It’s the morning of your wedding! Hopefully, all of the little details are taken care of, and you’re done relaxing with your best friends while your hair is being done. If certain items haven’t been checked off the to-do list, it’s time to hand them over to someone else. Delegation is a vital part of a stress-free wedding day. It’s hard to hand over the decorating duties and all of the last minute things that need to be done, but it is essential to relax the morning of your wedding day. The rest of the day is going to be fast-paced and filled with a lot of emotions. Take advantage of this downtime!
There are a few things to consider about the “getting ready” portion of the day. Do you want to share a “first look” with your dad or any other man that plays a massive role in your life? Will you and your groom be exchanging gifts during this time? If so, who would you like to deliver them? Are there certain women in your life that would appreciate seeing you get into your gown? Some brides want very few people around for this moment. Other brides love having aunts and grandmas present. It’s totally up to you. A few other things to consider as you get ready to put your dress on, refrain from putting any jewellery on. I love shooting all of the final steps when you’re in your gown. Speaking of the shift, if your dress is on a plastic hanger, try to make a note to bring a wooden hanger along for picture sake. If you forget, no big deal. I’m a pro at finding wooden hangers at venues. Looking for a Wedding Photo Company? Look no further. Vines of the Yarra Valley has compiled an ultimate list of wedding photo companies to help you choose.
Keep reading for more “getting ready” tips to help you prepare.
Table of Contents
Detail Tips for the Bride
The whole day begins with the details. This is one of the photographers’ favourite parts of the wedding day because it allows us to prepare and get our creative side warmed up for the rest of the day.
Gather the Goods
If possible, collect all of your details before the photographers arrive so that they can begin quickly and have more time for some “getting ready” shots of you and your girls.
Extra Elements
Sometimes, depending on the theme and “look” of the wedding day, there may be some extra elements that you could include when you gather your details. For example, if you have a rustic themed wedding that consists of some wooden parts, maybe save a small piece of wood for me to use when shooting your rings and jewellery. This makes for beautiful, consistent album spreads.
Keep the Rings
The most common detail missing is the rings. Moms, officiants, and planners will tell you to hand over your wedding band to the best man before the day begins. However, it’s better to hand it over during the bridal party portraits so that your photographer can shoot some great ring shots in the AM. If you forget, no worries, they can always hit the ring shots at the reception if there is extra time.
Bring the Bouquet
Don’t forget the bouquet. Have the bouquets and bouts delivered before the first look to have her scent in her portraits. If it’s hot, be sure to keep it in water as much as possible before the ceremony.
Tips for Choosing the Best Getting Ready Room
We have photographed getting ready details and bridal prep in many different types of locations. Shooting details in a hallway or a field can still get you good getting prepared pictures, but if you want a fantastic gaining ready experience, here are our favourite five tips to choosing the best getting ready room!
Big Window
When you are looking for and thinking about the place you want to get ready for your wedding day, keep an eye out for a room with at least one big window. Having more than one window is even better, but at least one allows for a lot of great natural light to spill into your room. Not only does natural light set the mood and tone for a fantastic day, but it also allows us as photographers more light control and creativity. If you love soft, bright, and beautiful photos and details, you’ll want a room with windows!
White or Neutral Colored Walls
This is a HUGE deal! We can use softboxes and artificial light if we need to create a window’s look, but we can’t recreate neutral or white-coloured walls. Having light-coloured walls and clean, uncluttered rooms and backgrounds is everything! Having vibrantly coloured walls, really dark walls, or distracting objects on the walls will distract the viewer of your photos from what is the most important, you! We’re sure that you would rather have the attention on you, your bridesmaids, and the details of your day rather than have the colour of the walls or objects on the walls be the attention grabbers.
Along with neutral coloured walls, be aware of any clutter in the room. That means magazines, pizza boxes, dress bags, etc. Before we arrive, save time and get additional images by ensuring that your rooms are picked up and clutter-free!
Space to Move
We’ve done getting ready photos in a room the size of a closet before, and it was cramped! Imagine stuffing two photographers, a bride, a makeup artist, bridesmaids, and equipment into a small walk-in closet. It sounds a bit claustrophobic. When you search for the best getting ready room, keep the number of people in mind and the space that will be comfortable. You’re bridesmaids, and even your mom will love you for it!
Choose a Venue With These Features, or Rent a Hotel Suite
One of our favourite options is a hotel suite when it comes to finding the best getting ready room possible. This is because they usually have a lot of open space and lots of windows. If the venue you are getting ready in is at a rustic barn or a farm, or if the platform you love doesn’t offer an ideal getting ready room, you may want to consider renting a hotel suite. Getting ready in a cramped space or outside in a field doesn’t compare to getting ready in a beautiful, clean hotel room. When you are looking at venues and at hotel suites, be sure to remember our other tips for choosing the best getting ready space. Check out our extensive list of Wedding Photographers in Melbourne to help capture your special moments.
Don’t Forget the Groom
During all the hustle and bustle of planning, don’t forget about your guy. When you are looking at venues and different spaces, find a location that you can each get ready at. Some venues will have two identical and gorgeous areas for getting ready. One is for the groom, the other for the bride. If you’re looking at hotel suites, be sure to find a room for each of you.
