You probably have a pretty good idea of the wedding photos you want. Family portraits are on the list, you have saved a few ideas for portraits of the two of you, and I’m guessing no one needs to remind you to photograph the ceremony.
The photos you cannot plan for are usually more interesting to me.
After photographing more than 300 weddings, I have gotten very good at noticing what is happening just outside the main event. During the ceremony, I am watching the two of you while also paying attention to your family & friends. At the reception, I want the beautiful room your creative team spent months designing, and I also want to see what happens to it once everyone you love gets inside.
I know that the people you care about deserve more than a spot on a family photo list, too. One of my favorite parts of a wedding weekend is having enough time to learn who everyone is and photograph them as they settle in, catch up, celebrate, and occasionally make questionable decisions on the dance floor.
You will inevitably miss some of what is happening around you because you will be busy getting married, which is exactly where I come in. My job is to pay attention so that you get to see those parts later.
Over the years, I have found a few parts of a wedding weekend that are especially worth making room for in the photography timeline. Some require a little planning with your photographer and planner ahead of time, while others simply require someone who knows when to pay attention.
Here are the ones I would want you to have.
The welcome party and the rehearsal, when everyone finally gets to relax
Welcome parties are one of my favorite parts of a destination wedding weekend because people show up ready to see each other.
Guests have traveled in, the wedding-day schedule has not kicked in yet, and everyone finally gets to spend time together. People who have heard about each other for years are meeting for the first time, while friends and family who rarely end up in the same place are catching up over a drink.
It also gives me a chance to get to know everyone before the wedding day.
By the time I arrive the next morning, I already know who your college friends are and which uncle is going to keep me entertained all night. I have seen how your families interact, and I have a much better sense of the relationships surrounding you.
I always recommend photographing the rehearsal, and I build it right into the timeline. It’s the first time you get to stand in the spot where you’ll get married, with the people who matter most lined up next to you. Your dad gets to practice walking you down the aisle, and I promise he’s more nervous about it than he will admit. If there’s a flower girl or ring bearer involved, this is when we get to (mostly) find out what kind of performance to expect tomorrow.
The rehearsal dinner deserves some attention here, too, especially when that is where the more personal toasts are happening. People tend to loosen up in a smaller room, and the stories usually get better when there are fewer people listening.
If you are planning an entire weekend for your guests, I would seriously consider having that first night photographed.
Your grandparents outside of family photos
I absolutely want the photograph of you with your grandparents. I also want enough time around them to see what happens after the family photos are finished.
A formal portrait tells you who was there. Spending the weekend paying attention to people gives me a much better chance of catching the things you actually recognize about them.
This is personal for me because my dad was always taking pictures when I was growing up. Our walls were covered in family photos, and I still love looking through them. I notice the way someone laughed or the way our family interacted much more now than I ever would have when the photograph was taken.
That experience has made me particularly aware of older relatives at weddings. I know you may want to remember more than what your grandmother wore or where your grandfather stood during family photos.
If there are people I should pay special attention to during your wedding, tell me who they are and a little about them. I will take it from there.
The part of getting ready that truly feels like getting ready
Getting-ready coverage gets much more interesting when we give it time to breathe.
I love the point in the morning when people are still coming and going and the room has not been completely transformed for photographs. Someone is looking for an earring while somebody else is halfway through hair and makeup, and your mom has probably asked at least twice whether you need anything.
There is usually a lot happening before everyone is officially “ready,” and that is part of the day I want in your gallery.
Starting coverage early enough also means I can photograph your details without disappearing with them during a part of the morning when you would rather have me in the room. Your planner and I can coordinate ahead of time so that everything I need is available and the morning can keep moving without photography becoming another thing for you to manage.
What everyone else was doing during your ceremony
The ceremony is one of the clearest examples of why I do not spend the entire day looking only at the two of you.
You are going to remember seeing each other at the end of the aisle. You may have absolutely no idea what your mom was doing three rows away at the same time.
I am always watching the room because reactions happen quickly. I want to notice when your dad starts getting emotional before anyone else sees it coming or when your best friend starts laughing because they know exactly where a story in the vows is headed.
This is also why I always bring at least one photographer with me. And if the size and logistics of your wedding call for it, we bring another experienced photographer. This gives us more freedom to cover what’s happening around your ceremony without us running laps around your guests.
This is also where having a second photographer can be incredibly useful. If the size and logistics of your wedding call for it, another experienced photographer gives us more freedom to cover what is happening around the ceremony without either of us running laps around your guests.
The goal is always to choose the photography team based on the wedding you are planning.
The few minutes right after the ceremony
I love the energy immediately after a ceremony because nobody quite knows what to do with themselves yet.
You have spent months planning a wedding, the ceremony has been building toward this exact moment, and suddenly you are married.
When we build the timeline, I like to leave a little room there whenever possible. I do not want you walking out of the ceremony and immediately feeling like you have been handed another assignment.
You might want a minute alone together. Your parents might find you first. Or your wedding party may come flying around the corner before either of those things can happen.
Whatever happens, I would rather give it room than decide in advance what those first few minutes are supposed to look like.
