Preparing a Photo Shoot Before the Wedding Ceremony

A wedding may just be the most important day in a bride’s life and nothing should go wrong for either you or the bride and groom. Always come prepared when you’re hired for an event. Create a set schedule based on the wedding time frame. Make sure you know beforehand the specific time, location and most especially the key places where you can position the bride and groom as well as family members and the wedding entourage for portrait shots.

Have the right equipment that will allow you to cover the whole wedding without encountering any problems. Make sure you have back-up gear that will cover any emergency you may come across. The usual wedding photographer’s equipment include around three camera bodies and all kinds of lenses from prime lenses to telephoto lenses to specialty lenses such as a macro or a fisheye lens. It also includes off-camera flash units, portable reflectors and diffusers, extra battery packs and memory cards.

On the actual wedding day, the bride and groom, as well as family and friends tend to have many things on their mind and fail to appreciate the little things such as ‘getting ready’ for the event,. It would be nice to capture these moments for a nice keepsake. The ‘getting ready’ part mostly involves candid shots beginning with make-up and styling of the hair for the bride. It would be ideal to mix colored as well as black and white photos for variations in effects and impact. As much as you are engrossed taking shots of everyone, they are also busy and probably highly excited as they help each other prepare. Try not to distract them or get in the way of their own preparations.

The wedding dress plays an important part in the getting ready portion of the event. It has been painstakingly chosen especially for this day and is often pricey. It can even be considered an heirloom in the future for those who would want to pass on the dress to their daughter. Make sure that emphasis is placed on the dress. You can shoot the bride wearing the dress or just the dress as a solo subject against a background that frames it well.

Always remember that the bride and groom hired you to record this momentous occasion in their lives and through this, they will be seeing their wedding through your eyes. It is crucial that you don’t make them miss out on anything and this includes the complete scene of the day. Every little detail counts, from how the table was set, how the food was served, the placing of the bouquet up to the setting of the sun.

On such a busy day, many of the couples never get the chance to actually enjoy the little details of the reception venue while it’s set-up before it starts to fill with guests. Try to take shots of the venue at its best before guests start to arrive. Make sure you include close-up detailed shots of table settings and flower arrangements and such.