It’s been really quiet here on the blog for awhile now. My new website kept me really busy for the longest time. Mucho props to graphic designers. I think it took me an entire day just to figure out what types of font to use for my website site. Aye!

 My wedding season is QUICKLY approaching. Saturday is my first wedding of 2013 and then it’s pretty much every weekend starting in May. I’m so stoked. I seriously pinch myself because a few years ago I wasn’t sure I would be able to book 5 weddings… let alone a full summer & fall! Is this really happening….

 But I digress.

 Each year I’m getting better at “coaching” my brides on how to get the most out of their wedding day. This year, I’ve really been focusing on wedding day timelines. After shooting multiple weddings where timelines went astray, and pictures time suffered greatly, I had to do something! And so far, I think my brides and I are doing well with our plans!

 I think the next big thing I have to do is coach brides on, are the getting ready shots. The getting ready pictures are probably my next favorite images to capture next to bride and groom portrait time. I love the anticipation and bride/groom settling into the fact that “Today is the big day”! Being a girl, I also love the attention to detail: shoes, flowers, jewelry, dress etc. Brides work so hard to make every detail PERFECT and it needs to be captured!

Here are some things that I’ve learned that will help brides get the most beautiful shots right from the start of their wedding day

1. Location Location Location: Where do you plan on getting ready? Some girls dream of getting ready in the home they grow up in and I get it. I’ve had girls rent locations for a few hours to get ready just so they could get ready in  a locations that would look beautiful in their images!

2. Dress Display: Lets face it, the dress is one of the most important items of the day and you want to show off how good it looks and how good it looks on you. One of my favorite images of the day is to take an image of the dress by itself!  Make sure you have a beautiful area to hang your dress!

3. Find a hanger for your dress: Those plastic hangers look just awful! I know Etsy and other online stores have cute ones to order. even a plain wooden hanger would suffice!

4. Window light please: Nothing is worse than getting ready in an area with no window lights. I’ve shot getting ready shots in room with only halogens light, and if your into looking like a green zombie that may work for you.  I also tend to turn off all the lights to prevent the orangey-glows that lightbulbs tends to make.

5.Check the walls: this is one of my biggest getting ready problems. I have NO SHAME in taking down pictures and items off the wall to get the best pictures I can possibly get. Nothing looks worse than a beautiful bride getting ready and a cluttered dresser full of awkward items. Less is more!

6. Have flowers delivered early: You’ll want to get a couple pictures with your bouquet before you leave your getting ready location

7. Clean the room: I would even go as far to say, don’t let anyone into that rooms until you are ready to get changed! With multiple bridesmaids, it’s easy to collect piles and piles of bags, makeup, shoes, and other miscellaneous items that you don’t want in the background of your photos

8. Gather all the details: This will include, dress, shoes, jewelry, wedding invitation, gifts that you may have exchanged with husband, veil, bouquet your something old/new/borrowed/blue, perfume bottle & purse. All this stuff is important and will look great in an album spread leading up to the story of your big day!

Bonus! Find a piece of fabric that matches your wedding look to use as a background for some of the detail shots!