We love the beginning of a wedding day and capturing your getting ready for you. When you’ve chosen this option we both start about an hour and a half to two hours before your ceremony time to capture the final parts of your getting ready. I always begin with the girls getting ready and David tends to start with the boys arriving at the ceremony venue or at a nearby pub (although he can capture the boys getting ready if you’d prefer). Most of our couples find this suits them perfectly but if you have other ideas on what you’d like please let us know and we can discuss it with you.
The atmosphere at this time of the day is completely different to the rest of your day. It’s almost impossible to predict how every bride and groom will react, some get incredibly nervous whilst others are ecstatically happy. Rest assured that over the years we’ve been doing this I think you’d have to go a long way to surprise either of us. We work with you on your day and if you decide at the time you want five minutes peace from everyone or you just don’t want to be photographed after all we’re happy to take it all in our stride and completely respect your wishes.
Most people are surprised at how involved we can be at this early part of the day and it’s not always in the role of photographer! I’ve put many a bride (and bridesmaid) in her dress, helped make lunch, calmed nerves making cups of tea and just dealt with some tricky situations such as divorced parents meeting again for the first time in years. David does his bit for the boys too and has put on endless buttonholes and ties as well as navigating some tricky family politics as all the guests start arriving (this part of the day is captured in an informal way). We both take into account the emotions going on and how people are feeling and work around this to get the best photos showing what actually happened before the ceremony began.
All of this leads to some very special moments that we adore. One of my favourites, is seeing my brides beaming in their wedding dresses and then everyone else seeing them for the first time. There are often a lot of happy tears at this point in the day.
We try to minimise any formal shots (unless we have very keen groom’s wanting to do some to keep them busy) during this part of the day as everyone is naturally distracted and thinking about what’s to come. After the ceremony the nerves tend to have passed and it makes for happier group photos.
Alternatively, you may have chosen for us to start at the ceremony venue as you don’t want us there for the getting ready and we are equally just as happy beginning at this point in the day. Where this is the case we both start about an hour before your ceremony time to get everyone arriving.
