When your wedding is all said and done, the right wedding photographer will help capture the wedding memories you want to remember the most 20 years from now.

When planning your wedding, you can sometimes get bombarded by all the information out there and start to feel overwhelmed. Keeping up with trends, meeting everyone’s expectations, following traditions, not following traditions, adding in a personal touch—all the dos and dont’s can pile up so high that, sometimes, the WHY behind your wedding gets lost.

But, at the end of the day, you are marrying your best friend, the love of your life, and that’s what really matters. That, and the little things that mean something to you now and will still mean something to you 20 years from now. Those are the ones you want to add a focus to, the ones you want to document for posterity.

First, figure out what’s most important to you about your wedding.

When starting out the wedding planning process, I think it’s really important to take time to sit down as a couple and think about what will still be important to you in 20 years when you are sitting together, paging through your wedding album.

Do you want to remember how you wore your grandmother’s earrings? Or that you used scraps of your mother’s wedding dress in the ribbon of your bouquet? Perhaps you want to remember all the friends and family surrounding you on your wedding day? Or how your sister gave an epic speech and filled the room with joy and laughter? Include whatever tugs on your heart strings, makes you smile, or fills you up with joy at the thought of incorporating it into your wedding day. And the rest? The things that make you shrug and feel kind of “meh”, just leave those out!

It’s your wedding, make it your own, not somebody else’s!

Find a photographer who will capture that vision!

You’ve sat down with your fiancé and dreamed about your future together and how you want to remember your wedding day. Now, you have to find a wedding photographer who will make that vision a reality.

This part is REALLY important. You have to find somebody who not only vibes with you, but is willing to roll with your ideas and dreams of your wedding day. When searching for a photographer, keep your list of “Wedding Day Must Haves” handy. It will help you narrow your choices down.

And then start searching with that list in mind. Reach out to your friends or family members that are married and had an incredible experience and ask them what they enjoyed most about their photographer. When you do find a few you think may work well, look at their images and make sure they speak to you! If their images don’t fit the idea or style you have in mind, move on. When you do find a photographer whose work you love, sit down with them and get to know them a little bit before deciding to hire them. The best photographers are the ones you feel like you’ve known your whole life—the ones who feel like friends or family, who will naturally be part of your day. And, trust me, you’ll know after one meeting if they’ll be a great fit or not! This is why it’s important to meet with them or at least sit down for a video chat before you hand over your money!

Also, ask to see full wedding galleries so you can see how they handle all aspects of the wedding day, not just the portrait sessions. Seeing an entire image gallery will give you a good sense of your photographers shooting strengths and weaknesses and, if you still love their work, will help you to work in your must haves with their strongest skills.

Once you decide who the right wedding photographer will be, make sure you do an engagement session or bridal session with them so you can spend more time getting to know them and learning to work together. The engagement period is a fantastic time to build a good relationship with your wedding photographer and get some amazing images that aren’t wedding images!

Communicate what you want the most to your photographer.

Strong communication with your wedding photographer is key to capturing the moments that will mean the most to you 20 years from now. Tell them what is truly important to you. This could be just focusing on epic portraits of the two of you, making sure to get a dancing photo of you and your grandpa, shots of all your friends who’ve traveled to celebrate your wedding with you, or a lot of candids.

There is so much to wedding planning and once the day is done, your wedding photographs are the tangibles that you’ll have left to remind you of the day. If you put in the time, the research, and the effort and communication, the right wedding photographer will be able to capture what you value most. Then, when you look back on your wedding album in 20 years, hand in hand with the love of your life, you’ll be able to reminisce about the moments that meant something special on that day and still do!

For more great wedding planning ideas, check out Creating A Custom Wedding Ceremony.