Great Advice for Brides

Your wedding day will be beautiful, with details that are exactly what you planned. It will be a magical time for you, but it will fly by, and when it is over, many of the details will blur in your memory. But, you are awesome, and you know this, so you will find the perfect photographer for you. He will capture your day and create a beautiful album-an album that is classy, and tells the story of your wedding day. If, that is, you find the right one, then you work with him, and you at least consider some of the following advice.

Let's go through how to find photographers in your area. The quickest way is to go to Google Maps, enter your town, and then type in "wedding photographers". It will give you a listing of photographers in your area, and their websites. This will be more helpful than just entering "Wedding photographers" in a search box on Google...that would return information from all over the world, and overwhelm you quickly. Entering only "Wedding Photographers Hickory NC" would not tell you about photographers that live in the surrounding towns.

Full disclosure: I work with Jon Eckard Photography, and I hope you'll look at our website. You can see our galleries at www.joneckard.com, but you should also find us in your Google searches.

So, after your search, you should have a big list of websites to look at. Now, you may not know what you're looking for, but you will know it when you see it. You will run across a website that has pictures that are exactly what you are looking for. Wonderful! Call that person, or e-mail them, and set up an appointment! But keep this in mind: a wedding photographer will put the best of the best on their website. That's the nature of photography and websites. But, it doesn't give you an overview of what you can expect in your wedding package. Ask to see a sample gallery-a whole wedding, from start to finish. This will give you a much more realistic idea of this photographer's style.

So, you're going to meet with a photographer. You can find lists of questions to ask a wedding photographer here, here, and here. You also need to get a feel for the person-do you like them? Would you trust them with all your memories? If you are meeting a team-do you like the way they relate to each other? And keep in mind that flexibility is a MUST for a photographer.

After you've chosen your photographer, my most sincere recommendation would be that you get some engagement portraits taken. Most wedding packages include this, and I think they're vital. It is nice to have lovely pictures of you and your fiance, but that isn't the biggest reason to get them taken. Engagement portraits give the couple and the photographers a wonderful chance to get to know each other. You spend the day together in a low stress environment. You get to know each other's styles. But the biggest perk is that you slowly but surely become comfortable with this person pointing a camera at you. When your wedding day comes, the pictures are always more natural, and stunning.

A similar result can be obtained from Bridal Portraits, which are lovely, but I think it is nice for the groom to be in the loop as well.

Make sure you tell your photographer what you want. They do this for a living, but this is your special day-anything that you want to make sure you have pictures of...mention! Better yet, write it down and mention it. Your photographer will no doubt take the standard wedding pictures, but if you have something unique, you need to make sure they know, so they can be at the right place at the right time. You can even show your photographer other pictures you like. When you do this, don't expect for your photographer to exactly copy the image. But, a good photographer will see what you like about it, and perhaps even improve on the original. He will also note your style, which will certainly result in an album you love even more. A wedding we recently shot had a lovely bride, Krysta. She was excited about all of her bridesmaids' shoes. She told us, ahead of time that it was one of her favorite details. As a result, we made extra effort to show off the shoes.


On the things-to-tell-your-photographer list: any ugly family problems, like "Mom and Dad haven't spoken for 14 years, and the last time they did, Mom backed over him with a car." I promise...a good photographer won't judge-but it does keep him from asking for a picture with Mom and Dad beaming proudly, together.

Now, there are things you can keep in mind on your actual wedding day that will help to get your beautiful album. Here goes.

*Getting ready will take longer than you think. I promise. There may be any number of small problems, and they'll pass, but they will make getting ready take longer than you think. In all my years working with weddings, I'd say that perhaps 10% of brides actually get to the church at the time they planned. So, plan accordingly. Give yourself a ridiculous, luxurious amount of time to primp.

*Some of the best candids happen in your dressing room. My favorites are almost always the zipping of the dress photos. Before hand, think about that, and if you're comfortable with a camera in your dressing room. Or with a possible man being behind the lens. I can guarantee you, if it helps, that if your photographer is a man, he has done this before, and he is not lusting after you...he is concerned with taking the prettiest shot he can.



*Schedule some time to shoot some formals before the wedding. Unless your reception is 2 hours after the ceremony, stress and time constraints will not allow for a whole set of high quality formals. Tradition says don't let the groom see the bride. If you're traditional, that's OK. You can still do these shots: bridesmaids with bride, groomsmen with groom, families, ringbearer and flowergirl, etc. Then, after the ceremony you can do a very quick set-up, with complete bride and groom families, and the whole bridal party.



*If you want to have pictures taken outside before the ceremony, don't plan on walking across the grass in high heels. It won't work, and it will make your shoes dirty. Bring other shoes, or stick to the sidewalk.

*After you're married, and you're walking up the aisle, don't run. We're taking pictures here!

*It's 2009 and you don't have to have a receiving line if you don't want to. You just got married! My advice, go somewhere private for about 5 minutes. Hug, kiss, cuddle. By the time you're done, people will have cleared out, and you can take those formal family shots.

Things will go wrong. That's OK. They will be little things, and it won't matter at all. But you'll need to be flexible, and so will your photographer. Wedding day schedules can never be written in stone. But of course, you should schedule like crazy...just be ready to adjust when needed.
When something goes wrong, laugh. It photographs much better than tears.

At the end of the day, you will be married, and your photographer be loaded down with beautiful evidence of that fact!



I hope this helps!