Making the most of your photography: The ceremony

Tips

January 18, 2013

This is the second part in a series I started last week about how to make the most of your wedding photography. To read part one about Getting Ready, click here!

This week we’re covering the wedding ceremony! The ceremony is THE most important part of your day…it’s the part where you actually get married! I swear this part goes by the fastest too, so it’s important to make sure you have pictures to remember it by! The following tips are designed to help maximize your ceremony photography experience!

Consider an unplugged wedding
I’m not a HUGE advocate for an unplugged wedding (meaning a wedding where you ask your friends and family to abstain from photography), but I can definitely see the appeal, and think it’s something important to consider! There have been a few situations where I’ve had to work around friends and family of the groom who were actually standing in the aisle as the bride walked to her groom. One of my photographer friends even told me a story where the groom COULDN’T SEE THE BRIDE as she walked down the aisle because there were so many of their guests out in the aisle competing with their photographer for the shot. I am not at all against guests taking pictures, BUT I think that sometimes guests are not aware (maybe they haven’t planned a wedding before!) that the bride and groom have invested thousands of dollars in a professional pictures. That’s the main reason that I feel like guests should remain respectful with their photography during wedding ceremonies. Not because I want them to be respectful to ME, but because I hope they would respect the bride and groom and the choice they made to invest a lot into their wedding photography! It’s definitely a lot to think about!

Find out about church or venue restrictions ahead of time
Most churches and some outdoor venues have restrictions on where your photographer can or cannot go/do. I have heard some other photographer friends say when they got to the church they were surprised to find that they had to stay in the balcony for the entire ceremony (even for when the bride walked down the aisle!) or that they weren’t allowed to do photography AT ALL. It’s best to get this information ahead of time so your photographer can make a plan for what to do to make sure you get great pictures! I also always want to know the rules of the church because it’s important to me to be respectful of their rules!

If your wedding is outdoors, choose a spot with EVEN shade.
The number one thing that affects your pictures (even more so than the type of camera or lens your photographer uses!) is LIGHTING. If you are getting married in the afternoon when the sun is really high, for the best pictures you will want to choose a spot that’s in even shade so your pictures don’t look harsh and so people don’t have spots on their faces from dappled shade.

Choose your ceremony time carefully
If you’re getting married in the winter, the sun sets a lot earlier than it does in the summer. For example, the sun goes down in November around 4:50! If you have a five o clock ceremony and don’t do a first look, you aren’t going to have any time for portraits. All of the portraits you see on my blog and website are natural light images shot in the daytime…unfortunately, this look just can’t be achieved at night, so if you want to have a late ceremony in the fall/winter months, you need to have a first look!

Look up/smile during your processional!
This is something a lot of people probably don’t think about, but I have so many pictures of bridal party members looking down at the floor or frowning walking down the aisle because they’re so busy concentrating on what they’re doing. Try to remember to relax a little bit and smile! BONUS TIP: Don’t power walk down the aisle…a smooth, semi slow pace is best:)

Enjoy your first kiss!
And when I say enjoy it I don’t mean make it awkward for your grandparents in the front row…haha, but I do mean you should kiss like you mean it and make sure you kiss longer than a one second quick peck on the lips so we can get lots of shots of your big first kiss as husband and wife!

Hide after the recessional
I try to suggest to each of my brides and grooms that immediately after they recess back up the aisle they go around the corner or back into the bridal suite or something for a few minutes to regroup and wait for friends and family to move on from the ceremony site and head to the reception. It’s so much easier to get family formals done faster if there isn’t a huge crowd just hanging out. Also, if you don’t have a game plan for where you’re going right after the recessional, chances are an impromptu receiving line will form and you will lose a lot of time:)

So, in a nutshell those are my best ceremony tips for brides and grooms to be! The next installment will be about family formals, so be on the lookout for that:) Also, if you have any questions about any of my tips, feel free to leave a comment or email me and I’ll do my best to answer!

 

 

Leave a Comment

  1. Beth says:

    Well said Katie! I’m also a big fan of unplugged weddings, but I love how you pointed out that this is not about respecting the photographer, but about respecting the bride and groom’s investment.

  2. Eddie says:

    Hello! I just came across your blog, and I love it. Too cute!

  3. Traci says:

    So smart, I’m going to send this to my brides to read!

    Side note, my own wedding was unplugged, and I am SO glad we did. We did reserve one moment where we turned to look at the guests and our pastor said, “Take a picture now, cause it’s your one shot!” and then we went on with the ceremony. Being a photographer, I’ve had to dodge relatives taking photos, and wanted my photographers to have the clearest shots they possibly could.

  4. Holly says:

    My eyes just about popped out of my head about the groom not being able to see his bride! 🙁

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *