5 Tips (From Photographers) to Make Your Dream Wedding Photos a Reality

Today, we have Ally and Bobby, North Carolina fine art film photographers, here to share five ways you can help ensure that your wedding photos turn out beautifully! Ally and Bobby are not only dear friends, but some of the best in the industry. They consistently produce exceptional images that are cherished by their clients for a lifetime. All of the photos below are by Ally and Bobby from our first wedding!

These tips are super helpful, so be sure to save this post to your Pinterest at the bottom for future reference.

 

Getting Ready Locations Matter

The photos we capture while a bride and groom are getting ready to be married always include so much emotion and we get amazing candid shots! These photos look the best when you have chosen a great getting ready location.

We find that most people treat their getting ready location as an afterthought, unfortunately. Our key requirements for a great getting ready space are big windows (preferably more than one on at least two different walls), neutral walls, and a separate room or area to put your belongings. We can also take beautiful getting ready photos on a porch or balcony.

When you’re touring venues look for these things in the getting ready rooms. If you choose a venue that doesn’t have these things we would recommend renting a house or space specifically for getting ready. It’s a big part of your experience on your wedding day and a big part of your photo gallery so it’s important!

We LOVE McAlister-Leftwich’s getting ready area because they have a gorgeous bridal suite for the bride to get dressed in, a room just for hair and makeup, a room for all the bridesmaids’ belongings, a room to eat in, and two separate rooms on a different floor for the groom and groomsmen.

 

 

Choose Your Ceremony Time Based on the Sunset

Capturing beautiful wedding photos is all about the light! Your entire day should be centered around the sunset time for this reason. Whenever we create a photography timeline, we put the ceremony time in first then build from there. We recommend choosing a ceremony time before choosing anything else for your day.

We suggest choosing a ceremony time about two hours before the sunset whether you have an indoor or outdoor ceremony. Here’s a great website to use to check your sunset time.

If you choose your ceremony time based on light, you’ll have great lighting for your entire day, whether you have a first look or not!

 

 

Include More Time Than You Think You Need For Hair & Makeup

We always include 30 minutes of time for our brides to get into their dress on our photography timelines. Some people see this and think it’s way too much time allocated for a simple task, but over and over again having this amount of time keeps our timelines running smoothly.

The same thing should be done for your hair and makeup! Give yourself about a 30-minute buffer between your hair and makeup being completed and getting your dress on.

During this buffer time, we’ll take a bridesmaid group photo while you’re all in your getting ready outfits and then photograph your details while your bridesmaids get dressed. And if for some reason hair and makeup take longer than expected, the rest of your day doesn’t have to be pushed back!

 

 

Plan Out Your Details

Detail photos help tell the complete story of your wedding day and they’re typically the first thing your photographer will shoot. Bride and groom accessories, invitation suites, wedding bands, etc. are all important!

If all of these things are convened in one spot when we arrive it helps us begin shooting quicker because we won’t have to ask you to find everything you want to be photographed for us. This will help you get the most out of your photography coverage time and have a smoother day! We recommend having a bridesmaid assigned to keeping up with these items and making sure they get to the right people after we’ve finished photographing them.

Another thing we love for our clients to do is to ask their florist for extra flowers and greenery for us to use for the detail photographs. This adds SO much to your photographs and pulls in more elements from your day which helps tell your story!

 

 

Choose a Photographer that Values Communication

We believe that COMMUNICATION is KEY with your photographer! We communicate about our couples’ photography timelines often throughout their engagement so that they know exactly what to expect from their wedding photography.

Our biggest goals on a wedding day are for our couples to have gorgeous and timeless wedding photographs, for the photography portions of their day to run smoothly and on time, and for them to have fun with us! We know that our frequent communication makes this possible and the biggest thing we wish everyone knew is to pick a photographer who makes this a priority!

 

We hope these tips help your wedding photographs turn out beautifully!

 

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