Your wedding is a part of your story.
WEDDING PLANNING TIPS
Getting Ready
Just as bad light can take away from a really great moment, in a visual reference, so can clutter. Even with everything going on, it’s always a good idea to assign someone to the task of making sure things are kept tidy. If there are closets around, then use them to store suitcases/bags, clothing not being worn. We’ll try to help keep it tidy ourselves, but it’s certainly best if we don’t need to so that we can focus on capturing all those super sweet moments. All of this goes for both the bride and groom.
Also, keep in mind that your hair/makeup artist will also need really good, clean light such as window light.
For the most part, hotels do not offer the best lighting situation, but newer more modern hotels have sort of figured it out. However, renting out an AirBnB is our favorite option. You get more for the money, you’ll have more options for all sorts of things.
Here is a list of some great places to get ready for your wedding or elopement in Raleigh or Asheville. If you need recommendations for other areas, just shoot us a note!
At the start of the wedding day, things are always really exciting and there is a lot going on. During that time dubbed “getting ready”, there is so much potential to capture and create beautiful, genuine pre-wedding shots.
To make the most of this, we always advise our couples find a place with lots of nice natural light to get ready at. This might be a hotel, an AirBnB or even your own home, unless your venue has a great spot for getting ready, which quite a few do. A dark, messy room will certainly take away from the moments being captured. So, be sure to find a place with a lot of nice window light and try to avoid places with a lot, if any, need for tungsten light. If they can be turned off and we still have enough natural light to create beautiful images, then we’ll always opt to have them turned off.
TIMELINES
We have found it best to start with the sunset time on your wedding day and build the timeline from there since the light is everything.
2:30 Begin Coverage
4:00 First Look
4:30 Family/Wedding Party Photos
6:00 Ceremony
6:30 Cocktail Hour/Portraits
7:30 Dinner
7:45 Additional Portraits
8:30 Speeches/Toasts
10:30 End Coverage
Light
Hands down, light is the number one concern for any photographer and likely the least of concerns for most couples. Let us go ahead and make sure we emphasize it well now.. we guarantee that light is going to affect more than the photographs and at the same time, it can make or break a photo at times. Even if the moment is beautiful and genuine, if the lighting isn’t great, it’s going to lack that last key part vs a moment that is beautiful and genuine that happens in good light. If you sat those two examples side by side, we are 99.99% sure you’d pick the one with the better lighting. In general, you’ll need to think about where the light is coming from during the ceremony, especially if it is outdoors. This can be tricky, but you really do not want the light to be coming in too strong right on your faces while you are trying to read your vows.
We would advise you to try and find a nice shady spot for the ceremony, but be careful of hot spots coming through trees, if that is where you find the shade. If you cannot find a spot with shade, then the next most ideal situation would be to have the sun behind your officiant.
If and when possible, it’s always a good idea to try and have your ceremony start closer to sunset vs earlier in the day. This is even more important during the summer. The higher the sun is, the harsher the light will be. If you plan a ceremony something like 3 or 4p in July or August, first of all, your guests will be miserable and secondly, the sun will be way too high and create harsher shadows on faces. It will also cause your guests to have to squint more and your reception will likely be happening during the daylight hours.
Planners
We love a good wedding planner. If you truly feel you don't need a full on planner, at the very least, hire one for day of coordination. They will allow you to have a completely stress free experience. This takes a ton of pressure of you, your family and off of us. This allows you and your family to live in the moment and not have to worry and it allows us to not have to be responsible for gathering up family, bridal party, etc. and making sure things are running on schedule, which frees us up to focus on documenting your day with our full focus. Below are the ones we recommend.
Asheville
Raleigh
Asheville Venues
This is a list of some of our favorite wedding venues in or around Asheville, Boone and the rest of Western North Carolina
