to see any couple overspend on their wedding to the point of having to pay off loans for the next 10 years. I think most of the professionals in our wedding services section would feel the same way too.) On the other hand, many friends and relatives do offer wedding services and this can be a setup for a disaster.

So with that said, how do you decide whether or not to accept a friend or relative’s offer for a service? Whether it’s a question of money or not, deciding whether or not to accept someone’s service should be taken as seriously as any other part of your wedding planning. Before you rush to say yes or no to an offer - ask yourself the following 10 questions. How did I come up with the questions? I’ve had 8 years to think about this and if I had asked myself the questions below - I definitely would have made a different decision.

My Scenario - A friend offered to do our wedding photography (or we may have asked him to do our photography - I’m not sure which way it went.). The photography was going to be our wedding gift. He was a close college friend and had taken some of the best candid photographs I had ever seen of our college friends. He had taken many spectacular photographs of outdoor scenery as well and had even been paid for his freelance photography on many occasions. We jumped at the chance to have him photograph our wedding. After all, his work was great, he was a great friend (and still is), and he was going to be a guest at our wedding. Plus, we would save some money as well. (Note: we could definitely have paid for a photographer) He also was great at candids and I was more interested in unusual candids vs. many of the traditional wedding photography shots such as photos of my hand on a pillow.

What happened - We have a few very nice and unusual candid photographs from our wedding… friends drinking beer in the parking lot, my husband’s socks (pictured below) and I love them! There are even a few nice photos of my mom and I before the wedding…and that’s about it . It was a hot August day and some of the film was left in a hot car and ruined. Our friend also admitted to forgetting to take photos at times because he was busy mixing with the guests and drinking. He was part of our group of close college friends who were all at the wedding. Consequently, we have only 2 photos from the wedding ceremony - both blurry - and that’s it. To make matters worse we did not have the funsaver cameras and most of the guests, including our parents, forgot to bring cameras. And, while I realize it’s more important that I married the right guy and our friendship with the guy who took the photos is more important than a bunch of photos …I still wish we had some photos!!! Really, once your wedding day is over what do you have to remember it by? Photos…hopefully, you will have some photos.

Here are the 10 questions to ask yourself before saying yes or no to any friend or relative who offers to provide a service for your wedding. Remember that ultimately the decision is yours and if in doubt, don’t be afraid to say no. My husband and I were not in doubt regarding our friend, but if I had considered these questions I would have hired a professional photographer.

To print just the quiz select page 3 of this article.

Wedding Day Disaster Quiz (See Disclaimer)
What is the wedding service to be provided: _____________________________________.

There are no right or wrong answers to the above questions. If you answer the above questions honestly, you should be able to make a more informed decision than I did. (See my answers below) Keep in mind that if a friend or relative does not provide a wedding service to your expectations you can ruin a relationship to say the least and be left with no way to go back and correct the mistake.  Furthermore, even if you have no doubts about someone providing a service they can still disappoint you.  When our friend offered to provide wedding photography for us we had no doubts regarding his ability and are left with very few photos of our wedding day.  While we have decided our friendship with the person who took the photos is more important, I still regret not hiring a professional photographer. So before you jump to say yes to anyone, carefully think about it and remember - these questions are only a guide and ultimately any decision is yours and yours alone. I can only hope that these questions might help prevent a potential wedding day disaster.

(For those who are interested - here are my answers to the questions.)

Editor’s Answers:

Service to be provided: Photography