Cocktail hour, because you may barely see it
Cocktail hour is one of the busiest parts of a wedding for your guests, and there is a decent chance you will miss a chunk of it.
You may still be taking portraits while everyone else is grabbing a drink and finding their people. If you do make it to cocktail hour, you are probably going to spend most of it being pulled into conversations with people who are excited to see you.
Meanwhile, a lot is happening around the room.
This is another place where thoughtful coverage matters, particularly for destination weddings. Your guests made the trip to celebrate with you, and cocktail hour is often when I get some of my favorite photographs of them together.
We can plan for that when we build the photography timeline. Depending on your wedding, I may be there myself or another photographer from my team may cover it while I am with you.
The reception room before everyone gets their hands on it
Your creative team deserves a few minutes with the reception space before the party starts.
By the time your wedding arrives, your planner, designer, florist, and other creative partners have spent months bringing that room together. I want to photograph it while all of those decisions are still visible and before someone moves a chair or abandons a cocktail next to the escort cards.
I coordinate closely with planners to make sure we have time for this without holding up the rest of the evening.
Good design photography is also about understanding what the creative team was trying to accomplish. I want to see the room as a whole and notice the smaller decisions that make it feel the way it does.
Then your guests can come in and mess it up beautifully.
The people who never make it onto a formal list
Every wedding has people who are incredibly important to the couple and have no official role in the day.
They may be childhood friends, neighbors who feel like family, your parents’ best friends, or the person who introduced the two of you in the first place.
I want to know about those people.
You do not need to hand me a list of every interaction you want photographed because that would be exhausting for both of us. Giving me context is much more useful. If I know your mom’s college roommate has been part of your life since you were born, I understand why I should pay attention when they are together.
This is one of the reasons I care so much about getting to know my couples and their families. The more I understand the people around you, the better I can recognize what is worth noticing.
The dance floor after everyone stops caring about the camera
Late-night reception photographs have a personality all their own.
By then, people have been together for hours and nobody is wondering whether they are standing in good light. The friends who claimed they would not dance have usually been proven wrong, and somebody has probably acquired a tie that did not belong to them at the beginning of the evening.
I want enough coverage to stay for that version of the party.
If you are planning an outfit change, late-night food, a final dance, or a send-off, tell me about it early so we can build coverage around what is actually happening. Adding thirty minutes at the last second because everyone suddenly realizes the exit has not happened yet is not my favorite way to end a wedding.
A little planning lets the night unfold without anyone watching the clock.
The farewell brunch, if everyone is sticking around
I have become a big fan of farewell brunch coverage for wedding weekends.
The morning after has a completely different energy. Everyone has stories from the night before, nobody is in quite as much of a hurry, and you finally have time to talk to the person you only saw for four minutes at the reception.
It can also be the first time you really get to sit with everyone after the wedding has happened.
You probably do not need hours and hours of photography at brunch. An hour or two can be plenty, depending on what you have planned and how many guests are attending.
If you have asked people to travel for a full weekend and brunch is part of the experience you are creating for them, I think it is worth talking about whether you want that final piece documented.
How to make room for all of this without turning your wedding into a photoshoot
This is where your photographer and planner should make your life easier.
I want to know what you have planned, who matters to you, and what you are most excited about. Once I understand that, I can work with your planner to figure out how photography fits into the weekend.
Twenty years of experience has given me a lot of confidence in making those decisions. I know when direction will help, and I know when everyone will have a better experience if I leave things alone. I can usually tell when a timeline needs to flex, and I am comfortable making adjustments when a wedding inevitably decides it has plans of its own.
You should not need to spend your wedding keeping track of whether I photographed your grandmother or wondering who is covering cocktail hour.
That’s my job.
How much wedding photography coverage do you need?
There is no number I give every couple because the answer depends on the wedding.
For a single wedding day, eight to ten hours is common and may allow us to photograph everything from getting ready through a good portion of the reception. Your timeline, locations, priorities, and plans for the evening all affect that recommendation.
A wedding weekend requires a different conversation. If you are hosting a welcome party, rehearsal dinner, wedding day, and farewell brunch, we can look at the weekend as a whole and decide where photography makes sense.
I would much rather build coverage around what you are actually doing than start with a package and try to squeeze your wedding into it.
Should you have your welcome party or rehearsal dinner photographed?
If you are planning a destination wedding weekend, I would seriously consider it.
That first event gives you more photographs of your guests and creates a much fuller record of the weekend. It also gives me time around your people before the wedding day, which helps me understand who everyone is and how they fit into your life.
You put a lot into bringing everyone together. I like having the opportunity to photograph what happens once they arrive.
You do not need to know every photo you will want
I have photographed more than 300 weddings, and I still walk into every one knowing something will happen that none of us could have predicted.
That is a huge part of why I still love doing this after 20 years.
Experience helps me prepare for a wedding without deciding exactly how it should unfold. I can walk in knowing the timeline, the people, and the priorities while still paying attention to whatever the day gives us.
You get to be at your wedding instead of managing the photography.
I will be paying attention.
If you are planning a wedding weekend and want to talk about what photography could look like for yours, I would love to hear what you are planning.
