7 Tips for better photos and video on your wedding day

Filming so many weddings over many years has given us a unique perspective on what makes a wedding run smoothly and what can cause headaches. Likewise we’ve worked in so many different situations and since our job is to observe we feel we have a lot of experience in the department of “visual peace”.
You want to be able to enjoy your wedding day with as little stress as possible. You’ve likely been planning, double checking, corresponding with vendors and guests, finishing to do lists and cutting checks so much that when the actual day comes around you may feel like taking a vacation from your wedding. Here are a few (hopefully) helpful tips for you and your bridal party to look good and feel great on your wedding day…

1. Schedule enough time. We put this as #1 because this is usually the biggest obstacle in the enjoyment of a wedding day. Not scheduling enough time for hair & makeup or photos can set everything back a half hour or more which causes a chain reaction throughout the day resulting in you feeling rushed, hurried and frustrated. If you’re late getting hair/makeup done or getting dressed, then you may not have time for photos beforehand, you may be rushed to the ceremony or even late to the ceremony. If the Ceremony is late you may not have much time for photos afterwards and then you may be eating into your reception time, reception time that you may never get back. Not to mention how being late can create havoc for your transportation services. You only have one day, literally a few hours to enjoy your wedding day and it would be a shame to lose that time simply due to poor preplanning.

2. Save the party for the wedding. Typically people schedule a rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding. This is great because it allows you to get a lot of your “hello’s” and “great to see you’s” out of the way. However there can also be the tendency to want that night to last forever because you will be catching up with so many people that you haven’t seen in a long time. This can be dangerous for your wedding day because you want to wake up feeling fresh, energized and ready to take on the day. There is nothing worse than having to wake up and go through the journey of a wedding day with a hangover or having to spend more time on makeup application because you’re dehydrated and worn out before the wedding even begins! Give yourself a reasonable deadline time that you will commit to calling it a night. Communicate this to your maid of honor or someone else who will help you stay accountable to that plan.

3. At your bride prep, invite only the people who need to be there. Many times when we arrive at a bridal prep location in a hotel room or house the room may be filled with so many people with differing opinions on how things should go that it can place unintended stress on the bride. Typically your bridal party and parents are going to be there but anyone else that you may want to invite just think about if they’ll be putting you in a “happy place” as you get ready for the biggest day of your life. Also, be mindful of anyone in your bridal party or any parents who may have a history of tardiness and if need be, tell them to arrive earlier to compensate!

4. Designate someone at the bridal prep to clean the room before the photos/video arrive. This is pretty self explanatory. A clean environment will look better in photos and video because the pros won’t have to work so hard to eliminate distractions such as towels on the floor, trash, shoes etc.

5. Get your makeup applied close to natural light (windows). Natural light looks more natural! Indoor light bulbs give an orange/reddish hue to skin tones, getting your makeup applied next to a window gives the photographer and video a chance to get great shots in the best possible lighting situation.

6. No gum! There have been many instances where the groomsmen or bridesmaids will arrive to the church, wanting to get some fresh breath going for the service they pop in a piece of gum in the limo. In theory this makes sense as you want to have that sparkly clean breath as you meet people and talk, however for photos and video this is an absolute killer. There is no way to clean up video of someone chomping on a piece of gum walking down the aisle or a beautiful photo of the bride and her father where the shot was taken just as his mouth is open exposing a green piece of spearmint! Plan ahead, and make sure that someone has mints instead of gum!

7. SMILE! This is such a special day that is likely going to be the most documented day in your life. Enjoy it! There may be small issues that arise but in 10 years when you watch your video you probably won’t even remember what made your face sour at a particular point in the day because something didn’t go exactly as planned.

You’ve put in all of the hard work for this day, now it’s time to live it to it’s fullest! Hopefully we’ve been able to share a few ideas that can help create beautiful photos and video that will be relived over for many years to come.