I have spent my working life on the other side of the aisle. Before weddings, I produced theatre — call sheets, cue lights, a curtain that goes up whether or not the lead has found her shoe. Now I own and run The Wedding Academy, I host and produce the Wedding Empires podcast, and I train the planners, stylists and florists who look after other people’s biggest days. I founded a wedding planning and styling business of my own, Darling Don’t Panic, and spent years in the thick of real wedding days on the Sunshine Coast and beyond.
So when couples ask me what I’d do at my own wedding, I always find the inverse more useful. The never list is where the experience lives. These are the decisions I have watched cost couples money, sleep, photographs and, occasionally, an entire afternoon of their own party — and the ones I would refuse outright if it were my day.
1. I’d never build the day around a start time I hadn’t reverse-engineered
Most wedding days don’t run late because something dramatic happened. They run late because nobody ever built the timeline backwards. The ceremony time gets chosen first — it sounds nice, it suits the venue’s booking sheet — and then hair, makeup, travel, photographs and a first look get crammed into whatever is left.
In theatre you never set a curtain time and hope. You work backwards from it: the interval, the scene changes, the pre-set, the call. A wedding is the same production logic in a prettier frock. I’d pick the moment I want to be married and then reverse-engineer every hour in front of it, with honest travel times and a deliberate buffer that isn’t secretly someone’s lunch break.
The reason this matters isn’t tidiness. It’s that time is the only budget line you cannot top up on the day.
2. I’d never let the guest list be decided by guilt
Every couple I’ve worked with hits the same wall: a list that has quietly become a negotiation between two families’ social obligations. And a guest list isn’t just names — it is catering, seating, transport, floor space, stationery, and the volume of the room you’ll be standing in when you say your vows.
I’d write the list once, privately, with only the people whose absence would genuinely change the day. Then I’d hold it. Not because I’m ruthless, but because a smaller room of people who love you photographs better, sounds better and feels better than a large room of polite acquaintances — and it frees money for the things you’ll actually notice.
3. I’d never hire a supplier I hadn’t briefed properly
This is the one I’d fight hardest on. Couples think a bad supplier experience comes from a bad supplier. Far more often it comes from a vague brief.
A brief isn’t a mood board. A mood board is a feeling; a brief is a decision. It says what’s being delivered, to where, by when, who is on site to receive it, what happens if the weather turns, what the pack-down is, and who pays for what. I teach this in our training because it is the single highest-leverage habit in the industry: the planner who briefs clearly gets better work out of good suppliers and spots the wrong ones early.
If you’re a planner reading this and your supplier briefs are still living in text messages, that’s the first thing I’d change this week. We cover briefing, scope and supplier management properly inside the Certificate in Wedding Planning.
4. I’d never DIY anything that has to happen on the wedding day itself
DIY is fine. DIY on the day is not. Make the signage, dry the flowers, hand-write the place cards, assemble the favours — months out, in your pyjamas, with a glass of wine. Beautiful.
But anything that must be built, lit, moved, watered, chilled, ironed or fixed between morning and ceremony has to belong to someone who is being paid to be there and who is not getting married or related to anyone getting married. Aunties with hot glue guns are a load-bearing risk, and the cost of a DIY failure is never the materials — it’s the hour of your day you spend rescuing it.
5. I’d never treat the run sheet as a document instead of a system
A run sheet that lives in one person’s inbox is a wish, not a plan. On a well-run day, every supplier has the version that matters to them, one person owns the master, and there is a clear answer to “who do I call?” at any given minute.
Theatre taught me that the job of a stage manager is not to prevent surprises — it’s to make sure a surprise only costs thirty seconds. That’s exactly what a good coordinator does on a wedding day. Everything will not go to plan. The plan exists so that nobody notices.
6. I’d never choose a styling concept that can’t survive the real room
Pinterest is a photograph of someone else’s ceiling height. I’ve watched concepts fall apart because the room had a burgundy carpet, a fire exit sign exactly where the backdrop was going, or a load of afternoon light through a west-facing window nobody had accounted for.
I would sit in the actual room, at the actual time of day, before committing to a single colour. Then I’d design for what’s fixed — the light, the walls, the sightlines — and spend money where the eye lands: the aisle, the tables, the one wall every photograph will include. Restraint reads as expensive; scatter reads as busy. That’s the whole of the Certificate in Wedding Styling in one sentence.
7. I’d never skip the contract conversation because it felt awkward
Deposits, postponement terms, what happens if a supplier can’t attend, who owns the images, what time access to the venue actually starts. None of it is romantic and all of it is the difference between an inconvenience and a disaster. I would rather have ten uncomfortable minutes in an email thread than one catastrophic Saturday.
8. I’d never let anyone talk me out of hiring a planner
I would say this even if it weren’t my industry. A wedding is a one-night, single-take live event with a fixed start time, unpredictable weather, a dozen contractors, an audience of everyone you love, and no rehearsal. In any other field that’s a production, and nobody expects the lead performer to also run the show.
A good planner isn’t a luxury spend; they’re the person who makes the rest of the spend work. They know what the quote is really telling you. They know which supplier needs chasing on Thursday. And they know that your job on the day is to be present, not operational.
Why the planner who teaches the planners?
There’s a reason I still write and teach the material myself. Every module I build for The Wedding Academy has to survive contact with reality — with real couples, real venues, real suppliers and real weather. Teaching keeps my standards honest, and planning keeps my teaching honest. The two feed each other.
If you’re a couple who wants that standard on your own day, or you’re an industry professional who wants the systems behind it, both doors are open. Email me directly and tell me about your day — the date, the place, and the bit you’re most worried about. That last part is usually where the real conversation starts.
And if what you actually want is to become the person on the other side of the aisle — the calm one with the run sheet — start with the Certificate in Wedding Planning or the Certificate in Wedding Styling. That’s the job I’ve spent my career doing, and the one I love teaching most.
