Wedding Photography Timeline Tips for Brides | Part 3

We hope that you’ve had a fantastic Easter weekend and are rocking out the week. We had such a good holiday and are excited to share with you the final part of our wedding photography timeline series! This final blog is all about those portraits. If you’re just now joining in, you’ll want to check out our two previous blog posts on wedding photography timelines here: Part 1 & Part 2 

Our hope is that you will find this blog series as an answered prayer to all of the google searches about creating a wedding schedule. There’s a lot of information out there, and we hope that this series brings clarity from the experts!

Before we dive into the final part of the series, we wanted to reiterate:

We believe that your wedding day is about you as a couple and your love. PERIOD. The day does not revolve around your wedding photographer. However, we also believe that being strategic when you are planning your wedding photography timeline can produce some amazing portraits. Working with your wedding photographer to create a wedding photography timeline is going to do wonders for your final images. We may not know everything, but as wedding photographers we know a thing or two about making schedules.

The Bridal Party Portraits

The bridal party add so much fun to a wedding day. All of the inside jokes, stories, and tears of joy are so precious to watch. And we LOVE IT! But the one tiny detail about having a wedding party is that it’s trying to make sure a whole lot of bodies are exactly where they need to be when they need to be there. It takes planning!

We generally tell our brides to tell their bridal party (especially groomsmen!) to be ready and at the designated location for bridal party portraits 10-15 minutes before we start. We like to designate 30 minutes to photograph the entirety of the bridal party.

During this time we’ll photograph the full party, the bridesmaids, the groomsmen, as well as photograph individual images of the party members with the bride/groom. Since there are two of us as lead photographers, we’re able to work quickly, however, this amount of time may not work with every photographer. Make sure to ask how long it takes for bridal party shots!

Bridal Party Photo Tips:

1. Be sure to have your bridesmaid bouquets on hand and ready! Sometimes they get lost in the hustle and bustle and the entire schedule gets pushed back because someone has to run and get it.
2. Be sure that the groomsmen have their boutonnieres pinned on and their pocket squares properly placed.
3.  Have water bottles available as well as food waiting. Nothing wins the attention of a groomsmen more than the promise of food for staying focused!

The Family Portraits

Family portraits have a way of taking up a lot of time, especially when there is no clear plan for the portraits. In order to streamline the process, we tell our couples to email/text anyone who needs to stay for family portraits ahead of time. We suggest telling them to stay at the ceremony location and not to leave when the aisles are excused. This will make sure that the people you want in your family photos are ready and available.

Personally, we work from a process of elimination, working from the biggest group to the smallest. That way we get people to the reception as quickly as possible. We don’t recommend having formal individual pictures taken with each extended family member’s family, mostly because those types of shots can be taken at the reception.

We recommend allotting 30 minutes for family portraits.

Family Portrait Tips:

1. Have a designated person finder for each side of the family. This person should be able to quickly group together the family members who need to be in which shots. Unfortunately we don’t get to meet everyone ahead of time and sometimes have trouble getting the right people quickly!
2. Request for your family portraits be taken outside! If you’re having  a church wedding, lighting can be a little dim. Your family portraits will look so much cleaner taken outside.

Bride & Groom Portraits

When planning your wedding photography timeline, be sure to plan a long time for your portraits! These are the images that will be hung on the walls. They deserve a little time!

We believe that these portraits are best taken without your bridal party hovering nearby. We feel that the most natural photographs occur when you focus on each other and not everyone else. For this reason, if you have a first look, we’ll do most of your portraits right after, because you’ll be without distraction.

We like to say 30 minutes if possible for these portraits! (not including travel!)

Tips for Bride & Groom Portraits:

1. Trust your photographers. In posing & location choice. They know what is going to be most flattering!
2. Have fun
3. Escape your reception for 10-15 minutes (after you’ve eaten and your guests are finishing up) during golden hour for some of the best portraits! You won’t regret it.

We hope that you’ve enjoyed learning about all the reasoning behind our wedding photography timeline recommendations. Ultimately, we want you to have beautiful wedding photography. We encourage you to take the time with your photographer (hopefully it’s us!) and figure out what works specifically for your wedding day. Best of luck as you finish your wedding planning!

Wedding Photography Timeline Tips for Brides | Part 2

Wedding Photography Timeline Tips for Brides | Part 1