The Small Details in Wedding Planning: Wedding Day Pictures and Video

Photo Credit: Aubree Lee Photography

Leading up to the special day there is so much wedding planning that has to take place and couples try to plan out every imaginable detail. But inevitably there is always one or two things that are often missed. In my 15 years of filming weddings, the one detail I see missed the most is planning enough time for pictures and video.

In a previous post I discussed what to consider when booking a wedding photographer and wedding videographer, and couples spend so much time and money on this aspect of the wedding but don't often schedule enough time to get the pictures and video that truly capture the magic of that wonderful day. And it's not really their fault, most of the time they just don't know, but that's why I'm here to help.

Living in Utah I've been a part of more Mormon temple weddings than traditional wedding ceremonies, but both face similar timing issues. 

One of the most popular destinations for Mormon weddings is the Salt Lake Temple and everyone knows summer time is wedding time, which means long lines of photographers and wedding parties waiting for the temple steps to take family, bridal party, and bride and groom pictures. Sometimes groups can be waiting up to an hour, and you're limited to only 20 minutes on the steps. So there isn't a lot of time to get pictures while you're on the step so every moment counts. When the bride and groom are planning out their wedding day they often only leave 2 hours between when they exit the temple and their luncheon with family and friends. So if you're stuck at the temple steps for an hour and twenty minutes, that doesn't leave much time to get pictures anywhere else on the temple grounds. And there are some beautiful locations so you don't want to miss out.

I have three suggestions for Mormon couples during their wedding planning process to solve this problem:

• First, instead of doing a luncheon on the day of your wedding schedule a dinner the night before. This will help alleviate some of the stress on your wedding day and allow you to soak in all the moments. It will also allow you a comfortable amount of time for memorable pictures and videos of your special day. 
• If a dinner the night before isn't possible, my second suggestion is to schedule in at least 4 hour gap between your temple sealing time and the luncheon. This usually provides the couple with 3 hours of photo and video time after you exit the temple. This should provide you and your photographer and videographer plenty of time to get all the pictures and video you need. 
• My third suggestion is to do Formal pictures prior to the wedding date. This is a trend I've seen catching on in the last few years. While this involves couples breaking the long standing wedding tradition of the groom not seeing the bride in her dress before the wedding day, it does have it's advantages. This suggestion gives the couple plenty of time for photos/videos, and it doesn't mean you still can't get pictures on your wedding day, but it does mean less stress for the couple. I do recommend doing a dress reveal for the groom so you can get their first reaction to seeing the bride in the dress. Most of the time this moment isn't caught on video or in photographs because the couple is usually alone in the temple when they see each other for the first time, so this is definitely an added benefit of Formals. (See one of my recent formal videos below that was filmed in Snow Canyon in Southern Utah)

For traditional wedding ceremonies, I've found that there is usually not very much time planned for wedding day photographs between the ceremony, wedding party lunch/dinner, and the reception. And usually if there is time scheduled it's only enough time to get pictures/video of the bridal party but not the bride and groom by themselves. 

I have two suggestions for couples in this situation:

• First, as mentioned above for temple weddings, I think Formals are a great idea for couples. This allows just one-on-one time for the couple and their photographer and videographer, without the stress of the wedding day. Again this breaks the tradition of not seeing the bride in her dress before the wedding day, but the benefit of capturing some amazing pictures and video far outweigh the negatives in my opinion. 
• My second suggestion would be to schedule time prior to the reception on the actual wedding day to either get bridal party or just bride and groom pictures prior to the ceremony. Then following the ceremony you can get pictures of the ones you didn't do prior. This suggestion still allows couples to have at least two hours for photos but it does require a little bit of an earlier start for the couple or the whole wedding party. 

Just remember that you have spent a lot of money and time finding the perfect wedding photographer and wedding videographer for your wedding day, so make sure you plan plenty of time to capture all the incredible moments of your special day so you can relive them year after year.

Don't forget to check out DreamHill Productions for all your wedding video needs.