Wedding Photos

[Diddy2theJJ]

Hey guys, I'm shooting a wedding this coming weekend and I'm having trouble figuring out a good location to shoot the pre-formals with the wedding party. I've shot two weddings now, and they have both been during the nice summer months where we have a fun shoot outside with the wedding party. Well....it's very cold here now haha. The bride wondered about shooting inside with a white background but to me that seems like it wouldn't be a very interesting background and you are limited on your poses with that many people.

Do you think we should just find areas of the church to shoot in? What do you guys do? For the other weddings I have done I have asked the couple if they had places we could go outside of town and they have had that so it's been easy in that sense, but they didn't have any suggestions for locations.

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Robin Usagani]

For only the B&G, you can do a lot of things with off camera flash outside. For bigger group shot it is a lot trickier. You probably have to stick with on camera flash and do more indoor shots than outside.

 

[Big Mike]

This is something I usually have figured out, months before the wedding. Especially during the winter when an outdoor shoot might not be feasible.

 

[Diddy2theJJ]

Thanks Mike, I agree it would've been beneficial to have this figured out more in advance and I will do so for future weddings.

 

[Big Mike]

I usually try to figure this out when they book me, but that's not always possible because they may not have all the details worked out yet...but I do make it a point for them to 'get on it' and think about where we might do the photos. In many cases, an indoor location has to be booked, often paid for, so it's really important to get this done early.

Of course, it's also a good idea for you to know about all the free places where you can go in a pinch. Maybe the lobby of a fancy hotel or something...but even then, they may or may not let you shoot...maybe you could suck up to the hotel manager so they look the other way when you need to shoot there.

Maybe a school, college or university will have a nice public area that could work for photos. Depending on the location, I might try to call (or have them do it) and actually ask permission...but the problem is that many will say no, simply for liability reasons...so sometimes it's better to use guerrilla photography and just shoot without permission and be ready to leave when asked. (some photographers I work with, are now banned from photographing in our cities subway stations...ha ha)

And yes, maybe the most simple thing is to just stay in the church for your indoor shots. Provided, of course, that it's OK with the person in charge there and doesn't interrupt their schedule.
I personally don't like this much because all the guests will be there, and it's a real PITA to shoot when all the family & guests are hanging around. The faster and farther I can get the wedding party away, the better.