WEDDING GUIDE

We’ve taken the time to put together a list of tips, suggestions, and content that can be super helpful when planning your wedding day, with the hope that it can make your wedding experience absolutely fantastic and give the best opportunity for stunning photos. We’ve been honoured to attend many weddings and have seen so many different ways to do different things, we’d love to take all these tips that we’ve gathered and put them to good use; we hope that these can be useful for you!

Timeline Tips

Don’t cram in too many things into a tight schedule because there will always be something that changes/pops up or runs delayed on a wedding day! That’s just how it goes. We recommend planning for a day where the two of you, as well as your bridal party, family members, and guests, can enjoy a relaxed day without feeling rushed all day long. Even though we are there as your photographers, we are also there to help you throughout your day.

• Plan some wiggle room into your agenda

• Do family portraits right after the ceremony when everyone is still together, this just helps increase efficiency and limits possibilities of important family members wandering off!

• Just be present in the moment with your partner and your bridal party

• Do your best to forget that the camera is around you! We want to document your day the way it unfolded and capture you being your natural selves! Don’t shy away from being you around us!

• Have a responsible bridal party member be in charge of your schedule and moving things along, you have more important things to do on your Wedding Day! Woo!

  remember, there is no right or wrong way to do this, only the way that works best for you!

  [sample timeline]

• Bridesmaids Getting Hair and Make Up Done

• Bride Getting Hair and Make Up Done

• Photographer arrive about 1 hour to an hour and a half before Bride’s hair and make up is completed

• Photographer capture dress, shoes, jewelry, rings, florals, details images

• Photographer capture the ending of Bride prep when she’s looking absolutely stunning

• Bride getting ready photos

• Bride first look with parents and bridal party
  (Pro tip: Plan to not rush these moments. Your make up is perfect. You’re surrounded by your loved ones. This is the moment before you walk down the aisle to become a married couple. Savour the moment here, soak it all up.)
  

• Groom and the groomsmen hanging out (about an hour before time to leave)

• Photographer arrive to capture suit, shoes, details images

• Photographer to capture the guys hanging out

• Groom getting ready photos

• Groomsmen and Groom photos before leaving
  (Pro tip: For boutonnieres, ask your florist about magnets. If you go this route, make sure its a strong magnet not a weak one. Test it out. Weak magnets will fall off easily from hugging family members and friends. Or, if they only provide needles for the boutonnieres, make sure you practice a bit or have someone around who is able to assist)
  

• First Look, then Ceremony. or straight into ceremony if keeping it traditional

• Family Photos (have a list ready, see Family Formals section below :) and keep in mind it can take 3-5 min per combination at times!)
  (Pro tip: This comes up later down below, but let the grandparents and any children guests required for photos go first. These two. demographics are the ones that need to either go sit down soon out of the heat or run off! It’s best to capture them all together early on)
  

• Bridal Party Photos

• Bridal Formals with just you two!

• Add in some wiggle room for travel and relaxing. This gives us time to finish the bridal formals and get a head start on Reception details before you get there

• Reception arrival

• Dinner

• Speeches

• Cake Cutting / Donuts / None-of-that-stuff let’s party!? (Whatever your flavour for the evening)

• First Dance as a married couple

• Father-daughter / Mother-son dances if applicable, or bring out all the married couples to the dance floor to join you

• Bring out all the guests onto the dance floor

• Sneak out for a quick sunset photo, sparkler photo, etc if you want!

• Unwind because it’s party time and you made it!

Getting Ready

Be intentional about getting ready spaces, they can define your mood for the rest of the day. Things to consider if you’re thinking of getting ready in a hotel room: Check in and check out stresses, making sure you’re packed up and ready to shuffle out before you need to get your wedding day started, being surrounded by luggage bags and loose clothing, hotel furniture and lighting, worrying about guest parking as well as vendor parking, being restricted creatively for photos, and so much more! A wonderful alternative that we have suggested to our couples is finding an AirBnB that suites your style. This opens up more rooms of availability for storing essentials, you can stay another night without having to worry about packing everything up and rushing off to the ceremony, it can allow for more flattering light and decor, the space will help feel less cramped, the use of different rooms can help capture more details such as jewelry, shoes, hair pieces, dresses, etc without cluttering other vendors’ workspaces, and can generally help you feel more at peace and in touch with your emotions of the day.

Side tip: Depending on your style of wedding dress, namely strapless, consider just wearing a t-shirt in the morning without a bra. Bra straps can leave marks on your shoulders or cause redness in certain spots, which you don’t want to see when you’re flaunting that gown!

Keep the getting ready space around you as clutter-free as possible! We’ll help with this when we show up to start taking photos, but if you can have a designated “clean area” nearby a window where you’d like to do your getting ready photos, this will make for far better photos that focus on the moment rather than on the bags, pants, etc hanging out in the corner.

