PIctures before or after

[courtnee]

Another thing I am torn on is pictures before or after the wedding. Each day I think something different. We are getting married at 6pm so I figured before would be best, but again I dont want him to see me until I walk down the isle! LOL Yet I dont want to spend the small amount of time after the wedding taking pictures when I rather be with family.

Ugh!!!!

[robindepaula]

As a wedding photographer, I usually get most of my formal shots of the bride before the ceremony - usually right after the bridal prep . . . then I usually take about 15-20 minutes (at most 30-35 minutes) after the ceremony to get all the formals of the bride/groom & family. I bring an assistant with me to all large weddings to help me keep things running smoothly & not take too much time with those must have portraits!

Hope that helps you out some!

Robin

[neeni13]

If the venue where you will have the reception has a nice setting for pictures be it inside or out that is also an option since you just don't want h2b to see you. But if you do pictures before you will know everybody important is on time for the wedding. :lol:

[robindepaula]

... But if you do pictures before you will know everybody important is on time for the wedding. :lol:

This is quite true, Neeni13!! The wedding that I did last weekend, the bridal party was running extemely late - the wedding was supposed to take place at 2pm, but didn't start until 2:45 because of the lateness of all!!

[courtnee]

That is a great idea that I never thought of. Doing pictures before does help get everyone there ON TIME! LOL

[831Photography]

I am a wedding photographer also, but I am going to share my "bride" perspective from when I got married 2 years ago.

We also had an evening wedding in October no less, so I didn't have an option of after pictures if I wanted to have them taken outside. So we did all our pictures ahead of time. It was very nice to get done with the ceremony...do our exit...and get right on to the reception.

In order to have that moment when my husband saw me for the first time in my dress, they had me get set up at the gazebo we were having pictures done at and had my husband hide behind a reflector (a circular disc of fabric that we use to bounce light in photography). They walked him to where I was with him holding the reflector in front of him so that he couldn't see me. Then they positioned him right in front of me and counted to 3. He dropped the reflector and saw me for the first time. I took his breath away. LOL :D

This allowed our photographer to capture his face when he first saw me and it gave us that moment that we wanted to have in the church but couldn't. The photographer then gave us a couple of minutes to just be together before the madness of the day began. It was wonderful!

I hope that you find a solution that works for you. This was just my experience and I LOVED the way we did it! (Plus, we looked our best for the pictures!)

Hope this helped!

Steph

[Carol]

:? I did pictures at my house with just family before, and pictures after the ceremony. My ceremony ended at 5:30 and we didn't have alot of daylight left. I would do pictures after and save him from seeing you until you walk down the aisle.

[affiance-events]

As a wedding coordinator I have seen pictures taken before and after and I prefer for the groom not to see the bride until she is walking down the isle. If you get pictures taken of the parties before the wedding it will cut down on the pictures taken after the wedding. Most photographers are true to their word and only need about 1 hour to take pictures. If you have a detailed timeline together it will work out. That means you and your bridal party usually miss cocktail hour if you are having one. But I would definately say, let the photographer take pictures of you and your party separately before the wedding and leave the surprise for your FI to see when you walk down the isle.