WEDDING HINTS & TIPS | THE FIVE THINGS WHICH CAN HAVE AN AFFECT ON YOUR WEDDING PHOTOS
INTRO BEFORE THE INTRO..
As with all my wedding hints and tips blog posts and videos, they are all done based on what I have seen and experienced; they are in no way me telling you how to do things, more an observation and talking point between friends!
INTRO
I have wanted to put this blog post together for a while now, but I have always struggled to get the wording right, so here we go. Let’s give it a try.
As a wedding photographer, I would love to say that the results of the wedding photos are just down to me, but I don’t think that is the case. I think there are Five main things or Five main categories of things that impact the final results of your wedding photos.
The list below is in no particular order, I don’t think that any one of these is more important the the rest, they are just in the order I have written them.
THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER
Picking your wedding photographer is an important decision for most couples.
There will be some couples who have a list of things that need to be done and booked to have a wedding, and for these couples, they will see wedding photographers as all being the same; they might do a quick search, find someone who is free and fits within their wedding budget and that’s enough for them to book that wedding photographer.
But there is a lot more to finding the right wedding photographer.
When I speak to a couple, I often say at the end of the Zoom, ‘The three things that are important when booking a wedding photographer - the style, the person, and the price,’ and I think that two of these are very important for this blog post.
There are so many different styles of wedding photography, and each one will have its own impact on your wedding day.
DOCUMENTARY WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY STYLE AND IMPACT
Let’s start with my style, the documentary wedding photography style.
This type of wedding photography, I think, has the least impact on your wedding day from an interfering standpoint, which may or may not be something that you want. Still, this type of wedding photography will allow your guests to enjoy the wedding day without being told where to stand, what to do, and how to ‘smile’ at the camera.
The documentary style of wedding photography will lead to a more relaxed vibe to your wedding photos, but it will often mean that not everyone will be in a picture, most of the photos will be of people talking, chatting, hugging, laughing, and enjoying themselves but most of the pictures will not have people looking at the camera, they will be more informal shots of people just enjoying the day.
TRADITIONAL WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY STYLE AND IMPACT
At the other end of the spectrum will be the more traditional style of wedding photography, where so much of the day is instructed and dictated by the wedding photographer; this will lead to more formal-looking photos where people will generally be asked to look at the camera, more time will be set aside for the formal side of wedding photography (often a few hours) which will lead to more images of people looking at the camera and being posed.
PERSONALITY OF THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER
Aside from the style of the wedding photographer, the manner of the wedding photographer will also have a big impact on the results of your wedding images.
A brash, loud, and arrogant wedding photographer will often lead to people avoiding or feeling uncomfortable around the photographer, leading to a distant and not very personal set of wedding images.
A wedding photographer who is friendly, relaxed, and calm will help people feel comfortable and will tend to allow the photographer into the wedding to capture more intimate and close images.
So, the wedding photographer has a big influence on the results of your wedding photos, with the style and the manner of the photographer having the biggest impact.
THE VENUE AND RESTRICTIONS
The venue that you pick to get married at (and associated restrictions) has a big impact on the type of images that a photographer can capture.
A Church wedding often has much tighter restrictions on where a photographer can stand compared to a civil or humanist ceremony, this can lead to a limit on what can be captured.
I have, in the past not been allowed into a particular Church, which meant that the couple had no images of the wedding ceremony… yes this does happen.
A dark or dimly lit wedding venue will lead to much moodier and dark wedding images vs an outdoor sunny wedding which will lead to brighter and sunnier wedding images.
THE WEDDING PLANS
Your wedding plans significantly impact the final results of your wedding images; if you have a wedding full of entertainment, with things for people to do and be entertained with on your wedding day, this will lead to more varied images being captured on your wedding day.
If you want people to relax, chill, and enjoy the sunny weather on your wedding day, that’s perfectly fine; the images captured will show this.
I have had weddings where people arrive for the wedding and sit in the bar, they then move into the ceremony room where they sit down, they then congratulate the couple and sit in the garden of the venue, they then sit down for the food and speeches after which they sit down for the rest of the evening - the types of images captured at weddings like this are very similar as everyone is sat down as nothing was provided for people to do.
If you are looking for ideas of how to keep your wedding guests entertained during the quiet times on a wedding day, please have a look at this blog post - 10 IDEAS TO KEEP YOUR WEDDING GUESTS ENTERTAINED.
THE WEATHER - RAIN, WIND & SUN
This is an obvious one, but it has to be on this list.
If you are planning an outdoor wedding and have everything set for a warm summer wedding, but on the day, it’s cold, wet, and windy, This is going to have an impact on the images. You would have been expecting your wedding images to have a warm summer feel, but with bad weather, that’s not likely to be the case.
The weather will also impact any potential family formal pictures, especially if you have a location in mind for the location of the formals. I always say to my couples that it is best to decide the location on the wedding day as the weather conditions may make your preferred location not viable as the sun might be too direct, it may be too windy, or something may be in the background which you wasn’t expecting, and if the weather is wrong on the wedding day, you might have to do any formal photos inside the venue and only if the venue has space.
One of the most extreme examples of the weather having an impact on the images came in early 2021. The couple got married at 1pm on a very sunny day in January, all sounds perfectly fine so far.
The problem came when it was time to get married; the wedding ceremony was held in a room that was pretty much all glass through which the sun was directly shining.
I could see as soon as I walked into the ceremony room and saw the groom standing directly in the sun that it was going to be a tricky wedding ceremony to photograph.
Once the ceremony started and the couple was asked to face each other, the bride was facing straight into the sun and had to hold her hand to her face to cover her eyes, and to make it even worse, the wooden frames of the windows were now casting a shadow on the groom.
I would always recommend for you as the couple to try to have your final meeting with the venue as close to your ceremony time as possible so you can see where and how the light might fall on your wedding day.
THE PEOPLE
The people, or rather the type of people you invite to your wedding, can significantly impact your wedding photos.
If you have lots of stoney-faced non, non-emotional people at the wedding, then there will likely be no emotions on show, but if you have close friends and family members who are emotional people, then you will have plenty of emotions being shown in the images.
The same goes for people who like to dance on the dancefloor; if you have plenty of people who love a good dance, then the disco will be packed and will lead to some epic dancefloor photos; on the flip side, if you have a wedding full of people who hate dancing, then the dancefloor will be empty, and the wedding photos will likely show this.
There is nothing you can really do for ‘people’ at your wedding - after all they are who they are!
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