There was not a dry eye in the ballroom. Everyone was crying.
What wedding moment made me cry my eyes out? I’m going to cry just thinking about it. When brides dance with their fathers.
Probably the thing I would cry most often would be the father daughter dance.
We have planned hundreds of weddings, but I will never forget this wedding that truly made me cry. And honestly, thinking about it now is getting me teary eyed.
I’m not generally a very emotional person. It takes a lot for me to get teary eyed or cry, But I would say the thing that really hit me hardest during the wedding day and can get me a little teary eyed tribute to late parents.
I know exactly the wedding for this question.
It was a few years ago. Our team was able to create a very special moment for a groom and his mom, who had a rapidly accelerating MS. To be honest, the couple was not sure that she would be there on the wedding day. Thankfully, she was. By the wedding day, she could no longer speak and she was in a wheelchair.
They still wanted to have a very special moment with her and the groom and his sister danced with their mom on the dance floor. They moved her wheelchair to the music and even though she was not able to really express herself, you could see that she was very emotional in that moment. And there was not a dry eye in the ballroom.
Everyone was crying. Things like this remind wedding professionals why we do what we do. We can make the day so smooth for you that you can just be in the moment and make these memories with your loved ones.
Bristol is an eco-friendly event planner with a passion for combining style and sustainability. She started her company, Sustainable Soirées, in 2018 and has found so much joy in getting creative with her couples and wedding pros to make beautiful, low-waste events a dream come true. Since then, Bristol has become the education chair for the Green Wedding Alliance and her weddings have been featured in popular wedding blogs.
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My mom passed away when I was ten, so I had to have my wedding without her. The heaviness of that moment and all the expectations that you have growing up, having a parent be involved in that special day really hit hard. So some tributes that I’ve seen to parents who have passed that really kind of hit me and stood out to me are photos and little charms, or lockets, on the bride’s bouquet.
That’s really sweet. We had a couple who had their mom’s dress be a part of their wedding dress. I think the most memorable really was one of our brides who lost her dad pretty tragically and close to the wedding. And she had one of his favorite shirts sewn into her dress, which I thought was really sweet. But I think the one that really hit me hardest, I had a couple who both parents had passed and she walked down the aisle with a photo of both of her parents and sat down on a beautiful chair and had a beautiful memorial table for her parents there.
Just the words in the ceremony talking about that tragedy and being open and expressing their emotions about we’re not going to dance around this issue. That is the elephant in the room. So let’s address it and let’s speak about it and share good stories and know that they’re there with you. Those moments are the ones that choke me up a little bit and get me a little teary eyed on the day just having been a bride that had to have her wedding without her parent.
Our award winning planning and design team has been bringing our client’s heart bursting events to life for over 10 years! From celebrity award show events, to your commitment to your partner, there’s nothing that fires us up more than a great celebration full of community, and of course a lovely design.
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Of my brides, her and her dad’s relationship was so, oh, my, I have no words. It was just to watch it. The love, the bond. It was just amazing. And when it came to the father daughter dance, just the way that he held her and she helped him see, I’m tearing up. Oh, my gosh. They just they.
They were crying. They were laughing. I mean, I connected with the mom. Oh, my God. She was crying. I was crying. When there is that father daughter relationship like that and he’s giving away his baby girl, there’s nothing like that.
Shannon has been part of the wedding industry for the past years, functioning as Lead Wedding Planner of her company Periwinkle Events NW. Over these years, she has provided wedding planning services to 90+ amazing couples, and led a team of vendors for ‘Portland’s Venue Crawl’ who turned a downtown ballroom into a wedding reception showpiece. Shannon has also been featured in Art of Weddings, Bridal Musings & PNW Weddings magazine.
Design, vision, and working with others are Shannon’s strong suit. She has planned and facilitated multiple styled shoots, where vendors are able to come together and collaborate to create content. With this experience, she is able to lean into that knowledge when creating a design that brings her couple’s vision to life.
When she is not knee-deep in timelines, vendor correspondence, or designing a sweetheart table, she enjoys experiencing the northwest with family and friends. She loves reading a good book by the fire, listening to live music, walking on the Oregon Coast and visiting as many wineries, brew pubs, and amazing restaurants as she can. She is a native Oregonian and loves living in the PNW, however, she is always daydreaming of her next destination wedding or new place to explore.
