Five Tips From Your Wedding Photographers!

When you’re shooting upwards of twenty weddings a year, you start to take note of the patterns that emerge in weddings. In the past eight years we’ve learned how to deal with everything from difficult parents, to drunk guests, and all that comes in between. But sometimes as professionals, we forget to loop our clients in on our learned wisdom. So today I’m giving you five of the tips best tips I’ve learned since I started this job.
1. IF YOU’RE GETTING YOUR HAIR AND MAKEUP DONE, EXPECT IT TO RUN OVER. It’s not that hair and makeup is particularly time consuming (though it can be), it’s just that between your sister asking you four times which pair of shoes you prefer and your mom double checking how you like your bouquet and then you having to ask your makeup artist to tone down the eye shadow a bit, lots of little interruptions can add up to being half an hour or an hour behind schedule. 
​2. FAMILY PORTRAITS ARE A PAIN. It’s hard to corral a big group of people into a photo, and it’s even harder when it’s your crazy family. The timing isn’t great either. If you do them before the ceremony you are going to want to get it over with as soon as possible so you can get to your wedding already. If you do them during cocktail hour, you’re going to wish you were at cocktail hour. But trust me when I say they matter. Because while you hired your photographer for their artistic vision, your parents are probably only going to frame a few photos from your wedding, and my hunch is that it’s not going to be the artsy ones of you walking through sunset. So give yourself permission to be a little bit grumpy during family portraits and know that they’ll be over soon enough, and that they’re worth it in the end.
3. YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER HAS NO IDEA WHO YOUR GREAT AUNT MILLIE IS. Most photographers will try really hard to get to know your family during your wedding, but unless someone is in your family portraits, or did a reading or gave a toast, we don’t know your Great Aunt Mille who helped raised you from your grandmother you never talk to, from your third grade teacher who your mom made you invite. So if it’s really important that someone you love makes it into the final delivery of images, make sure to let your photographer know. Include the person on a shot list if you have one, and have someone at the wedding point the VIPs out to your photographer. And of course, you can always grab your photographer and say, “Hey, can you take photo of Aunt Millie and me?!” In which case, the answer is always yes. Because Aunt Millie seems really cool and I like her sequined jacket. 
4. BACKDROPS OVER DETAILS. If photography is one of your top priorities and you have to choose, backdrops give you more bang for your buck than details (at least when it comes to photos). The wedding industry (and blogs, particularly) have done a good job of convincing couples that all you’ll see at a wedding is the details. And while details definitely can add to the overall feel of the event (if you decide to care about them), big-ticket items get a lot more play in your photos. So if you have to choose between really cool details, and, say, a killer ceremony backdrop, that ceremony backdrop will get way more airtime in your wedding photos than napkin rings or programs. This is particularly true when it comes to the ceremony. Depending on the space, there aren’t a whole lot of places your photographer can go during the ceremony, so a backdrop ends up doing a lot of the work of making your pictures interesting. Barring all the emotional stuff of course. In short mathematical form: Emotions > Backdrops > Details.
5. CAFE LIGHTS ARE MAGICAL INVENTIONS. If you’re getting married in a simple space, or have an outdoor nighttime reception, or if your decor budget just isn’t huge, but you really care about photography, cafe lights (also known as globe lights or market lights) are one of the best wedding-related investments you can make. (Bonus: they’re still pretty, even after the wedding. Garden parties for everyone!) Cafe lights aren’t crazy expensive--around $25 per set. A few strands can go a really long way toward making your pictures look amazing, partly because they add visual interest to your photos, but also because with enough of them, you can create just enough of a warm glow to not need flash.