Wedding Day - Time Management
By Catherine Plentai
One of the difficult wedding day decisions facing every bride and groom is how much time to leave between the wedding ceremony and the reception. The bride and groom must allocate sufficient time for their wedding party, photos, and video. Parents want to minimize this in-between time which often charges them with entertaining out-of-town relatives and guests.
The parents are already busy enough supervising the wedding day activities of their own parents, other children and sometimes the family pet. Adding a couple hours of entertainment to a mass of other people is usually not appreciated. For the wedding couple and the photographer it´s of paramount importance to leave enough time for family pictures and the wedding party photos.
How much time should I leave? Do you have any tips to save time?
This window of time between the ceremony and reception is crucial for great photographs. Immediately following the church, is the best
time for taking family photos. All of your relatives are on hand, dressed up, and receptive to any suggestions by the newlyweds.
Everybody´s life is busy and any other day it would be almost impossible to get them all together for family photos. We suggest having your priest or minister announce that family photos will take place immediately after the service. This will prevent relatives from straying off unaware that they´ve missed the family photographs. Family pictures usually take anywhere from five minutes to fifteen minutes depending on the size of the family. They´ve set aside time in their day to be with you and it really is your responsibility to see that that time is maximized.
|
With a professional photographer, all the groupings for the families should already have been discussed and a check-list made up to ensure that none of the important shots are missed or forgotten in the confusion of the wedding day. If you don´t get your family photos done after the church, it can become a nightmare when you try to pull relatives out of a reception during the evening. People are outside smoking, in the washroom, or in the middle of conversations that won´t end immediately on request. That might be fine once, but the two of you are going to be in all of the family pictures. You don´t want to be standing in the lobby playing "Wait for The Missing Relative" - for the sixth time - while everyone is inside enjoying themselves. The reception should your time to unwind, have fun and catch up with everyone.
|
|
For the wedding party photos, a professional photographer accompanied by a competent assistant photographer will need forty-five minutes excluding travel time. To accomplish the shoot in such a short time-frame, it is of the utmost importance for the photographer to know the location. Professional photographers know the angles because of their experience, can adapt shooting locations to different weather conditions, and know the combinations they need to shoot. With a non-professional photographer, you will need more time.
At Nerses Photo Studio, we have created our own Secret Cedars Gardens. In addition to all the advantages above, your wedding party can enjoy all the benefits of a private photographer´s park. The Secret Cedars Gardens were not designed to showcase a variety of horticulture or to provide a public service - they were designed with you in mind. The flowers, castle area and rustic scenery were designed to provide idyllic backgrounds perfect for photographs. There are paths to make walking in high heels easier, a washroom and plenty of seating. We are centrally located in St Catharines, right off the Q.E.W., and there is plenty of parking available. Travelling to Niagara Falls for pictures will eat up precious time that you will spend on the road instead of in front of a camera.
The bride and groom of today are generally in their late 20´s to early 30´s and tend to allow little time between ceremony and reception. This is workable, as long as it´s part of a plan that considers all of the wedding day variables. A beautiful wedding is one that flows smoothly from hair and make-up in the morning to the last dance of the evening.
If you decide not to use a professional photographer, you will need to allocate more time to compensate for inexperience and travel. Do yourself a favor and ask your prospective photographer to take some engagement pictures of you and make sure that you´re going to be happy with your photos - they´re going to be with you, your children and your grandchildren for the rest of your lives. There´s a difference between excellent snapshots and beautiful wedding photos. Nerses Photo Studio has packages starting as low as $99 that ensure you´ll get those beautiful wedding photos of your special day.
Above Article courtesy of:
Catherine Plentai, Nerses Photo Studio
|
