Let me start this off by saying that I LOVE bridal portraits. Love, love love them! During my first year as a wedding photographer, I was slightly terrified of them, so I’d just make sure to take a few images of the bride by herself during couples portraits. But ever since I attended J&M’s Walk Through A Wedding workshop, I’ve really begun to LOVE portraits of the bride by herself! It’s my second favorite part of the day, and I always make a point to build time into the schedule for these shots.

The conversation about a schedule begins when I first meet with a couple- I always walk my brides and grooms through what a typical wedding day with me looks like to set the expectation from the beginning about how much time is needed for each part of the portrait process. That way we can avoid getting two weeks out from the wedding and realizing there’s only 10 minutes left for bride & groom portraits :). As I’m walking the couple through the schedule, we chat about how once the bride has her dress on, we’ll ever so politely clear the room so that we can take 5-10 minutes to capture a few classic images of her before she goes out to meet her groom. This time is crucial for two reasons:

• It gives my bride a chance to breathe, to soak it all in amidst the quiet calm of a mostly empty room
• It gives me a chance to capture the elegant bridal portraits that I KNOW every bride (and every mother of every bride) wants to have.

I’ve noticed that taking this time with just the bride helps to calm her during what’s one of the more intense parts of the day. Getting your dress on is a big deal! Everyone’s oohing and aahing, and there will more than likely be a couple of tears shed. I want my brides to REMEMBER that feeling, and taking a few minutes to quietly photograph her gives her the chance to do just that. It’s especially important because these days, we’re seeing fewer and fewer brides doing bridal portrait sessions before the wedding day, so in order to have at least a handful of classic portraits I really need that time with my brides. I was in absolute heaven when Lauren and I built in 15-20 minutes for bridal portraits- having that time before we departed for the church was such a gift! As a result, we had time to shoot a few images inside her childhood home, and then a few extra minutes to spend shooting outside on the steps. The results were my favorite bridal portraits I’ve ever taken, and a huge part of that was having enough time to shoot in a relaxed fashion. As the photographer, I can control a lot of the level of frenzy in the room just with the tone and volume of my voice, but having an extra little window of time can make a huge difference!

And now, some of my favorite bridal portraits, all taken on wedding days!

All this isn’t to say you shouldn’t do a bridal session if you’ve been thinking you want to- I LOVE BRIDAL SESSIONS! It’s more meant as an encouragement to make sure to schedule at least a few minutes on your wedding day to capture those precious images before you step out to meet your groom.

Happy Tuesday!