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Wedding Day Advice for Couples to be Married

1. Dressing room tips to brides

Decorate the girl's dressing room just as carefully as you would any other part of the wedding location, because a large portion of your pictures will be taken here. When you choose a location, pick a room with some r-o-o-m and lots of natural light. On the wedding day, have your girls clean up all the non-wedding messes such as piles of blue jeans and tennis shoes or other clothing that are not wedding related, but don't make the room look too neat; messes are okay if they're wedding messes. Empty boxes and bags should be placed somewhere outside the dressing room.

It looks wonderful to have all the dresses hanging and shoes lying around on the floor, but they look awful if they're still in the box, or if they have piles of plastic wrappers and cardboard boxes lying next to them.

Flowers also look much better in some sort of vases instead of the cardboard boxes the florist packed them in.

Cover up any ugly furniture with plain white drape cloth.

Lighting is extremely important for the girl's dressing room. The windows absolutely must be open to bring in the natural light. If you have anything distracting or unsightly that would be visible through the open windows, place some light gauzy curtains over them to cut back on the view while still allowing the light to come in. If you have no window light, think romance, and get creative. Use lots of candles or little Christmas lights placed around the room. Shafts of sunlight streaming in the windows may look great to human eyes, but that extreme level of brightness in an otherwise dark room is a photographer's nightmare. If you must use a room with direct sun on the windows, put up some curtains to diffuse it. You can also put light cotton cloth over the outside of the window in order to cut down the direct sun. If you want the absolute best lighting for your dressing room, pick something with large, north facing windows - this is a photographer's dream come true.

The Creative Portrait Session

I like to do very little posing because it tends to make your pictures more unique if you come up with ideas of your own. If you have an idea, please feel free to throw it out there, even though it may sound silly or impossible to do. Sometimes your idea won't work, but when you say it, the idea may evolve into other ideas that eventually create a great picture.
When we find a good spot, I'll tell you roughly where to stand and then you can hug, kiss, play, talk and dance around ..... anything you like - just don't look at he photographer because the goal is to make it look like you didn't even know you were being photographed.
When I ask you to kiss, do it very slowly and give a lot of extra pause at the moment just before your lips touch because this is the most photogenic and romantic part of the kiss. In addition, when you kiss, don't pucker your lips out, just relax your face, and allow your mouth to stay slightly open.
Your hands tell a lot about how you feel so be aware of relaxing your hands and placing them on your partner in ways that feel comfortable.
When I ask you to walk, again do it very slowly and try not to look down at your feet. Look to your partner, smile and laugh, talking to one another.

Family and Group photos

I find the family photo part of the day can be quite stressful. As the photographer, I am unaware of the different family dynamics at play and people are in a ‘festive spirit’ (and have often been drinking a few spirits) to the point where it can be quite chaotic. Please nominate a family member (or one for each side of the family) who can be the ‘director’ of the shoot. They can round everyone up, help get them in the shot and keep things moving so that everybody can get back to the party.
I recommend, if at all possible to have the group photo (all the people at the wedding) right after the ceremony (at the church) or first thing at the shooting location as the people arrive.

Expect the unexpected

One more piece of advice that someone gave me on my own wedding day. ‘Things will Go Wrong – But They Can be the Best Parts of the Day’. In every wedding that I’ve participated in something tends to go wrong with the day. The best man can’t find the ring, the rain pours down just as the ceremony ends, the groom forgets to do up his fly, the flower girl decides to sit down in the middle of the aisle or the bride can’t remember her vows….

These moments can feel a little panicky at the time – but it’s these moments that can actually make a day and give you, the bride and groom memories.

Try your best to delegate as much as possible before your wedding - you can even give written cards to all the people involved that has to do something at your wedding! Try to allocate the time (give at least 30 min more than necessary in case something goes wrong) correctly and stress the fact that you want everybody not to be on time but a bit ahead of time! I find that most of the time it is not the bride's fault for arriving late at church!

When something goes wrong on your wedding day - SMILE and relax.

P H O T O G R A P H Y BY M O N I C A LE R O U X

Wedding Day Advice for Couples to be Married

1. Dressing room tips to brides

The Creative Portrait Session

Family and Group photos

Expect the unexpected

Most important of all - HAVE FUN!