The Little Details

Save A Spare Wedding Invitation

You’ve spent so much time and money into putting together the perfect wedding day. You’re putting attention into all of your details, you’re having photos taken to remember the day, and you’re sending out invitations to all of your cherished family and friends to witness you two say “I Do”. One detail that can be often forgot about is the invitation itself! One of our top tips is to bring at least 1 copy (two if you have a front and back design!) so we can capture all of your efforts. Not only is it a great way to start off a gallery, but it’s a really fantastic way to incorporate little wedding details along with your invite (think rings, wax seals, ribbons, florals, shoes, jewelry, etc!)

Next pro-tip related to the details, if possible, have most (or all) of the rings in one location if possible. We definitely understand that the best man will need to have the wedding band at some point, same with the maid of honour, but having as many rings as possible together in one spot lets us take some beautiful photos showing both of your rings coming together. Gents, don’t forget your details as well! We want to make sure we portray the uniqueness about you on your wedding day as well. These are the defining moments of who you are as individuals, and we want to show off what makes you YOU.

Another cute tip we have is similar to the Hanger / Dress tip! Instead of just using the typical ring box that came with the ring, you can add a little bit of flair and personality to your wedding bands by getting one of these unique ring boxes.

Ceremony + Reception Lighting

Timing for your ceremony will play a big factor in the lighting that is on you two, but also will have an impact on your guests who are there to celebrate your wedding day! If you’re having a ceremony later on in the afternoon/early evening, having the sun lower in the sky while backlighting you will be flattering, and not too bright in your guests eyes! If the ceremony is in the middle of the day, try to find a setup that is comfortable for yourselves, as well as your guests eyes, and try to keep yourselves in even shade if possible to keep splotchy shadows away from your faces!

Always whenever possible, try and check out the ceremony site around the season and time you’re thinking of having your ceremony.

Keep in mind that if you’re checking out a ceremony site in the winter, the sun will set in slightly different locations and different times than it would in the spring or summer.

Mid-day uneven lighting is the troublesome one! Bright harsh mid-day lighting causes super bright patches mixing with super dark patches of light and shadows. It makes brides, grooms, and guests squint, and if its in the spring or summer months, it will also make people hot and sweaty! We can appreciate that mid-day ceremonies typically line up pretty well with a full day schedule of events and helps with people’s daytime availability, so if a mid-day ceremony with uneven lighting cannot be avoided, we recommend trying to backlight your ceremony (sun behind you two) as best as possible to help with the quality of the photos. Having an archway and white fabric is also a great way to add some shade to you both during a sunny reception (see second picture, notice the direction of the shadow on the ground, yet the couple is still in good shading for the face). If the positioning of certain features and the timing just doesn’t allow for these types of arrangements, just let us know ahead of time! We are always planning ahead to make sure everything looks as best as it can for you!

Shadow or Overcast lighting is probably the best case scenario for lighting, and eye-comfort! Shade provided by an overcast day will keep everything lit evenly, with beautiful consistency on the skin and will help preserve the details of clothing, colors, and skin!

Rainy weather can sometimes happen! If you’re planning your wedding around a month that may have some rain, a good tip is to see if you can get some umbrellas for your guests, and also for the wedding party just in case. Also, in the summer, when there’s rain there’s a chance of mosquitos, so keeping a little spray or ointment around with someone can be a lifesaver. Don’t worry though, any mosquitos or redness we see in photos, we’ll just touch it up so it doesn’t exist anymore! As for rain, we’ll have you covered. We bring typically 11 clear umbrellas with us to every wedding to help cover our couples and to keep consistency in the shots! We also have a few outdoor locations that are still “covered” if you want that woodsy outdoor look, but sometimes having a little rain makes for some fun photos.

Indoor Lighting can be tricky. This will really come down to the venue space. If it is a smaller intimate venue space, how much natural light are you able to get into the venue space? Turning off all overhead orange lighting helps with contrasting colour balances (window light comes in blue if our colors are matching for orange lighting). If its possible to avoid mixing different types of lighting, we’d definitely recommend it!

If the venue space is larger and requires artificial lighting, we always come prepared with flashes that we use that are a neutral white. One thing we always recommend though is to double-check if it’s ok for your photographers to use Flash during the ceremony (sometimes religious ceremony leaders request that no flash is used out of respect), so it’s always a good thing to keep in mind.

Reception Lighting! This is the really fun part where you get to decorate the heck out of your reception space! We cannot stress enough how much candles, tea lights, string lights, etc will have as a huge positive impact for how your photos turn out. First perk, you’re adding more and more light to your reception, which in the lower lit afternoon portion of the day is a great thing to have! Once that light stops coming in from outside, the more lights you have available inside the better. This adds to better quality photos, less grain and noise, and less editing on our end! Second, it adds a more dreamy dimension to your wedding day and subsequently to your photos. Third, little light orbs turn into beautiful blurry bokeh effects with our lenses! All of these added lights help add to your wedding mood, help us use less flash, and help make for even better images. We have partnerships with a rental company that has some string lights and candles, plus you can always find sweet deals of these types of items at Costco or Amazon!

