Wedding date is confirmed, Now What!

Two years away gave us perspective, and we came back with a promise: help couples plan smarter, calmer weddings through the lens of real photography and film experience. We kick off our Wedding Series with the moment that shapes everything—what to do right after you set your date—and we keep it practical, honest and free of fluff.

We start with alignment. Before a single deposit, define the kind of day you want: destination or private, party-fuelled or intimate, natural light or editorial polish. That clarity guides venue choices, guest count, timelines and the creative style that will age well in your home. From there, we explain why booking your photographer and videographer early isn’t a luxury; it’s the backbone of the plan. A strong team helps protect your light, map portrait windows, and sync with makeup, hair and décor so key moments are captured without rush.

Budget talk gets real. We share what a realistic photo and video budget includes—pre-production, shoot, and the deep work of culling, colour and delivery—and why cheap shortcuts can cost you dearly years later. Then we dig into timelines that respect photography time, the ripple effects of late makeup, and how a point person keeps bridal party portraits smooth. Finally, we make the case for consultations and engagement shoots as trust builders that reduce anxiety and raise final image quality. You won’t meet your team for the first time on the aisle; you’ll step into a familiar rhythm that lets you be yourselves.

If you’re setting a date, or guiding a friend who is, this conversation will anchor your plan, protect your peace and preserve your memories. Subscribe for the next chapters—choosing the right vendors, planning an engagement session, and building a stress-resistant schedule—and share this with someone who needs it. If this helped, leave a quick review so more couples can find it.

Transcript

We’re Back And Reintroductions

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Gosh, it's been two years. Hi guys.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hello, everyone.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Oh my god, I can't believe we're back. It's been a long time. Wow. Where have you been?

SPEAKER_01 0:14

At the go cake. It's been a long time. We've been walking, walking, working. It's mainly you know family life, work, everything. You know, we've been busy.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

I mean, we have missed the podcast, so I mean, now I think we're back.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

We're back. We've got some exciting things to talk about in this new year.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Yeah, let's just remember, let's just try to remind people what this podcast is all about. First of all, for those people who are listening for the first time. Wow. Okay. So I know we have a series that we want to start today, but what do we normally discuss on the podcast?

What Our Podcast Covers

SPEAKER_00 0:52

So, first of all, we'll introduce ourselves properly. My name's Teddy.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

So my name is Hadigo.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

And we are the hybrid Hub Podcast. We share our views, opinions, and we also give some advice where we can regard certain things that happening around us, businesses, family life, and just general things in general. I mean, you're a sport fanatic, aren't you, Adega? Okay.

Launching The Wedding Series

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yes, we do talk about you know different things that affect you know um our community. We talk about entertainment, sport, but also mainly we also speak about uh our business. So at the moment, um we have we have a business, but we have a good news coming on later on in the year. We don't want to talk about that business yet. So let's talk about we just but we focus on uh also our photography and videography business, okay. And and what we want to do now is that we want we we realize that you know, because we do photos and videos a lot for weddings, for portrait, but we see that a lot of couples when they come to us, they you could see that either they've made mistakes, especially during their wedding, you could see things did not go according to plan. And this is not down to their fault in most cases. Uh, I feel like there are two reasons why you know things happen. And I think the first thing is that people are misinformed because maybe they have friends that have done it before, and they try to tell them to do things this way, do it that way, and the whole wedding is just chaotic, right? Everything is just uh what's what are the other reasons that you think that um I think first of all, we haven't really introduced our series.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

The series are called the wedding series, and that's from a photography and video videography perspective of things. Um, today's is all about what couples should do after setting their date. Yes, once you've picked your date, what should you be doing as a couple that are about to be married? Well, my what I've realized in the few years um we've been doing with photography.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Before we start, let me just introduce us based on the business. So Teddy is the director of Goki Photography and Film. So we're happy to have the director. Um I'm 99% of the time is both of us doing the podcast, but once once in a while, you might see her only doing the podcast, or you might see me only the but most of the time, 99% of the time, we do the podcast together. But we have our director here today, and then I'm just you know the creative lead um helping in that regard. So we have seen a lot, and we have photograph and videograph a lot of weddings. So uh, so if you want to understand the person speaking to you, because I always tell people, what right do you have to talk to me? Right? You need to know the person talking to you. So we have been in this industry for such a long time and we have seen it all. We just want to talk from our own perspective and experience, right? Some of the things that we say may not maybe relate to other people, but we want to speak from our own experience and perspective. Am I correct?

