A category full of blog posts and articles to do with wedding photography.

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Family photo shoots: Doorstep edition!

I was gutted when the coronavirus came along and postponed most of my weddings for 2020 – gutted for the brides and grooms, but also because it’s what I do and I love it so much.

However, I wasn’t going to let it stop me from doing projects on the side. My lego wedding was very popular on social media and even got some local newspaper coverage, but I wanted to do something more, and actually continue to photograph people and families.

This is where I created doorstep photo shoots. I advertised the opportunity on my Facebook page and asked if anyone would be interested in paying to have a family photo shoot in their front garden! This enabled me to get some great photos while still social distancing. In my post, I said that some of the money would go to the Heart Foundation charity and that anyone within 20 minutes of my home, Sealand in North Wales, should get in touch to take part.

Since then, I’ve been inundated with requests from families wanting to have a mini photo shoot on their doorstep. It’s kept me busy and I’ve really enjoyed continuing my passion of photography while I can’t photograph weddings. I also like to think it’s something fun for the family to do as well, during the boredom of lockdown.

 

My first family was Jo, Paul and Eva. They were due to move house any day at the time, and so wanted some final family photos of their time there!

Family photo shoot on the doorstep - Jo, Paul and Eva

 

Eva on the doorstep pulling her tongue out

 

From there, it escalated and I got to shoot so many different families.

 

Family outside their North Wales home for doorstep photo shoot

 

Family of 4 outside of their North Wales home

 

Little oy sitting amongst the flowers outside in Wales

 

This family hadn’t seen each other since lockdown and measured out a 2 metre difference so they could all see each other!

 

Family standing 2 metres apart during lockdown

 

This next family I’ve known for some time. When their first born, Grace, came into the world, they booked me to do a newborn photo shoot. Then, a year later, I did their pre wedding photo shoot followed by their wedding a few weeks later!

They now have their son, Ewan, and wanted me to take some doorstep photos. This family have supported me so much and it was fab to get some pictures of them together.

 

Collage of family doorstep photos

 

I’ve even documented lockdown birthdays from the doorstep!

 

Lockdown birthday with a bouncy castle

 

I’m still doing doorstep shoots so if you fancy one with your family and you’re based in North Wales, get in touch! It’s £30 and £5 goes to the Heart Foundation charity.

 

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How to ask guests not to take photos at your wedding

In a time of mobile phones, social media and the internet, it takes mere seconds to publish something online. Around 300,000,000 photos are uploaded to Facebook every day, as well as over 300 hours of video to YouTube PER MINUTE. This is a lot of online content.

Would you care if someone posted a photo of your wedding before you’d had the chance to? Maybe you wanted to do some kind of social media reveal and a guest has ruined that moment for you. Or what if they tagged you in a particularly unflattering photo? It’s likely that you want the photos that are published to be the ones taken by the professional photographer and published on your terms.

It can be hard to control what your guests put out on social media, but how you ask them to not take photos of your big day and to not publish them online? You want to ask them politely without being seen as a bridezilla.

If you want to ask your guests to not take or publish photos of the day, you’re not alone.

 

Tell them in advance

The best way to stop your guests from taking too many photos is to give them plenty of notice. This is the kind of detail that could be included in your invitations so that guests are aware of the rule before the day. You could include a short poem on the invite that politely requests the only photos are the ones taken by the photographer, such as:

 

There’s a photographer here,

We asked her to come,

So put down your phones,

Our wedding only needs one.

 

You should also let them know whether the rule applies to just the ceremony or the whole day.

 

Remind them on the day

If you sent your invitations out a few months before the day, it may be worth reminding your guests of the no photos rule. Use a sign that can be hung outside the ceremony rule or put it in their order of service. If you’re having a church wedding, it’s likely that the priest or vicar will remind your guests of this anyway. Some churches are very strict and the officiant may even have rules about the official photographer taking pictures.

 

Bridesmaids taking a photo of the bride on her wedding day

Alter your privacy settings

It’s likely that your guests will still be tempted to put some photos of your day on social media. If you’re worried that this will be the case, you could change your privacy settings so that you can’t be tagged in any photos without pre-approving them first. Alter your settings on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to prevent anyone from seeing the photos appear on your timeline.

 

Post sneak peek photos

If you want to be the first to announce your wedding day on Facebook with a few photos of you and your new husband and wife in your beautiful outfits, you could ask for a sneak peek from your photographer. This works well if you don’t want to wait months for your wedding photos. They could send these to you to publish on social media shortly after your day. At least these will be published on your terms. And why not change your Facebook relationship status while you’re at it?

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How to choose photos for your wedding album

If you’ve decided to book a professional wedding photographer for your wedding day, you’ll likely want to flaunt the finished images anywhere you can: in your home, on your Facebook page, as your background on your work computer. But there are so many beautiful images to choose from, where the heck do you start?

 

How many photos does a wedding photographer give you?

First, we’ll start with how many finished, edited images you can get from your photographer. Each wedding photographer will differ, however it’s usual to receive any amount from 300 to 1000. Obviously you can’t put 1000 wedding photos into one album, so how on earth do you choose your favourites?

If you’re based in North Wales or Cheshire and would like to book me as your photographer, you’ll receive access to an online gallery so you can download each image as many times as you like. You’ll also receive a USB that contains EVERY image I’ve taken on the day. This means that you need to create an album yourself using your favourite images.

 

How do I choose my favourite wedding day pictures?

When it comes to creating an album and choosing the photos to go in it, there are some suggestions I have that you should keep in mind.

 

Wedding album lying open on the bed

Memorable moments

Are there any particular aspects of the day that really stand out to you? Maybe you loved the car ride from the church to your venue, dropped a piece of wedding cake down your dress or a bridesmaid did a drunk impromptu speech at 1am. These moments, the ones that really stand out to you, should be included in your wedding album.

For example, if you loved the car ride, find an image of one of the wedding cars. It is these memories that made your day, so they have every right to go into the album.

Being attacked by an owl is surely one for the photo album.

 

Best man being attacked by the owl at Peckforton Castle

 

People you love

The people that were a big part of the day should feature in the album somewhere. It should include at least one photo of every bridesmaid and groomsman. If you had any flower girls and pageboys, these should be featured somewhere too. You’ll need a photo of your parents/grandparents in the book and of course at least a few of you as the happy couple.

Making sure that all of the best people feature in the book will make it that much more special.

 

An overview of the day

Aside from your favourite moments, the album should also include a photo of each part of the day. You’ll likely want some photos of the bride and groom getting ready separately, the bride getting into the dress, leaving the house to go to the church/venue, pictures of the ceremony, and then the wedding breakfast/speeches. Don’t forget any crucial moments like cake cutting, bouquet tossing or midnight dancing.

How you arrange these is up to you, but chronological order tends to work best.

 

Your favourites of YOU

After getting caught up trying to include all of the above, don’t forget to include the photos of you that you love or the ones where you look your best. These photos are just as important as the other ones we’ve mentioned.

If you have a favourite of you and your new husband or wife, definitely include it (and maybe download it so you can save it everywhere else too. Hello, new Twitter profile picture).