I usually start photographing at least 1-2 hours or more before the ceremony to capture the preparations before the ceremony. This is a great time to take detail photos, capture wedding participants interacting, and to photograph the bride & groom getting ready. Your comfort/privacy level with a photographer taking getting ready photographs is most important, but I would recommend giving your photographer access to this part of the day. You will definitely value these photographs. As a case in point, I’ll offer a quick story about an April wedding I photographed. When I arrived at the inn to take photos of the bride (Suzanne) getting ready, she and her bridesmaids were a bit hesitant to let me in the room to photograph, which is completely understandable. I went outside to take photos of the inn, but that didn’t take much time and I knew Suzanne would really value having the getting ready process covered. So I went back into the inn and told Suzanne it would be great to start covering the preparations whenever she was comfortable. At that point she was comfortable, I started photographing, and captured some great moments/details. I’ll let a recent note from Suzanne best illustrate this:

“I have to thank you for pushing us to let you in as I was getting ready. I got a little shy there at the beginning and you made a point to really get into the room and start taking pictures from the get-go and I can’t thank you enough. The pictures of me getting ready are so fun for me and bring back so many memories and great feelings. Thanks for that, you knew better than I did at that point.”…..Suzanne

Now, don’t get the wrong idea! I’m not trying to physically push myself into rooms when people aren’t ready, but I’ll communicate with a bride/groom and suggest it would be good to start photographing.

There is an article in the June issue of the online magazine, WedPix, that I thought was a worthwhile read:

RECEPTION TENTS: A CREATIVE PALETTE

Knowing the sunset time can be an important part of your wedding day, it can help with ceremony, reception, and photography planning. Fortunately, there is a good online tool for checking the Sun and Moon data for a certain day at a specific location. Head to the website of the US Naval Observatory Astronomy Applications Department:

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.html

Did you know that on 06/12/2007 in Jackson, New Hampshire the sunrise is 5:01am and the sunset is 8:28pm?

WedPix is an online magazine published by the Wedding Photojournalist Association (WPJA). Here are some recent articles that I thought you might find helpful:

Wedding Photojournalism Myths
Taking The Photographer For A Ride
Other Cameras At The Wedding
Couples Seeing Each Other Before The Wedding Ceremony
Weddings Can Be Chaos

WedPix is an online wedding photography magazine published by the Wedding Photojournalist Association. Each month, several articles are published for both photographers and brides/grooms. I usually like to highlight some relevant articles and this one would be worth browsing through:

Wedding Party Roles