Book Photo And Video Early

SPEAKER_00 4:02

That's correct. So I think I don't know if it's one of the biggest mistakes that couples make, but I will talk about the fact that they leave photography until the last minute. Okay, they might have the idea that they want to book photographers and have a videographer like mark their memory or day and all of that, but my view and my experience has been they will reach out, like we do get people that reach out, right? And then you don't hear from them for a long time, and then the date is pro fast approaching, and then it kind of clicks, and they're like, Oh, we haven't pinned down a photographer and a photographer for our day. I personally think once people have picked their date, the most important thing is to book your photographer and videographer immediately. Do you agree?

Define Wedding Type And Theme

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Yes, I agree. But I wanted to add one thing to it. Um, just before you get to book your photographer and videographer, one thing I think is important and a mistake I feel like a lot of couples make is that they don't even have rhythm or they don't even know what they want for their wedding. What type of the question you I mean the couples, all the man and the woman, they need to sit down first of all before they do any even any booking. And I think they need to do two things. First of all, they need to decide on what type of wedding do you do we want? Do we want destination wedding? Do we want a private wedding? Do we want like a fun party field wedding? You know, those things will kind of shape how your wedding will be, and it is important for both the man and the woman to agree. If you guys do not agree on what type of wedding you want, you will book the wrong people, and you will also book the wrong things. And maybe, I mean, when I talk book the wrong thing, I'm talking about book the wrong vendor. And then you guys also need to understand the theme. What is the theme for your wedding? What are the kind of things that you want? Do you, if it's in the summer, do you want things like a natural uh pictures? You know, we've seen an example with uh Temi, is he or Tedula, right? And you know, they did like a natural, their photographer is just a natural um photographer, uh yeah, it does, you know, just natural like use mostly natural light. And so you need to decide on these things. If it's a destination wedding, you need to know what you're doing and all that. And then from then you set the budgets. What is it? You wanted to talk about our realistic budget, I remember.

Budget Realistically For Coverage

Respect Photography Time In Schedules

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Yeah, but I mean, I think my thing that I would say to couples, my honest truth would always be photography is the only wedding investment that increases in value over time. Yes, food will be eaten, yes, flowers fade, but photography becomes your family history and video. So it's very important for every couple to actually sit down, plan their wedding time, like have a timeline around what they want to happen on that day, right? They need to obviously know the venue very well, have the t the right like catering team in place and just understand how they want the flow of their wedding to go. Okay, so every every photographer has a price, but if you shop around, you'll find that the prices are sometimes either similar or higher than what you've been quoted from one photographer to the next. I feel like I know people want to spend more money on you know the food and whatever, and I know the venues are expensive and all, but have a budget for your photography and videography because it's important, you know, it's very important. If you don't have a budget, you're not gonna know what you're working with, and you can't then go and sit down, um, like book a consultation without both of you being aligned on a budget. Because I've seen like things in the past where like for example the husband the husband to be will reach out, and then we are asking all these questions because obviously we we have like a pocketbook of you know how our meetings run, how our consultation works, and all of that. And out of like maybe five or six questions, they don't even they can't even answer the just one. Like, when is the wedding? You know, what's your budget? I don't know, but I just feel like there's no way you plan a wedding and don't have a budget for it. You have to have a budget for everything, you know. You have to be that how do they call those people that literally just write everything down? You have to have an idea of exactly how you're going to spend your money for your day for it to be successful. Another point I would like to make is that when you're choosing your vendors as well, those vendors should respect photography time. You know what I'm talking about when I talk about respecting photography time. Okay, now you book a makeup artist, they will spend about five hours doing your makeup and all. And as photographers, we also have we need our time, right? We need our time to um do the prep, we need our time to do the final, we need our time to get make sure we get our um we get our candid photos for the bride and the groom. So for for you to have a real wedding experience and to kind of omit the delays, you should always make sure your hair and makeup never run late. That the you know, your bridal trail, the groom's men, the bridesmaid, everybody understands the schedule, understands exactly what you want from each and every one of them on that day. Not that you know the photographer gets there and they're asking, okay, so where are the bridemaids? Where's the room? How you need to have somebody in the middle that actually coordinates everything in order for you to have a smooth and successful wedding day. Anything else you want to add on that?