DJs are always really good at this next part too, but just in case, it’s always good to have a conversation with them about when the party lights come on. Once the party tunes are on and the guests are tearing up the dance floor, let those wild party lights fly. One thing you don’t want though is spotted greens or red lights randomly cutting across your faces or dress while you’re doing your first dance! Again, every time we’ve done receptions, the DJs have totally been in sync with this idea, but we always figure its better to cover all the bases right?!

Unplugged Weddings

With the world being more and more connected than it has ever been before, weddings are a great opportunity for some old school connection to take over. An unplugged wedding is a moment for all guests to put their phones, iPads, and camcorders away and just enjoy the moment with you! Now, for us, we only have a preference for unplugged weddings at one particular moment: keeping the aisles clear so we can get the shots we need without having someone poking out down the aisle to snap a photo. Otherwise, we have never had an issue with grandma taking photos for herself during the day! With that being said though, we’re pretty sure we’ve only ever been to two weddings as photographers where guests were explicitly told it was totally cool to take photos and videos, 99.99% of the time we’ve seen the officiant and the couple request for an unplugged ceremony. So this decision we leave to you! However, to make sure you have all the information available to you so you can make your best informed decision, we have ways to work around guests taking photos (longer focal length lenses to shoot beyond a guest), but we also kind of like taking photos of someone taking a cell photo of a moment! We think it’s cute and indicative of our times. Lastly, we feel that guests often do this because they feel they won’t get the photos right away, or at all, so they want to capture the moment themselves to be safe and sure! Rest assured, we provide you an online gallery to share with all your family, friends, and guests, BUT we also like to give a sneak peek a few days after the wedding so that there are a few key moments already available for sharing! Ultimately though we believe that whatever makes YOU TWO happy, is how you should approach this decision.

Family Formals

The easiest tip we can give for the Family Formals is to have an efficient shot list of the family members you’d like photos with, ready to go, and with a family member or friend who is familiar with the names and can assist in the process! This is a really great way for you to determine how much time you’ll need for Family Formals, before heading off to do Bridal Party Photos and just the couples’ photos afterwards. While there is no correct way to do this, what we’ve found in terms of efficiency is to first allow grandparents and children to go first because these are usually the ones that need to run off and sit down or can’t wait around for too long during the photos! We also think it’s best to keep Family Photos within a close distance to the Ceremony location, that way it’s easier to organize everyone without losing anyone important!

Don’t forget to keep an eye out for awesome light! When you’re checking out your ceremony location, look around to see where you think might be a neat spot for some family photos. What we always look for is somewhere that can keep any harsh light out of people’s eyes, and with less distractions so that the focus is on you! We’d recommend a nice tree line, brick wall, cute wooden fence, outside of a church, etc!

To help give a general template idea, here are the standards we could recommend! Feel free to add, remove, or modify to best suit your day!

Bridal Party Formals

Alright, we get it, y’all are some cool cats! So now is the time to see everyone shine! We’re gonna do some traditional photos for the parents and grandparents to enjoy, but that doesn’t mean everyone can’t show us how awesome they are right?!

For the more formal portions, here are some posing tips we always give:

• Ladies, bouquets down to the hips, with a little bit of a bend in the arms

• Gentlemen, hands go Left-Over-Right so that way, everyone who is wearing a ring gets to flaunt it

• Ok, this one always kills, fellas, when we’re lining up along a straight line, you need to get closer. How close? Our go-to line to get a laugh out of everyone is “nuts to butts”

• For poses, we’ll do some with all the gents on one side, all the ladies on the other

• Do a couple staggered where its alternating guy/girl

• Do a couple with the Bride and Groom stepping up forward, and the bridal party casually hanging out in the back

• Gents with their jackets undone, and a casual hand-in-the-pocket pose

• Ladies, point the bouquets all together into middle, and squish in super close to the bride

• A great cue is on the count of 3, everyone look at whoever is going to get the most drunk tonight

• Then, everybody, give us some attitude

Sneak Away For Some Sunset Photos

If your schedule permits a quick couple of minutes near the end of the evening, we’d love to sneak you away for a few photos if the sunset is looking great! It’s a great way to get a slightly different look at the end of the evening that stands out from the rest of your photos so far, and we’d love to capture those types of moments for you two! The whole day may have been clear skies without a cloud in sight, but the evening brings cotton candy skies for a few short minutes!

If the sunset is not cooperating, a fun and great alternative is using a “sparkler exit” or just some photos with sparklers! Our only advice for this is to be careful to buy the ones that don’t burn too hot, and that have a long stem! Safety first for hands, faces, and dresses!