Wedding

PLANNING GUIDE

We’ve been to a few weddings over the years! Heck, we like planning weddings so much that we got married to each other twice. This is our ever-evolving guide to planning a wedding that feels spacious, full of tender moments and steeped in your personalities.

Table of

TYPES OF WEDDINGS

BACKYARD WEDDINGS

ELOPEMENTS & MICROWEDDINGS

TRADITIONAL WEDDINGS

TYPES OF PHOTOGRAPHY

CANDID

TRADITIONAL PORTRAIT

EDITORIAL

TIMING & SCHEDULING

FIRST LOOKS & LOGISTICS

TIME OF DAY & LIGHTING

GETTING READY MOMENTS

We recommend getting us to capture some getting ready moments (even just the tail end) for a handful of reasons and most of them are simply logistical.

It's not everyday you're tailed by two personal documentarian team photographing you get ready, so it's weird. There, we've said it ... it's weird. Bringing us in early helps everyone get comfortable with us on the day, we make small talk, capture candids of those you're getting ready with, get to know the key-players, your besties and dear ones. Early on everyone is bustling and on task so it's a safe time for them to let their guard down and get comfortable with the two of us moving around.

If you've spent time and money picking out shoes, jewelry, gifts - this is also the IDEAL time to photograph these smaller but significant details. This is usually when we photograph the rings, special outfit details like shoes, invitations, any special or heirloom jewelry, etc., but also the more obvious items what you'll be wearing. And selfishly, as a storyteller...these photos are building moments that are important in the finished collection of images because they help set the scene and build the story of your wedding day.

The movie never starts at the climax. Getting ready photos, in our opinion, are just as important as photos of receptions, first dances or candids of people attending.

To help us photograph the getting ready portion of your day, having all the smaller items and outfits set aside (shoes, earrings, neckties, special jewelry, anything sentimental you'd like a special image of) in a shoe box - which we refer to it as the "goodie box", for us is very helpful. Making sure the rings are in one location at the start of the day so we can capture some up close details of those too. If you've made invitations or have any printed things that are pretty we'd love to use those elements too; just pop them into the box.

When scheduling Getting Ready coverage we recommend 45 to 60 minutes per person.

Pro Tip:

We've seen couples schedule their Wedding Party Portraits during this time - and it makes sense - this is literally when everyone is their freshest!

Nobody has cried their way through your ceremony or tossed back too many cocktails (yet).

VALUE OF PLANNERS

THE ART OF DIY

ENGAGEMENT PHOTOS

Available as an add-on to any wedding package is an engagement session. Engagement photos are helpful for a lot of practical/logistical things like invites, save the dates or just to have on the gift table, but I prefer to think of engagement photos like a practice run. You won't be meeting me on your wedding day, we'll already have a little rapport going. An engagement session is an opportunity for us to get together and collaborate on some “posing"—you get to see how we work, how little we actually pose, but how we coach and guide couples to get the shots we do. As an added bonus, when we deliver the engagement gallery. We ask you to “heart” the favourite photos and we review your favourites before your wedding day so when we do get the portrait session on your wedding day, you get the most bang for your buck. We already know what we’re doing, how we’re posing and we just get to it, and you two are far more relaxed and just cosy in front of the camera.