Quality Over Cheap Deals

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah, so um, our second actually on our second series, we are going to be talking about choosing the right vendors. So we'll go more into details into choosing because that is we think that is one of the most important topics in this series, um, right? But what I want to say is that you know, because we are focusing more on pre pre before things that you do before that uh process of you actually picking all these vendors. So we've talked we've we've spoken about having you guys sitting down and planning the wedding, which kind of wedding do you want? And also we've talked about having a realistic uh budget uh for your wedding. We think those two things are important. But what I want to say next is, and this is what I have seen. In fact, I have seen this, I will say 99%, or let me say maybe that is too outrageous. Maybe I'll say 95% of the time. When the couple comes through, the first thing that is on their mind is about money. Like what I mean is that most of them do not care about quality, they don't care about how their pictures. I'm just talking about, I'm not talking about this is not everybody, right? So I don't want somebody to say, oh, this is now, you know. I'm not generalizing and say this is everybody, but most of the people that we've done with, you know, you see them come through and they are not even sometimes not even worried about okay, well, the quality of work and how to deliver it. They are thing in their mind is do anything for me. I just want the price to be this, okay. But it doesn't work that way. If you you know, so you guys have to also think that what I want to say in that is that don't let money be the determining first yet, yes. Let don't let money I we know that money is important, we know you need to have a budget, but like she said, right? One thing we've discovered is that you know, people do not prioritize in terms of photography and videography. Look, if you pay for any other thing, we are not, I'm not, we are not saying you know, we we work with different vendors, uh, makeup artists, you know, uh musicians, different people we work with them, right? And we are all in the same industry. But what I keep saying to people, not because I'm a photographer or videographer, is that like she said, photography and videography are the only thing that would stand at the test of time. People are going to eat your food, they forget about it. In fact, when they eat your food this week, they maybe somewhere else next week eating another person's food, and so there's no way they will even remember your food. And also, you know, uh for makeup, you do the makeup, you wipe it up. I mean what I say, you you why you wipe the wake up off that same night, you know, no matter how expensive the makeup is, your decoration will go on the same day, right? It's gonna be taken down, right? The musician they sing and go. It is only the photographer and the videographer that needs to work during your wedding, they need to work before your wedding, they need to work during your wedding, and they need to work after the rest of the vendors, their jobs stop on your wedding day.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

So I say to people, why do you want to come with the mentality of okay, this photography, okay, I'm videography. You know what? I can pay the least for that one, but I can pay the best for the rest, or I can pay the higher price for this, I can pay higher price for that. But you know, for photo and video, it's just photo and video, no? I'm just gonna, but people don't we don't want to go into details of what how many, I mean, what type of work goes into photos and video, but don't let money be the first thing. Think about the person's delivery, think about the quality of their work, think about what you want. Does it align with what you want? Yeah, you know, these are the things I think. So it is very important that you know, I'm not saying you should not uh you know, budget is we've said budget is important, but don't put that budget on your head to say you, you know, put a pop, like you said, put a proper budget for photos and video. You know, search online, be realistic. You're going to your photographer and you want a wedding, you want a wedding for 500 pounds for both photos and video. And I keep saying couples they just want as low as possible. Yeah, but when the wedding ends, then when the best work. Oh, my photo is not as good. Oh, we I know of couples, right, that have not received their album up to today. Not even their photos, they've not received it. I'm talking about 10-15 years, they never received it.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Yeah, no, that's not our clients, though. Just just just to clarify.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

