Take a moment together
After all the outpouring of love and congratulations and the hurried gathering of the group list, it's a great time to take a moment to yourselves. Like my lifestyle portrait sessions, I prefer to go for a walk and explore whatever might be on your doorstep for your wedding portraits. Not every venue has a Victorian pleasure garden but there's beauty in every street corner. The key is finding the good light and filling it with your blissfully happy faces!
I never photograph 'style shoots'. All wedding images on my site are real couples on their wedding day.










Wedding Portraiture Tips
Don't Strike a Pose
Most couples who hire me will at some stage say how much they hate having their photo taken. I get it. I hate having my photo taken. You know I'm taking photos of you. I know you know I'm taking photos of you but... we can pretend I'm not! 10, 20 minutes or 30, 40 minutes for extra time to explore. I'll stop to take a safety shot when I find some nice light. Just something for the relatives to hang on the mantelpiece. Otherwise, just focus on each other. Compare notes on your day so far and every now and then you may see me hovering around in the corner of your eye, silently 'not' clicking. I may even nudge you with a little direction if I'm feeling bold!
Strike a Pose
Then of course there are the couples who are playful in front of the camera. And that's great too! It's your personality we want here. Once again, give me 10, 20 minutes or 30, 40 minutes for extra time to explore. 10 minutes and we can achieve the essentials. Posed portraits for the mantlepiece in a couple of spots. 20 minutes, we can do a bit of exploring and catch some animated walking shots. With 30+ minutes we can range a little further and get creative. I generally recommend against interior portraiture unless there's plenty of natural light. Lighting is time consuming and takes me away from photographing so I'll try to avoid it at weddings.
Think of the Canapés
Try to keep the groups photos to your essentials. They're important but not so important that they'll deprive you of your own reception. By ring fencing them to one part of the day and nominating a spokesperson for each side of your family, we'll blaze through them. The first group always takes a little longer and so I advise doing them in one go. You may also like to plan a group shot of everyone. I'll scope out a good spot to do this so advance notice is very helpful. I usually suggest doing this as we direct people to the meal so they're motivated to move en mass!