Happy Tuesday, bloggers and blogettes! I’m excited to chat with you about shooting bridal DETAILS today! This is one of my absolute favorite things to shoot on a wedding day and it’s so important to the bride. We’re not talking about ceremony and reception details (I’ll save that for a later post), we’re talking about the rings, the dress, the shoes, the flowers…oh my!

We typically show up to a wedding about 2 hours before the ceremony (3 hours if we’re doing a first look) so that we have adequate time during the “getting ready” period of the day to photograph each and every item and moment that may be important to the bride and groom. After saying “Hello!”, I quietly unpack and get to work. Our couples (whom we adore) are prepped and ready ahead of time: they have all of their details laid out for us so that we know just where to find them. Communicating with your clients about this before the wedding is a great idea. If you aren’t asking your brides to organize her details for you on the wedding day, try it! It will make your job easier-I promise.

I use this time to not only meticulously style each item for a gorgeous photograph, but also to pray, and to center myself. Weddings go by quickly and can be quite stressful. I find that spending a few quiet moments in prayer and meditation as I’m shooting helps me to connect with my clients even more, and gives me a sense of peace throughout the day.

A few of my favorite tips on styling are… 1. Use clean and simple backgrounds. Keeping the background simple helps to draw the eye to the subject of the image: the shoes or dress, for example. Try to eliminate distractions in the background. Find beautiful, hard woods floors to shoot on, a soft and lovely chair, an antique dresser, a clean and crisp bed ETC The image below was photographed on the tile of a fireplace!

2. Try to stay within the wedding’s established color palette. If your bride has a blush and cream color palette, it really wouldn’t make sense to place her gorgeous, pink wedding shoes on a bright blue chair, no matter how much you love that chair. Try to find elements within your space that feel like they fit in naturally. I really, really lucked out with the image below…amiright?! In all seriousness though, when you’re bride and groom receive their images following the wedding, they should be one, continuous and harmonious group of images.

3. Bring the details outside! Sometimes, the getting-ready space is less than ideal. We’ve all been there and it can be a huge bummer. My solution in these situations in to take the details outside where the light is soft and lovely. Find open shade, a quiet corner, a small set of stairs, a quirky wall or ledge and shoot away. Be sure that you ask for the bride’s permission before you go running off with her bouquet or her Manolo’s 🙂 If you find yourself stuck or uninspired the next time  you’re shooting bridal details, try to remember these little tips and ideas! Until next time…. 🙂