But what I'm trying to say is that is because people try to go cheap, they are looking for cheap alternative, you know, and all these things. So, my advice is think about it. Photos and videos, they are very important. Other vendors are very important. We almost say that, you know. But this is the only thing that will last a lifetime.

The Power Of Consultations And Engagement Shoots

What’s Next In The Series And Closing

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Yeah. I mean, I will also say, like, I just wanted to add in some just something else as well. Just thinking that um, you know, when we ask people to like book a pre-wedding consultation or like, you know, to do the engagement shoot, people don't understand the benefits of actually booking one of those things. I mean, when you book a consultation, you have the you have a feel of the photographer, the team that you're choosing, or you might be choosing, because I I mean you can book as many consultations as you need as a couple, but many couples skip this and they think they're saving money, but in the end, I think they don't realize what they're losing out on because personally, in my own like experience, um when you have a pre-wedding consultation, when you have an engagement issue with a c with the team that actually going to cover your wedding, the benefit is is you're gonna build trust with these photographers. You're not gonna be seeing them for the first time at your wedding, right? Um they're going to teach you how to naturally pause. So it's like we're we're giving you all that all the skills that you need for the actual date. So it's not so when the actual day does come round, you're not we're not trying to pause you. Do you get what I mean? Like we would have done about two, two, two and a half hours prior to your wedding, so you know how it works. This you having this engagement issue will also like reduce, you know, that wedding day anxiety that couples get on a wedding day, they don't, you know, things a lot of things are going to happen on your wedding day that are out of your control. But creating this environment, you knowing the team you're working with, the team that you've chosen, you meeting. I mean, we'll give more like depth as we go along in the series, but I believe if you are choosing a certain team, choosing that team, having that consultation, having the engagement shoe will be the highest benefit of it all. And you know, it would also improve the final photo quality at your wedding day. Okay. Um I don't know, is there anything else you'd want to add? Because I mean, this is the first episode, so we're not going to make it so heavy for everybody. We would like to keep it as light as possible. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Um so, yeah, what I would just say in conclusion is that you know, this first episode is just in helping you to get ready. Okay. We have another episode that we're gonna deal with things like uh that I've mentioned already, uh, choosing the right vendors. We have one that we're gonna focus on pre-wedding, uh engagement shoot and things like that. We have those topics that we're gonna be so you don't want to miss anyone of this topic if you're getting married uh or you know anybody getting married, and you just want to know generally what is going on. It could be even a vendor, you know. I think this podcast is good for everybody out there to just, you know, uh, and we are doing this basically because a lot of couples we find out that they don't have enough information about these things, and these informations are not uh out there for people to kind of get, you know, we try to look here and there, but I'm talking about real people who do real weddings and giving you real advice, and so these are the things that we talk about with people in consultation. Like, if you consult or like you want us to sit down with you and just you know, instead of doing that with fell, like what we if we record some series of podcasts and just put it up, like if you want to you know find out what happened before the wedding, what you should be doing, I mean you can just download them, listen it, or you share with someone, send it to someone, and this is the whole idea. So we today we've covered uh you know what you should be doing before the wedding, and we we don't want to make it longer than this, so uh yes, so we'll try and uh do you want to round up in your conclusion? What do you want to say?

SPEAKER_00 19:59

I don't know. I just uh I mean I'll just end it this I'll just end it with this. I'll just say like your wedding day will pass in a moment, your photographs will speak for the for generations, so every decision after setting your date should protect time, light, peace, and genuine emotion. I think until next time, guys.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Stay blessed, stay blessed.