From the Wedding Tip Series, providing a new piece of advice every Wednesday to help brides get the most out of their wedding photography. This Wednesday, we are proud to unveil tip five:
“Perfection takes time; schedule at least 45 minutes for JUST bride-and-groom photos.”
That’s right ladies, this doesn’t include time for bridal party photos and family formals. All in all you should schedule a minimum of two hours for bridal party photos/formals and bride-and-groom photos between your ceremony and reception, provided you don’t have an insanely long list of formals to capture. With a very short list of group formals, and everything in one location, you may be able to squeeze it in 1.5 hours total at the shortest. If you find that you don’t have a gap large enough to accommodate for two hours or more, or you are really bent on attending your cocktail hour, you really should consider cutting out the receiving line. If that still doesn’t give you enough time, I would strongly recommend having a “First Look.”
A First Look is when the bride, groom and photographer get together before the ceremony (blasphemy, I know!), and the photographer positions them so that the groom has his back facing the bride, and the bride sneaks up behind him to create a dramatic moment when the groom turns and sees the bride in her dress for the first time. After the emotion of this moment is captured, the group heads off to a location to get the bride-and-groom photos out of the way. Here are the pros and cons of having a First Look:
PROS
1.) More time for photos of just the two of you. Fitting this in between the ceremony and reception usually means you have to miss all or part of your cocktail hour, and with the family formals and bridal party shots you’ll also have to take, it can be a real time crunch.
2.) More location possibilities. More total time for photos in addition to not having wedding guests waiting around for you means you can go to a beautiful location of your choosing just for the bride-and-groom photos!
3.) You can actually embrace when you first see each other in your wedding garb, instead of just standing there face to face all emotional-like.
4.) Some grooms are more likely to have an emotional reaction your photographer can hopefully capture on camera if there aren’t a million people watching.
5.) Think of your hair and makeup! This cuts out worrying about keeping your hair and makeup perfect all throughout the ceremony to do pictures after. With the most important photos out of the way already, it’s no big deal if you cry and smudge your makeup, if a few strands of hair fall out of place, or if your lipstick wears off after the kiss.
CONS:
1.) It goes against tradition for the bride and groom to see each other before the ceremony.
At the end of the day, the bride-and-groom photos are the ones you are most likely to enlarge and hang on your wall someday. They may not seem so important to you on the day of the wedding as you are living it up and enjoying the moment, but it has been ingrained into me to beg, grovel and plead to get these beautiful shots of just the bride and groom, because you WILL regret it afterward if you don’t do them, or if you expect to knock them out in just 15-20 minutes. If you had an engagement session, think of what percentage of those photos you would have gotten if you only had 20 minutes? So please, I beg of you, don’t shortchange yourself! These photos are important, and one of my strengths is impactful bride-and-groom photos, but I really do need enough time to make that happen. Thanks for hearing me out!
