Wedding Photography Tips
A wedding is a one-in-lifetime experience, so it’s wise to spend some time reviewing basic wedding photography tips to help you get the pictures you need for your scrapbooking projects.
Ideas for Wedding Photos
While posed photos of the wedding party are the most common, it’s often the candid shots that couples will cherish long after the big day has passed. Ideas for wedding photos you may want for your scrapbook include:
- Scenic shots of the wedding location
- People signing the guest book
- Members of the bridal party entering for the ceremony
- Musicians or people who are doing special readings during the ceremony
- The exchange of the rings
- First kiss as husband and wife
- Bride and groom dancing
- Bride and her father dancing
- Groom dancing with his mother
- Flower girl dancing with ring bearer
- General photos of happy guests dancing
- Close up of the decorated cake
- Bride and groom cutting the cake
- The couple feeding the cake to each other
- Best man making the toast
- Close ups of the table decorations and gift table
- The couple visiting with family and friends
- Bride tossing the bouquet
- Groom tossing the garter
- Guests throwing rice or blowing bubbles
- Decorated getaway car
- Newlyweds waving goodbye as they leave for their honeymoon
Essential Wedding Photography Tips
To make sure you get the best results from your wedding photos, remember these important wedding photography tips:
- Be prepared. Make sure you know how to identify everyone in the wedding party and you understand what photos you should be taking.
- Bring a backup camera, extra batteries, and an extra memory card to ensure you won’t be bothered by equipment malfunctions.
- If the church doesn’t allow you to use a flash during the ceremony, you’ll need to either use a fast lens at wide apertures or bump up the ISO to compensate for low light conditions.
- Turn the sound off on your camera. Loud beeping is rude and distracting during a wedding ceremony.
- When shooting a wedding, it’s important to make sure everyone looks their best. Before you begin, check your subjects for the following:
- Are faces clean?
- Is everyone's hair in place?
- Are pockets empty? Cell phones, keys, pagers, and other bulky items shouldn't be showing in your wedding photos.
- Are collars straight and buttoned? Are necklaces straight with clasps in the back?
- Do any of the women have lipstick on their teeth?
- Is the lighting even on everyone's faces?
- Take many more photos than you expect to need. A wedding is a hectic occasion, so you won’t always be able to take the time to set up each shot perfectly. However, taking a large number of pictures increases the odds you’ll get something worthy of a special place in your scrapbook.
- Don’t delete images on your camera until you’ve had a chance to look at them on your computer. Basic cropping and editing using a program such as Adobe Photoshop Elements can help compensate for many photography mistakes. If you’re worried you won’t have enough space for all of your pictures, a better solution is to buy a bigger memory card.
Creating a Wedding Album
You'll want to create a lasting and memorable Photo Album of this special day. Start with a simple Wedding scrapbook photo album. Then simply add your wedding photos being sure to tell your wedding story with meaningful journaling. Lastly, embellish the pages in your wedding album to make it your own creation.
Published on 04/21/2008.