Finding rooms for each of you in the exact location will save on transportation time for us as your photographers, as well as your guests. Your day will be a lot more relaxed, free-flowing, and fun! The extra travelling time means that you will get fewer pictures because one of your photographers will have to travel from one location to another, taking away from taking awesome photos!
Just remember WINDOWS, LIGHT-COLORED NEUTRAL WALLS, SPACE TO MOVE, and THE GROOM on your search for the best is getting ready room. If you recognise and utilize these tips, your getting ready photos will be completely gorgeous!
Photographer-Approved Tips for Getting Ready on Your Wedding Day
After you’ve said “yes” to your lifetime partner, booked your wedding venue and locked down all the other essential details for your big day, you may be wondering, what’s next? Bet you haven’t given much thought to how your emotions, actions, timing, and other details on the actual wedding day can make or break it.
Here are Photographer-Approved Tips for getting ready on your wedding day. Hopefully, these tips will lead to a happier and more “picture perfect” day for you and your partner.
Freaking Enjoy It!
Remember, the essential part of your wedding day is that this is your day! It’s yours. All yours. Your family and friends are all here celebrating you, your fiance, and the love you share in this world. Yes, it sounds cheesy, but it’s the truth. Life is always going to be full of ups and downs. It’s never perfect, so don’t stress about every little detail on your wedding day. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to go with the flow. Because you can’t get this day back. If you enjoy having a drink, go ahead and have a mimosa or two! Just a reminder to enjoy responsibly. We don’t need a dumpster fire.
Stick to a Solid Hair and Makeup Timeline
Often, brides underestimate the time it will take to get not only their hair and makeup done but also for all the other bridesmaids. Depending on how many bridesmaids, this can end up taking much longer than you originally planned. In fact, from my experience, hair and makeup is the number one thing that can push a timeline back! That’s how important it is, ladies. You don’t want to have to cut into your photography time because you’re waiting for Sally’s hair to curl.
Professional and licensed cosmetologists suggest that brides estimate one full hour for their hair and one full hour for their makeup. For the bridesmaids? It is recommended to allow 45 minutes for each service.
Here are a few more extra tips:
Make sure that you don’t party too hard the night before the wedding. Showing up late to your appointment for hair and makeup is a bad start to the day. But, if you and your friends get done earlier than planned, you will have time to take a breather, pop some champagne, take photos, or reminisce on funny college stories.
A Messy Room Will Kill Your Photos
Food trays. Red Solo cups. Dress steamers. It’s all there. A wedding day is a rush of momentum and raw emotions. The wake of that excitement can be detrimental to your photos. One of the hardest things about a wedding day is physically maneuvering around a bridal room. And we usually take a few minutes to move these items out of the way. But let’s talk about the photos that happen in this room. Messy rooms can make photos feel distracting. A clean space goes a long way in minimizing the mess while keeping the emotion, the moments, and the people in the pictures.
So, what’s the solution? Ask your family, friends, and bridal party to be conscious of their stuff! No biggie! It’s such a big help to keep your “getting ready” room in some decent shape. Think of it as a friend coming over for a quick stop-by, and you shove everything into one room. We all do it. Do your best to keep your bridal suite as clean and tidy as possible. I’ll be snapping a few pictures in here as you finish your hair and makeup.
One last note on the mess room. It is also essential to keep a clean space in the room where you will be putting on your dress clean. We will be moving around in this room as well, and we want ALL the angles of your getting into your dress. You have spent a lot of time planning for this moment, so let’s make the best of it!
Find the Light! Light! Light!
Oh, one more thing! The room where you will be putting on your dress should ideally have lots of natural light to ensure superior photographs. Some venues may not have that as an option, but if it’s available, then we will take it! The more natural light, the better.
The best lighting conditions would be a room with large windows and enough light coming in through the windows to light the room evenly with the lights off. This is why it is recommended to take some time to review your options for your getting ready space. Think about using your own home if it has excellent natural light, renting a cute Airbnb, or getting ready at a cozy bed and breakfasts. One of the most challenging places to photograph getting ready photos? Surprisingly, instead of stuffy hotel rooms. Hotels are plentiful, seriously, but they come with a few pitfalls: no-smoking signs, sprinklers, and questionable chairs and carpet choices. And very few places to hand a dress. No joke!
You want to avoid the type of light: Anything with mixed light (daylight + mostly orange tungsten bulbs, tungsten + fluorescent lights, daylight + fluorescent light, etc.). It’s hard to see with the naked eye, but it can lead to odd skin colours in photos. Churches often provide rooms to get ready in, but it’s generally a good idea to look at the space before deciding to get ready there. The “getting ready room” often ends up being a classroom with bright coloured walls and fluorescent lighting. If you take anything away from this, know that fluorescent lighting is not the most flattering light (and it flickers, which causes banding). As professional photographers, we understand how to compensate for these lighting obstacles, but giving the light a second thought will lead to better photos. Here at Vines of the Yarra Valley we have compiled an exclusive list of Melbourne Wedding Photographers to help capture your special day