As someone who has been a Washington, DC wedding photographer for many years, I think it’s easy to say there are general phrases I use or things I do on every wedding day. These are just little tips or tricks that I’ve learned over the years that help put my couples at ease and allow for an effortless wedding day. After all, I certainly don’t think I’m a planner by any means, but as someone who stays with the bride and groom nearly all day until their reception, it is our duty to ensure things go smoothly! 

Suffice to say, I can almost predict the exact moment a bride will exclaim, “my dress got dirty!” or “there is a bug in my tulle!”. (Fun fact/tangent: bugs love, love, LOVE tulle. I don’t know what it is, but they are just drawn to it and it acts like a giant mosquito net. But the worst thing you can do? Try to pick those bugs out. It ends up just smashing them into your dress and if you leave them alone, they will eventually make their way out — trust me!) And believe me when I say I get it, I really do — I was a bride too! 

So one of those things that I tell just about EVERY single bride I worked with the years? Having a dirty wedding dress simply means you’ve had an amazing wedding day. Even with all the care and precaution in the world, there is no way your dress will be in the same condition at the end of the day as it was in the beginning. So while we won’t purposefully be out trekking through mud, the dress will inevitably collect dirt around the bottom as it naturally drags across the ground. But do you want to know a secret? It’s OKAY! Consider it one of those rites of passage as a bride and take solace in this: it rarely shows up on camera and certainly isn’t visible to your guests! Everyone is too busy taking in this moment and enjoying all the love that surrounds you and your spouse-to-be.  To all the future brides (and their sweet, doting mommas who are just worried about their babies!), I promise you look flawless!