Unexpected Wedding Photo Tips

Sure, everyone knows to schedule your portraits during ‘golden hour.’ But did you know that the height of your centerpieces can affect your reception photos? In today’s blog post I’ll give you a list of my most unexpected wedding photo tips. I’ve been in business over 15 years and have learned a lot photographing everything from tiny elopements to huge extravaganza weddings at the most gorgeous venues in New York City. Today’s list are the tips that will help you where you need it most with hacks that you least expect. So, for all you type A brides, get your spreadsheets ready – this is going to be a fun list.

Wedding Photo Tips – Getting Ready

Do a hair and makeup test run. I always recommend having a test run with your hair and makeup before your wedding so that you can see exactly what you will look like – and most importantly – how much time it will take to get ready. This way you know if you will be happy with the final outcome and how much time you actually need to budget into your schedule. Trust me, it’s worth the extra money to book the second hair and makeup session.

Get everything ready for the photographer. Have your dress unpacked and your jewelry, shoes and everything else you want photographed ready for the photographer before the photographer arrives. The ‘getting ready’ session tends to be quite hectic, and you can save your photographer quite a bit of time by having your items ready to go. Also, identify a good window or area with plenty of natural light, as this will likely be the room where the dress and items are photographed. Lastly, I would tidy up the room where you think the dress will be photographed. It doesn’t need to be completely neat, but have a space set aside where photos could be taken of the shoes, etc.

Wedding Photo Tips – Your Portraits

Book an engagement session. An engagement session is your best way to know if you will be happy with your photographer. Aside from your event planner, your photographer is the one other person you will be stuck with for your entire wedding day. You need to like this person and this person needs to bring out the best in you – both personally, and on camera. An engagement session is an easy way to test a photographer’s personality and technical skill without doing any harm to your wedding day photos.

Have a portrait ‘wrangler’ selected for your family portraits. The all-important family portrait session is sometimes the first time the entire clan comes together. However, most of the family may still not know one another. And let’s be honest: everyone wants to get done with photos as quickly as possible so that they can sprint over to the cocktail hour. I always recommend designating a family member who knows both sides of the family to help the photographer. This person will call out the groups and names on the family portrait list and help facilitate the portrait session in an orderly and efficient fashion. No dawdling, Aunt Martha!

Wedding Photo Tips – The Ceremony (Pre-Kiss)

Leave space at the front and in the aisle. If you have the space available, make sure that the main aisle and the area in front of the first row of chairs is wide enough for the photographer to capture you from different angles. Note that NO photographer should be climbing up on the altar to photograph the couple.

Take a ten-second pause before you walk down the aisle. This is the most important runway of your life, so enjoy the moment. Take your time, and slow down to enjoy the walk.

For the walk down the aisle, no one needs to look directly at the photographer. In fact, it is better if you just ignore the photographer and walk naturally down the aisle. Most importantly, walk slowly and put plenty of space between couples proceeding down the aisle.

Walk slowly, and no ‘bunching.’ Same situation after the ceremony. This is when most of the ‘bunching’ happens and the bridal party tends to race out of the church. Photos are still happening, so please take your time walking down the aisle.

Wedding Photo Tips – The Ceremony (Post-Kiss)

Kiss, and kiss, and kiss. Hold your first kiss for a count of three to make sure your photographer gets a few shots of the big finale. Also, make sure you tell your photographer when the big kiss will take place. This is especially important with Catholic ceremonies when the kiss may take place mid-ceremony.

Tell your officiant to step to the side. Most officiants already know to do this, but politely plan ahead and ask your officiant to step to the side for the final kiss. This way your photographer can get a photo of just the couple alone without anyone in the background.

Plan for a kiss do-over in the aisle. For most couples, the final kiss is not that photogenic. Most people hurry up and kiss out of nervousness, and they end up with squished faces. If you want a more photogenic kiss, then plan to do a kiss with flair at the end of the aisle as you are walking out of the ceremony. Just make sure you plan ahead and tell your photographer!

Wedding Photo Tips – Planning the Reception

Vary the size of your centerpieces. Tall centerpieces are lovely and will help fill a room that has high ceilings, but keep in mind that this makes it difficult to get photos of guests sitting at tables. My suggestion is to have tall centerpieces on every other table, or simply on a few tables around the room. This lets the centerpieces do their job and fill the space, but also allows the photographer to get great shots of your guests without their knowing that the camera is there.

Go easy on the colored uplights. I am a huge fan of extra light in a room, but if you are using a colored uplight, then bear in mind that it is extremely difficult to remove the color cast of the uplight from your photos. If you have a blue uplight, then you will have blue-colored guests, etc. Try to tone down the lights or keep the colored uplights to a specific location. Also, yellow color cast is a bit easier to remove then shades of pink, red, or blue.

Let there be light. Receptions lit only by candlelight, while romantic, are a nightmare to photograph; adding a little light to the room will do wonders for your photos.

Wedding Photo Tips – Reception Events

Go for a full-length song. Make sure your special dances are scheduled for a full-length song so that the photographer can capture you on the dance floor from several angles. If your first dance or your parent dance songs are not full length, then make sure to let your photographer know.

Look your partner in the eye. Speaking of dancing, make sure that you look at whomever you are dancing with in the eye. You’ll no doubt be nervous, but talking to your dance partner just to share a joke or to say ‘I love you’ gives your photographer the opportunity to capture the emotion between dance partners.

Sunset photos are often overrated. Check with your photographer ahead of time to see if it is even worth planning for sunset photos. Often a venue is situated such that you can’t even see the sunset, so it is not worth pulling the couple out of the reception.

Table photos, by and large, are the worst. Having family members posed around dirty dishes is really not attractive. Also, having some people sitting close and some people in the background just assures that someone is going to be out of focus. If you want to get group photos during your reception, make sure to get people up and move them to a different location. The best option is to have a set up at the reception (like a fun background or photo booth) where you can all take photos together, away from the dirty dishes.

Small bites, people. For cake photos, you want to take small bites. This is not the time to feed each other a huge mouthful of cake. No one looks good while chewing.

Final Thoughts

Planning a wedding is all about the details. And it’s the little things that you take care of now that will matter a great deal in the photos that you cherish down the road. With a little planning and a discussion with your photographer ahead of time, your wedding photos will be effortless to take and a joy to remember.

Enjoy the images. These are cherished memories from my many years photographing 15 years’ worth of weddings, both in New York City and in Texas. As always, I’ll have more photo adventures for you next week!

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