Lisa Macale is an Academy tutor with our Australian campus, she has been named one of the top 25 stylists in Australia by Modern Wedding Magazine and is co-owner of Styled Images, a stock image resource for creative entrepreneurs. In this blog post, Lisa reveals what a typical working week looks like for a wedding stylist in the lead up to a client’s wedding.
Here is how a typical week would unfold for me leading up to a wedding…
Thursday:
Here’s where all the physical work starts. After months (sometimes even years) of planning and organising it’s time to bring the design to life. On the days leading up to a wedding, you will find me driving around town in my van picking up hire items, furniture, flowers, stationery and everything else needed to make the wedding come together. The prep is so important and I will often have to strategically plan how I’m going to pack everything correctly into my van to ensure no breakages or squashed flowers (that’s a disaster I try to avoid). There’s also a lot of cleaning, packaging, bubble wrapping and sorting out of hire items. I have become a professional van packer and now ratchet straps are a common thing I’ll cart around with me.
Friday:
Ok so hopefully by Friday I’ve collected everything for the wedding and I will spend the day making final plans which often involves repacking my van and preparing all the floral arrangements. Fridays can be a little stressful at times. I go through all my run sheets, make final calls to the vendors and check that the bride and groom are all relaxed (well as much as they can be) and prepared for the day.
Saturday:
These is when the magic happens! Our team are normally on the road extremely early in the morning with a full van and bucket loads of flowers! Our set up can typically take most of the day and we like to ensure we have ample time in case there are any unexpected issues that arise. Let’s just say it’s an incredibly physical job. Unpacking vans and moving around furniture and heavy items especially in the Brisbane heat can be extremely exhausting! I once asked a friend of mine to help me with some heavy lifting for a wedding and he was absolutely shocked how physical and time-consuming wedding set ups are. You have to be prepared to sweat, get a few bruises here and there and use a bit of muscle!
My favourite part of putting together a wedding is stepping back from it once everything is completed. It makes me realise why I do this for a job and why I love it so much. The finished product makes all the hard work worth it.
Then…. its back to the venue at midnight for a pack up which can typically take a few hours (we have now gone from the best part of being a stylist to the worst). Just imagine this …. you have literally just worked a 12 hour day got home for a short rest and now your back at midnight to pack down the whole thing. This is when I often resort to McDonald’s, more coffee and Red Bull drinks (I’m not proud of it). By this stage, I most likely have blisters on my feet and feel like a walking zombie.
Sunday/Monday/Tuesday:
And just when you thought it was all over the clean up beings! Again not the most fun part but it has to be done and often the pack-down/clean up after is far more time consuming than the prep that goes into the wedding. Everything has to be cleaned, packaged and stored away. We will also have to spend Monday/Tuesday delivering hired items and stock back to local businesses. The worst job – cleaning wax out of candle holders which can take a whole day!
Once that is all over we are back in the office preparing again for another magical wedding
I hope that might give some of you a little insight into what goes on behind the scenes. It’s definitely not the glamorous industry that some would associate wedding styling with but if you are truly passionate about weddings and bringing together a perfectly planned and beautifully executed event all the hard work is worth it.
Interested in becoming a wedding stylist? Get the training you will need with our Diploma in Wedding Planning, Styling & Design through one of our global campuses:
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