hi guys! Welcome back to my channel! today's video is all about how I
photograph a bride during the getting ready part of the day. so her and her
bridesmaids, reading a letter from her groom, sometimes a little bit of those
details like stationery and rings but also the dress getting into the dress
putting on the Garter and all those moments in between. we even have a couple
of family pictures here at the house in some tricky lighting conditions so I'm
gonna be sharing all of this with you today. if you're excited give me a thumbs
up and be sure to subscribe!! I have more behind the scenes videos just like this
coming to you guys next week as well. so I'm starting here with the detail photos. I like to
start the day with the details so that I can get all the details gathered
photographed and given back to the bride so that she can have her rings and her
shoes and all the things that she's gonna need to get ready. so let me back
up here and show you what the room actually looked like... so you can see what
we were dealing with , and where the light was and why I have a reflector here just to
fill those shadows. now one thing I like to do is start with all the stationary
so I'm doing a vertical stationary setup here and I'm using live view on my
camera so that I can really see how it's going to look inside the frame and make
sure that everything is, you know, an equal distance and it looks really flat
and level the other thing that I like to do here is zoom in on these little
vignettes so I don't change anything about the scene I just love the way that
these rings and the ring box were set up and I wanted to make sure that I got
those details so you'll see that I get cheap shots at the perfume and the
stamps her earrings all that kind of stuff and one really important thing to
think about while you're shooting these details is making sure that you get
vertical and horizontal because when you're making an album you never know
when it's gonna lend itself better to have a horizontal of something versus a
vertical or vice-versa so get both it's also great if you're trying to get
published and featured in magazines or online because publishers love having
those options next up I'm doing the Rings so I'm using my 60 millimeter
macro lens here I love is a much more affordable option
to the 120 millimeter macro which is really gorgeous amazing lens but it's
very expensive and it's very popular and at the time I couldn't actually afford
this lens so I ended up getting the 16 millimeter just to get me through and I
found that it gives me everything that I need for details so I'm just gonna stick
with this lens for as long as I'm shooting weddings honestly and I think
that it's a fantastic lens for shooting close-ups and getting those really
gorgeous macro shots next I'm gonna put her dress somewhere that I can get
natural light and get some shots of her in front of the dress and I felt like
this mirror in her dining room was a really great option so I put it here I
got details of the dress close-up and further away I'm making sure that I get
her dress and her shoes in the frame as well and here is one of the shots of how
it really came out so next I wanted to get her sitting on this little couch in
her like dining room living room area and just some really cute shots of her
drinking her future mrs. cord coffee mug because I loved that she had all these
custom details for her wedding so I took a few minutes here got a couple of
really gorgeous Bridal portraits before she actually got dressed which I just
think adds a really nice touch to the day and to the album next she's going to
be reading a letter from her groom so I just had her stay exactly where she was
at because I want all these pictures to have the same even lighting and have the
same look so that when we put them in an album they're really cohesive right now
I am just photographing the day as it unfolds I'm not posing her I'm not
directing her I just really want her to be in the moment and reading this letter
and feeling these emotions and that's exactly what happened she started crying
it was a beautiful moment and I didn't have to do any directing or talking to
her in order to make that happen and draw that out of her next we are going
to be photographing the bridal party so here are her and her bridesmaids they're
all in their matching robes I wanted to make sure that I got a great picture of
them a couple of them looking at me a couple of them looking at the bride
before I go ahead and let them know that the bridesmaids can go get ready so this
is always the last shot that I take before the bridesmaids go
get ready and while the bridesmaids are getting dressed I take a moment and get
like five minutes with the bride in front of her gown this is also when I
would get you know those shots of her holding her coffee
just those bridal portraits where she's not dressed yet but it's a great time to
get a little bit of extra portraiture during the day I told the bride to take
her dress down off of the mirror just because she's gonna have to get that
down either way and it creates some really beautiful action shots and some
photojournalism throughout her album
next she's actually gonna get into her dress so now her mom is fully dressed
her sister is fully dressed and they're going to be buttoning her into this
dress I went ahead and I told my bride just then if you saw me I said look over
your left hand shoulder that way I can see a little bit of her profile in her
face and I don't completely lose those details and only see her hair so I'm
gonna have some where I just see the back of her head but I also want to get
somewhere I can actually see her smiling her sister her mom that kind of thing so
I am directing the bride at this point since we have a couple minutes before
the limo is going to arrive I decided let's get some portraits with mom and
dad and make sure that we just get a couple of extra just in case we're not
able to get everything that we want at the church so I get a full-length
portrait here as well as some close-ups of them looking at each other and just
having a good time these are also when the bride and the mom are often laughing
they might want to do a toast or a Cheers picture or just a hugging picture
and these are always some of my absolute favorites here we have the bride getting
her finishing touches she's just going to get her shoes on and her veil on and
just a couple more things like a garter if there's a something old something
blue that kind of thing we also had the dad come in for some portraits so I got
some of the three of them and we're gonna do more of these at the church but
this is just great to get a casual option as well so if you liked this
video be sure to hit subscribe next week I'm going to be sharing the ceremony
portrait of this wedding day I had to shoot the entire ceremony itself without
flash and I'm gonna share with you some details and tips and tricks for how to
get that done especially if you're in a lowlight Church I'll see you guys next
week bye