have heard it said that a wedding day is really planned around the pictures. If you haven’t heard that before… I promise I’m not just making that up because I’m a WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER. It’s true! I planned my wedding around my pictures and guess what! … Because of my timeline and the fabulous Jstar, I have a 50 page wedding album!! The thing is, we ENJOYED our picture process. It was FUN and remember those moments with Michael and our bridal party so vividly! It’s important to think of photography on your wedding day as part of your WEDDING EXPERIENCE. More on that
later…. the whole “Experience” thing will be a common theme in the near future.:) Anyway! If the whole wedding day incorporates photography, there are some things that can be done in advance to make the photography go more smoothly! This Wedding Wednesday post is going to focus on pre-ceremony planning! So here we go!
When I arrive on a wedding day, 90% of the time I arrive at the bride’s “Getting ready” location first. This could be a hotel, a home, etc. The BEST scenario is when a bride gets ready in a room with NATURAL LIGHT. I have almost gotten to a place where if a bride doesn’t have natural light in her getting ready area, I can persuade her to move to another room or a completely different location! I mean, if you’re paying for awesome images… you want to do what your photographer wants to do! If Jasmine had told me “Katelyn your portraits would actually be better in the garage”… I would have bolted to the garage! Last weekend, I had a bride get in her dress OUTSIDE in order to have LIGHT for those portraits! Light changes everything! It’s what makes or breaks images. If you have GREAT light, you can have GREAT images. So my first piece of advice for pre-ceremony planning is:
1. Find a room with windows! The more windows, the better and the BIGGER, the better! Here’s an example of what pre-ceremony portraits can look like in a room with natural light pouring in! Kristen has a window to her right and a window behind her which creates a “glowy” look!
2. Allow TIME for the pre-ceremony portion of your day! If you like seeing the dress shots, the shoe shots, etc…. those shots take TIME. I can’t capture ALL of the bridal details in 20 minutes. One day I may have those super powers but as of right now, those shots take a good 35-40 minutes! I like to begin shooting at least an hour and a 1/2 before the First Look! That gives me time to get to know the bridal party, shoot some of the getting-ready process AND shoot all of the bridal details before the dress goes on! Also, when your timeline has adequate time allotted for pictures, you will have time to do a few BRIDAL portraits. After the dress goes on, I love spending about 5-7 minutes shooting JUST the bride in her dress! This almost serves as a “warm-up” before the first look. The bride is posing and working it and all of her girls are oohing and ahhhing! This makes any bride feel AWESOME! And here is a shot from the 5-minute bridal session at the wedding last weekend! LOVE IT!
3. Gather the goods!!! Have all of your details together! This includes:
The Dress
The Viel/Hairpiece
The Rings (All of them)
The Shoes
The Jewelry
Perfume (If you wear it, my perfume ended up making Michael SNEEZE on our wedding day!!)
The Bouquet (you’ll need your bouquet for the First Look so plan to have it delivered to your pre-ceremony location if at all possible!)
The Invitation (It’s really fun to blog a picture of the invitations!)
Any other details that are important to the bride! (Garter, grandma’s broach, etc)
And here are some examples from recent weddings….
Thanks for reading!
— Katelyn
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