Let’s start this one off with a question: would you rather feel relaxed and chill on the morning of your wedding, sipping [insert your fave drink] with your friends, or frazzled and buzzing around finding items you wanted photographed and preparing your outfit, hoping that you didn’t miss anything? Assuming you want getting ready photos featuring the former experience, this post is for you! The name of the game? Intentional preparation.
Even though many of these tips are pieces of advice YOU should do, I wish for you that you feel supported enough in your wedding vendor team that these tasks do not feel so daunting. Whether your wedding day includes me as your photographer or not, I hope your experience is exactly as you deserve (delightful and as stress-free as possible!). Please let me know if I can help though 🙂.
What even goes into wedding day getting ready photos?
In my opinion, there are three main types of getting-ready photos:
- Scene-setting and inanimate objects
- Venue or place where you’re getting ready
- Outfits alone (like without the people wearing them 🙂)
- Flatlay or other details
- Stationary, vow books
- Flower clippings/scraps
- Rings
- Perfume/cologne
- Accessories like bow ties and other jewelry
- Shoes
- Any other meaningful details you are including in your day
- Candids and final touches
- This is where you are hanging out with your wedding party, friends, family, or whoever is helping you get ready
- Hair and makeup final touches
- Jammie/robe/fit check photos with peeps
- Getting in dress with help, putting on shoes
- Putting on suit jacket/shoes with help
- Putting on accessories (jewelry, tie, etc.)
- First looks with wedding party and/or parents
- Can include parents or wedding party
What makes for an optimal getting-ready photos experience?
Honestly? Thoroughly thinking through the timing
A lot of event planning of any type does come down to timing, doesn’t it? It’s extra true for your wedding day, when you have multiple events within one, and hopefully it is the only event of this nature you will have ever again! The pressure is on! But it’s okay, because your team has your back. It helps to consider the following tasks and their timing with the rest of your day. Even if you don’t write any of this down, make sure you have time and space for:
- Time to eat & drink water (or your bev of choice)
- Time to use the bathroom, brush your teeth, and get undergarments on, including boob tape if needed
- Time to get in your dress (30 buttons does not equal one zipper)
- Lipstick/makeup touch ups after eating lunch
- Time to put jewelry, shoes, and accessories on and feel great!
- Making sure any person helping you get ready (usually a parent, sibling, or wedding party member) is all ready to go before they start helping you in photos
- Time to feel your feels, whether that’s missing someone who is not with you, nervousness going into the day, or anything else. It’s a big day, and you won’t regret allocating time for taking it all in!
What to do ahead of your wedding day
Steam the dress(es)
Do not save this task for the morning-of. It takes way longer than most people anticipate. You can always bring the steamer for last-minute fixes, but it should be, by and large, done ahead of the wedding day itself! While you’re at it, remove all the pins/cardboard/tags that you can to save time on your wedding day.
Make the game plan for any pocket squares
It’s such a small thing, but you will thank your past self if you think of this kind of detail! Making the decision on how it’s folded ahead of time will help make the flatlay and getting-ready processes much easier. Also, they tend to come with a lot of creases in them, so it doesn’t hurt to iron them ahead of time.
Prepare a box or bin of everything you’d like photographed
Stationary, vow books, flower clippings, fabric scraps, rings, perfume/cologne, accessories, and shoes! If you want specific items in the flatlay photos, assemble them together in one place so you and your photographer can both have your vision ready to assemble. If there are some items you’d like photographed but don’t fit in the box, like shoes perhaps, put a sticky note for every item that’s missing physically from the box, or put in the short list.
Open the suit pockets and disconnect any coat tails
Even if (WHEN!) your wedding day is off to a great start, I have seen the panic in the eyes of a spouse-to-be or member of the wedding party who realized their pockets are still sewn shut. Please don’t rip them! Cut them and any coat tails ahead of time if you think of it, but either way, scissors should be in your wedding day toolkit.
Practice tying ties
If you’re going to be wearing any ties or bow ties in your couple or wedding party, make sure you practice tying them! We all love a YouTube-playing-while-tying-in-the-mirror moment, but practicing ahead of time, or better yet, having more than one person confident in tie-tying, can be SO helpful in making a getting-ready morning go more smoothly. Not all necktie knots are the same, either, by the way. Be on the same page with everyone wearing ties about what knot(s) you’d like in photos, if that detail matters to you!
Communicate about what getting-ready photos you want
In my wedding photographer kit, I have many small detail save-the-day items to orchestrate photos you can savor for the years to come, AND I always make time to talk with my couples about what they want in as much detail as they can share. But it is seriously SO important to communicate your desires, regardless of whom you’re working with.
It might be easy to assume that the wedding photographer knows what you want. And if you don’t know what you want, and you’re flexible, maybe this is okay! But if you have any getting-ready photos you’re picturing in your mind, communicate everything to your photographer and day-of planner/coordinator. That can help make sure your hair and makeup team arrive on time, everyone is ready and relaxed, and, most importantly, you get what you want!
–
The biggest takeaway: anything you can do to make getting-ready photos what they are meant to be (helping you savor these special moments) and NOT what they can sometimes turn into (something extra to do and stress about), the better.
Still looking for a wedding photographer in Minnesota? I got your back! HMU! Wondering what other photo scenes you should be thinking about ahead of time? How about the legendary First Look?
+ show Comments
- Hide Comments
add a comment