Wedding Planning: THE WEDDING PHOTOS (You Need To Tell Your Wedding Photographer This)

All over Pinterest, there are things like: “have this shot list for your photographer”, “don't forget these key photos; make sure your photographer catches.” I have to tell you it annoys me just a little bit!

I’m a DIY bride myself and a wedding photographer and videographer. So I’m like all of you harassing Pinterest every night. Looking for ideas and inspiration and things that I'm forgetting to plan for on my wedding day. One of the things that I see so often is the wedding shot list that you need to give your photographer.

So the reason it upsets me is that any good reputable photographer who has been doing this for a while should already have a wedding shot list. They should have that ingrained in their brain to the point that it doesn't matter what wedding they are photographing, they know exactly the photos that they need to make sure to highlight. You do this once, you don't need to worry about that. That's my job; if that makes sense, I don't want you to stress this.

You need to have this specific conversation with your photographer and videographer to tell them the things that they don't know to ask. Ok, that sounds like a crazy way to say that! So as a wedding photographer, I have my generic list things like:

Making sure to catch your veil in the wind
The details of your bouquet
Your wedding invitations
The escort cards
A photo of your groom getting ready

So here are some ideas and some tips on things you should make sure to tell your photographer that they need to photograph:

Do you want to do a non-traditional first look?

When I say the traditional first look, I mean the groom and the bride seeing each other before the ceremony. But do you also want to have a first look with the mother of the groom and the groom? Do you want to have a first look with your siblings? Or grandparents? If you want to have a first look set up with anyone other than your significant other you need to tell me. I'm going to make sure to put it into your timeline and make sure we have enough time to set the two of you aside and get those specific photos.

It’s all in the Details

“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue…”

“A Sixpence in your shoe”. Remember the penny in your shoe from the poem? Did you incorporate this into your wedding? Let me know and point them out to me so I can get a photo of all of those five items put together and laid out beautifully with your invitations or with your ring and your bouquet.

Those details are something you’ve put effort into. When you let me know, I can put this into the wedding timeline and make sure it's taken care of early on before the wedding begins.

Some brides don’t request details, maybe some think it’s silly. But for example, do you want the signing of your marriage certificate photographed? It may be something you don't care about, maybe t's fine.

While you guys are signing the marriage certificate, I’ll go take photos of people in the cocktail hour or more details of other things. But if the signing of the marriage certificate is special to you because your maid of honor and your best man are there beside you signing this certificate, that maybe something that you actually want to be photographed.

All Wedding Guests in a Massive Photo

Something I don’t see anymore, which is kind of a shame, is one massive photo of all of your guests together. It is a little difficult to do in some venues, but it can be done. I can pull out the ladder, I can make people sit on chairs and kneel on the floor and stand up tall and I can coordinate it.

Even better if your venue has a second-floor that I can look down from, that's going to make things a million times easier and makes for such a cool photo and a center spread in your album. But if you don't ask, we don't put it in the wedding timeline, and it may not be something that we can capture.

Group Photos

Speaking of groups of people, do you have all of your old college roommates together for the first time in years? Or all of your cousins from one side of the family in attendance? Let's get these specific groups of people together. But they need to be on my shot list to make sure that I can get all of these people together at the right time.

We can specify that we want to have all of the groom’s people ready to go after the cocktail hour. We want to make sure that they're hanging around after the ceremony because we are going to do it right away. Whatever the case, we can tell them at the rehearsal or rehearsal dinner or the night before. Another option would be to have someone in your bridal party spread the news “OK, all of these people need to be ready at 4:15 pm at this spot because we're taking this awesome group photo”.

Multiple Generations

My other favorite is, a generation go-down. If you have multiple generations present, even better let's say you have multiple generations of married couples. Say your mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, great-grandma and great-grandpa lets put them all in one photo, and show all of the generations. We can do the traditional, females-only, and the males-only shots but if the generation go-down is something that you want to do, then we want to show it off and make it special.

Adventure Time

Most don't even think about it, why don't we plan an adventurous photoshoot? You're going to do a first-look, let's go someplace really cool. Let’s give you a little bit of extra time, so we can go climb a mountain or go frolic near the beach or look for a very unique location near your venue. That's going to show off your adventurous spirit or your quirkiness or whatever characteristics symbolize the two of you. Let's go find a place that perfectly embodies your crazy nerdiness and take some cool photos beforehand or after.

The Day After

You know we can do the day after photos too. If you plan on using these photos as your thank-you cards. You can bring a DIY thank you sign that is easy to throw in your bag and pull out when you’re ready to hold up the sign with your new hubby and there you go, your thank-you card photo is done.

The Grand Exit

By the time you're ready to leave everyone's exhausted, half your wedding has left. Why not just stage your exit anyways? To capture that perfect photo with the sparklers without all the sparklers going out because we’ve taken too much time and uncle Bob is running around in the background.

Let's stage the exit ahead of time, especially if you are using something like a sparkler or throwing out confetti. Let's stage it so we can do it a few times to catch that perfect photo and then by the time it's time for you to leave you can just enjoy it. You don't have to worry about smiling perfectly and looking at the camera cute, we can stage it so you have less pressure and you can party on until whatever time at night. Even if the party is going on till 2 a.m. and it's time for your photographer to go to bed.

Individual Photos

Even something like individual photos with each of your bridal party. It's something that I want to push for and that I try to make sure with timing that we get included. If we don't have a lot of time or we have to move things around, it's not on my mandatory shot list. If it is something that you want, make sure to tell me that it is important to you and that those photos are specifically going to be utilized in gifts later for your bridal party.

I don't know how to say this without stressing that I’m trying to capture the day as it's happening and capture the day in the most genuine way. I don't want to stop time to pose and do all of these photos. But if I have the option I'm going to let the flow of the day go and let you guys party unless you tell me otherwise.

Have something specific in mind? Let's do it! I'll make it happen. I'll make it look gorgeous! And then we can get on with the partying and the craziness.

Get your FREE Downloadable of my unique photos that you need to ask your photographer for. If you have any questions or you are looking to add something to the list let me know. I will forever be updating the downloadable because there are so many unique and cool ideas that are being sent to me daily.