No one is excited about hours of posed portraits on the wedding day and that is why I have made it a priority to create timelines for my couples that allow for pockets of posed portraits with a lot of fun in-between!

The hard truth is that portraits are important as they document who was there. Timeless photos with your grandparents and friends become what you share on their birthdays and holidays to let them know you love them. Photos of the two of you are some of the most shared and printed images from the wedding day.

So how do we make time for them all with out overwhelming you (or anyone?)

Most important step is pre-planning. We start with a questionnaire to assess your portrait needs and gather all your families names and any special circumstances. Then we build a list that includes names so everyone feels important and schedule a chat to go over them and discuss every question, location and grouping we can think of.

The most important step however is timing. You will likely request about an hour to 90 minutes of formal photos on your wedding day but that doesn’t have to happen all at once. 30 minutes here, 15 minutes here with other events in-between makes them feel much easer to knock out. Typically we photograph photos of the two of you with your immediate families and wedding party before the ceremony, without you seeing each other, so that after the ceremony all that is left is photos with the two of you together. Our goal is to limit post ceremony photos to 30 minutes and with a good list, a thought out order and everyones names you would be surprised how fast that can go by!

The other puzzle piece is photos of the two of you! I could be greedy and ask for an hour of uninterrupted time with you for romantic images but it isn’t practical. Instead we aim for 15 minutes after the ceremony and then a few smaller chunks of time. This wedding in Telluride, Colorado is a perfect example. Once the mountainside portraits were complete we headed to the reception but that required a gondola ride and a short walk. So we take advantage of the in-between moments to create images like these first ones you see below. Then after the reception was kicked off with a first dance we snuck outside for a few sunset photos. All together I photographed this bride and groom for over 45 minutes but since the time wasn’t consecutive it never felt like I was imposing on their party.

What kind of questions do you have about wedding day scheduling?