How to Make the best of your wedding morning?
We have been wedding photographers for over 10 years now so let’s just say we have a lot of handy tips and tricks to enable smooth sailing on your wedding morning.
Are you dreaming of special moments being made? relaxing times with no stress and worries? sticking to the time schedule for the day? Then read on!
This is going to be one heck of a handy blog post for your wedding planning. Consider this ticked off the list once you have read through it, and you can thank us later!
Happy reading!
How can I get the best out of my photographs on the morning of my wedding and create authentic moments?
Be prepared and organised. During the planning stages create a plan and include the following:
- Who do I really want to have with me on the wedding morning ( we recommend to keep this number on the smaller side. More people more chances of stress and things getting a bit crazy! )
- Based on this choose a location which has enough space for you all without being on top of each other. This will help with making you feel less claustrophobic and less overwhelmed. In addition to this, it will keep the rooms less messy and cluttered which will be better for photos
- Note down what kind of moments you have always dreamed of sharing with your nearest and dearest before walking down the aisle. Think of how you can make this happen. Perhaps exchanging of special gifts, or holding your mom’s hands and letting her know how much she means to you, speaking to your dad about planning a first look…there are so many ideas. Ask us and we can offer you many more.
- Make a rough list of some photos you would like captured. Read on for what some of these may be and how we can achieve this
- Make a checklist of everything you will need to have for the morning. This way nothing will be forgotten
Don’t fret we tend to arrive 2 hours or so before the ceremony. This enables us to capture the details. Check out this post to see what this entails. Plus, as mentioned above it gives us plenty of time to capture moments between everyone, makeup, hair shots and anything that goes on without rushing things too much.
What photos would you really like to have captured on your wedding morning?
- All the details of course! and this includes the guys as well…so top tip men don’t get so bored you have nothing to do but get changed before we can even capture it ( this happens a lot! )
- Hair and makeup in action
- Special moments as discussed above
- The robe shot ( see below for a few tips on how to make this happen )
- Helping each other with the finishing touches like ties, buttonholes, kilts, bridesmaids dresses, moms wedding hat…the bridal dress of course
- Dads, moms or even bridesmaids first look. I’ll cover more on how to make sure this goes off without a hitch in a different post!
- Formal photos
- Leaving for the ceremony
These are just a few ideas and some are self-explanatory but it also helps to give you a bit of advice on how to make sure we can snap these shots for you.
So back to the robes chat!
To make sure you have enough time for the robes shot you can either ask your makeup and hair team to arrive a little bit earlier OR what most brides opt for is stopping the preps for a few moments no matter if all the girls are ready or not just to get the shot. Waiting until everyone is ready is sometimes not possible without extremely impacting the flow of the day. Please chat with your bridesmaids about this and give them the lowdown. If some bridesmaid pushback and express they have to be 100% ready when there is no time left to lose I usually decide to not take this photo as it can be a real time-eater.
We adore moments like the above and below which are in the moment and not staged. You can help create these kinds of moments by asking your mom to help you with your jacket or get ready in a great spot for photos. We will be on hand with suggestions and placing if need be but we always prefer just capturing as it unfolds. If you think ahead on these little things it can really help.
Hold hands, reach for someone’s hand or take the time to hug and tell each other how special they are. These moments are so darn precious and amazing to capture!!!!
Getting into that dress
Make sure we are involved. Here are a few tips!
- Perhaps hang it in a nice location where we can capture you taking it off its hanger
- We don’t recommend more than two people helping you into the dress as then it gets too crowded. If you are looking for that shot where all your bridesmaids are fixing something on your dress or veil then we can capture this once you are all ready
- Let us know from which point you want the getting into the dress captured. Some want it all captured including them in their bridal undergarments and some are more modest and that’s ok too! as long as we know.
Portraits
If all goes smoothly then we will have some downtime for some bridal portraits and making sure we get the right shots to take advantage of the light, venue and attire. You would be surprised to know that this can actually bring things back down to a slower pace and give you a moment to relax and take it all in.
We have written handy posts in the past filled with great information and tips on making the best of your wedding day. Have a look at the posts below.
