Put the Phone Down: Protecting Your Getting-Ready Hour

The most common mistake I correct on a wedding morning has nothing to do with the bride's hair. It is the bride holding a phone.

The problem: getting-ready photos are some of the most beautiful images of the day, and in half of them the bride is looking down at a screen. Not because she is being rude, because she is answering a text from a caterer about chair counts.

The fix is a handoff, and it has to be explicit. Someone else holds the phone from the moment you sit in the chair until you are dressed. Not on silent in your lap. Gone. In a drawer, in a bag, with a person who has been told what to do with it.

What the bride should do instead during styling: nothing. That is the point. This is the only hour of the entire engagement where nobody needs anything from you.

The four things worth having in the room instead: coffee or tea, something with protein, a mirror you can see into from the chair, and one person who is calm. Not five people. One calm person and a quiet room beats nine people and a playlist.

The exception, and I mean this: if checking your phone genuinely relaxes you, check it. A tense bride photographs tense. I would rather you answer three texts and sit back happy than white-knuckle your way through a blowout.

What I do to protect the hour: I ask for the room to be closed for the styling window. No florists, no banquet staff, no cousins. It sounds precious and it is the difference between a calm morning and a chaotic one.

If you want a morning built around that quiet hour, inquire and I will plan it. The Bride Experience is $1,000, and full details are here.