You can pay attention to the direction the light will be coming from but you can’t control anything else. However, in a church or any other structure, normally you can control the lighting situation a little! This Wedding Wednesday I’ll share some different indoor ceremony shots to show different types of light and how that will affect your wedding images.

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First let me start with my FAVORITE wedding… My Wedding! Michael and I were married in the church we grew up in and the church that my dad has pastored for the past 21 years! So the location itself meant so much to us.  It wasn’t the ideal location because the sanctuary held 345 and we had a little over 400 guests attending! Ah! So we had an overflow room with a video feed. I hated that we had to do that but we REALLY wanted to be married at our church. Also, the lighting was CRAZY bright! Sorry Jasmine!! I didn’t make it easy on her but she made it happen and we have beautiful images. The sun was setting and golden light was pouring in the stained glass behind us. It looked BEAUTIFUL! Here are a few shots to show you what I’m talking about!

Awww..if you could see Daddy’s face, this picture would have my 3 favorite boys in it!

So our ceremony was filled with mostly window light. I’ll show some other examples of some darker ceremony shots later on in this post.

Umm… I was a little excited. Just a little.

Now here is an example of an evening wedding that had darker lighting. Matt and Brittany had a beautiful evening wedding this past January and the spot lights were on in the church. When bright spots are on the bride and groom, the pictures will be a little darker because if I exposed for the bridal party, the bridal and groom would have been way over exposed.  It think this look fit their wedding! The ceremony was later in the evening and candles were everywhere…the lighting set the mood!  It’s really just a matter of preference but some brides don’t even think about ceremony lighting because no one told them to! It’s one of those small details that often gets overlooked. Ps. If you missed their wedding… you NEED to see their reception, one of my favs:)

John and Emily had a lot of light during their ceremony because of the LARGE stained glass windows in this cathedral styled chapel.

Adam and Ruth had awesome lighting at their ceremony.  Photographers: My WB was set for the Tungsten light that was shining on the bride, groom and bridal party. However, this church has a ton of natural light pouring through the windows. Since my WB was set for the spotlight, the natural light that filled the room around then turned BLUE and it was beautiful!  Brides: notice that the lights were also shining on the bridal party, not just the bride and groom.  Sometimes these are lighting options that you can adjust and play around with at the rehearsal.

Chris and Katie’s ceremony and reception were held at the Hyatt in Downtown Greenville, SC.  Naturally, a hotel ballroom’s lighting is not the BEST… and thankfully, Chris is a photographer and he had some theater style lights brought in to help the lighting for the ceremony. I still owe him a HUGE THANK YOU for that one!

Eddie and Lilian were married in a cathedral style Episcopal Church in Downtown Fredericksburg and instead of JUST having the spots on the bride and groom, they had some other lights on to create some great fill light. That prevented some harsh shadows on their faces!

Brides! I hope this was helpful! Happy planning!!