Tips for your Wedding Ceremony

If only we hadn't spent the cocktail hour having our portraits taken Yes, you have to have those posed photos. However, there is something disappointing about wasting that post-ceremony joy standing in front of a camera for an hour while your guests are waiting eagerly for the VIPs to arrive. You have a couple of options. One is to keep the number of portraits very small. Ask your photographer what can be accomplished in half an hour. Be sure that he or she has the portrait site set up before the ceremony, that the backdrop and the lighting are all set. Then, keep things quick. If you have a wedding consultant, she or he can usher the immediate family and wedding party right into the portrait area after the ceremony. The other, and usually the more efficient option, is to take all or most of the posed photos before the ceremony. Definitely do all the shots that involve only one of you (like the groom with his parents and wedding party, and the bride with hers) before the ceremony. That leaves fewer shots for the photographer to take after the wedding. It also means that you must be ready at least an hour before the ceremony. It is becoming much more common these days, however, for the bride and groom to drop tradition and do all of their wedding portraits before the wedding ceremony. Brides and grooms who have done this do not report that their wedding ceremony was a letdown in any way. No groom has ever stood at the bottom of the aisle, watching the bride walk toward him, thinking, "Oh, that old dress again."