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I lost my dad about 12 years ago, so thank goodness he was there for my wedding almost 28 years ago. I was definitely a daddy’s girl. So that moment of daddies and daughters and that father daughter dance is really heartwarming. Also, if I’m ever at an event and the song that my dad and I danced to is played, that always gets me, whether it’s the father daughter dance or just background music during cocktail hour.
It doesn’t matter if I hear it. What a wonderful world gets me Every time.
Pine Hill Events LLC is a full-service special event company planning events for corporate/business, private/social, and non-profit/fundraising. We help manage, organize, plan, and execute events with a personal touch and great attention to detail. Every event is customized and we only charge for our time. Of course, we LOVE weddings!
Jean Kintisch, owner/founder of Pine Hill Events LLC, has a degree from Cornell University, Department of Communication, and has more than thirty years of event planning experience. With a background in professional event fundraising and consumer product public relations, Jean provides her clients with friendly, personal service. A Philadelphia native, Jean is empty-nesting on the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia with her husband and her dog.
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A bride had just love her dad. Two weeks before the wedding, they tried to have the wedding as soon as they can so that he could be a part because he had cancer. She didn’t think that she was going to do the father daughter dance, so she got rid of it. But I talked with her mom and her fiancé.
What her dad’s favorite song was talk with the DJ and the DJ played the song we had her to come up and each one of her brothers took turns, gave her a hug, a danced with her, and all of these people represented her dad for her On the day. So it was really, truly a special moment, a special time.
It just let her know and felt like he was there, even though he couldn’t be there. There were people there that would fill in the gap and fill in this. Oh, I’m sorry, fill in the gap for him during that time. As a planner, we really and truly think about the wedding day forward and backward, inside and out in our job issues to really make sure that everyone is comfortable in having a great day.
And I think adding that moment to represent her dad truly will be something she remembers forever, but also let her know that although he has passed away, you still have a team of guys that’s willing to be there for you.
As a wedding planner, I am passionate about creating unforgettable experiences for couples on their special day. With years of experience in the industry, I have honed my skills in organization, communication, and attention to detail. From selecting the perfect venue to coordinating with vendors, I work tirelessly to bring my clients’ visions to life. My ultimate goal is to take the stress out of wedding planning and make the process as enjoyable and memorable as possible. We have been featured in Southern Bride, People and Currently in the Hall of Fame for Weddingwire and The Knot.
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Do you feel like the industry charges more “because it’s a wedding” and they know it’s an emotional purchase?
Do companies think that they can charge more for weddings since the bride and groom may be willing to spend more on their dream wedding?
Hey wedding pros – is this higher price tag justified? Why? Do you charge more for your service if it is a wedding?
This is a taboo topic, whispered but not discussed… until now.
Welcome to The Uncorked Project!
2 comments
I have been asked this so many times... does the wedding industry inflate prices when they hear it's a wedding?
Here is my honest answer (as a former wedding photographer)... NO. Did I charge more for a wedding than a 50th birthday party or a family portrait session? Yes, absolutely. I charged A LOT more for a wedding.
Was I taking advantage of the emotional sell? Absolutely not.
The main reasons I charged more for a wedding were: the unseen amount of work involved in the 12+ months leading up to the wedding, the skill level needed on the day, the INTENSE pressure to create perfect "portfolio level work" no matter what the reality of the situation- but mostly it is to compensate for the time AFTER the wedding in post production.
Little known fact about wedding photography - the real job is sitting at a computer editing photos. Photographers spend many hours behind the computer carefully selecting and editing photos. They make adjustments, crop, and adjust colors to ensure each image it's best. Don't forget the time it takes for batching, renaming, importing, exporting and uploading the photos and preparing them for delivery.
Do you think this justifies why photographers charge more for weddings than for other types of shoots?
Couldn’t agree more! And on the videography side its an absolute ton of data + editing discipline.
Its a double sided coin- weddings are extremely high pressure but also high reward when we nail it.
Our products (photo video) in particular are the only thing that genuinely will last forever . Having fun and ALSO nailing the product is worth the price of entry and frankly more.