How To Plan For Great Light On Your Wedding Day
The biggest factor that ultimately determines how your beautiful photos turn out on your wedding day is a remarkably simple one. It is light!
Achieving exceptional wedding photographs hinges significantly on understanding and planning for optimal lighting. As professional wedding photographers, we recognise that light profoundly influences the mood, clarity, and overall quality of your images.
Our unique style of wedding photography is all about capturing that stunning and beautiful natural sunlight, which creates a magical atmosphere for your special day. With this in mind, we have carefully put together this helpful guide to assist you in discovering the best ways to find and utilise beautiful light on your wedding day. Hopefully this guide will help you think about where you get ready on the morning of the wedding, what venue you choose for both your ceremony and reception and of course the locations you want to use for your bride and groom portraits.
The importance of natural light for getting ready on the morning of your wedding
During the early morning hours, the sun remains low in the sky, which means that, in theory, it casts that beautiful and crisp sunrise light that many photographers crave for their images. This special quality of light can enhance the colours and textures in your photos, creating a serene and captivating atmosphere.
For awesome light the first thing for brides and grooms to think about is, where should they get ready from?
Choose a nice, spacious open room with minimal distractions, ideally a room that has plenty of large windows to allow for an abundance of natural light. This will help create a bright and inviting atmosphere that enhances the overall experience.
Once you have carefully chosen the best room for your preparations, be sure to follow these top tips to ensure your photographer can capture the best possible photos during the getting ready process.
Open the curtains or blinds on all of the windows as far as they will go and let the natural light stream into the room.
For brides ensure that your make-up artist positions you facing into the largest window. A good make-up artist will do this anyway so that they can get the best idea of what your make-up will look like in natural light. The same thing applies when you are having your hair styled as well.
For grooms, as you are completing the final touches of getting dressed, just like the bride, it is a great idea to face into the largest window in the room.
Where possible avoid any artificial lighting this includes lamps, ceiling lights and the ring lights and other lighting that make-up artists sometimes prefer to use. This type of lighting possesses a distinct warm orange tint that is often impossible to edit out effectively. Additionally, it is characterised by a very harsh quality, which can often result in making your skin appear unflattering, while also creating unwanted and distracting shadows.
Best lighting tips for the wedding ceremony
Choosing the best time of day for your wedding ceremony is vitally important when you are in the planning stages of your special day. Not only will the time you choose determine how much time is available for photos after the ceremony, but it will also significantly influence the timings for the rest of the day's events and activities as well.
Where possible choose an early ceremony time for the most available natural light.
This one consideration is a huge factor on your wedding day, as it can significantly change the dynamics and overall atmosphere of your celebration.
Sometimes brides and groom’s don’t always understand the implications of the ceremony time they choose. Just as one example, imagine a lovely couple who are planning an elegant winter wedding and decide to schedule their ceremony to begin at 3 p.m. However, on the actual day of the celebration, they realise that their ceremony will take approximately an hour. This means that by the time it concludes at around 4 p.m., it will be completely dark outside. Things like this happen so often, usually because the couple has received bad advice from their wedding co-ordinator or because they are trying to accommodate some of their guests. Even if you are having a quickie ceremony that lasts less than 30 minutes by the time you have gotten a hug and congratulations from your guests, it is still going to be dark outside.
Even during the summer months a 3 p.m or even a 2 p.m ceremony time can cause issues. Couples often don’t allow for the time needed after the ceremony when their guests will want to congratulate them, or their wedding co-ordinator wanting to grab them for a chat about the speeches and dinner etc. This can often lead to the wedding timeline running late and causing the bride and groom unnecessary stress and the rest of the day becoming rushed, giving the couple no time to enjoy the rest of the day. Once you also consider any bad weather and maybe even some uncooperative guests during group photos, all of a sudden the available time you had for natural light photography can be cut in half or gone altogether.
While we are just wedding photographers and it is not for us to say a couple should do this or that, we would always recommend an early ceremony time. This will allow the bride and groom, even if their wedding timeline runs over, to have all of their photos done in plenty of time to have lots of quality time with their family and friends later in the day. If a couple chooses to have a late ceremony time of course we will work with them to ensure we make the most of the time available.
If its too late and you have already made the mistake of having a late ceremony time, you could consider doing a first look and bride and groom photos before the ceremony. Lots of couples like the idea of first look anyway, as it can help create some beautiful emotional images.
Choosing and styling your wedding
venue for the best quality light
Unless the bride and groom happen to be photographers themselves, it is very unlikely that they specifically chose their wedding venue based on the fact that it offered the best quality light for their ceremony and reception. However, taking the time to consider the lighting in your chosen venue can make a significant and transformative difference to the overall quality of the images you will receive from your wedding day. The right lighting can enhance the beauty of your moments and help create stunning photographs.
Couples often won’t consider the lighting conditions at all when choosing their venue, more often than not because they don’t know that better quality light will always mean better quality photographs. Off course if you have already chosen your venue we don’t want you to panic, their are ways for you to improve the lighting conditions for your ceremony and reception.
When choosing a wedding venue these are the things you can look for to ensure the best possible lighting:
Does the area used for the ceremony have natural light or is the only source of light produced by artificial means?
If the area used for the ceremony does have natural light is it even from both sides? This is just as important for both outdoor and indoor ceremonies.
Have you visited the venue during the same time of year as when your wedding will take place so that you can get a better of understanding of what lighting is used at that time of year and where it falls?
How can you improve the light available at your venue?
How the area is decorated can have a huge impact on having good or bad light. Just as one example flower arches can cause harsh shadows as can all forms of taller decorations. You could consider having a chat with your wedding decor provider and your florist around how to allow for the best light. Where possible try to keep wedding decorations around windows and doors to a minimum so that every bit of natural light is able to enter the room unobstructed.
Choose carefully where you will be standing or sitting during the ceremony, sometimes just moving a couple of steps to the left or right will make a drastic difference.
When choosing decorations for your top table to ensure the best possible photos from the speeches consider how the tables are decorated. Are their any obstructions that might cause harsh shadows? Are there lots of shiny surfaces which will cause hot spots and reflect light in a strange way?
Winter wedding light best tips
Winter weddings can produce some of the most breath-taking and stunning light for capturing beautiful photographs that truly reflect the magic of the season.
Nothing breaks our heart’s more though than when one of our couples tells us during our pre-wedding call that they want photos taken in natural light but have made the mistake of not choosing an early ceremony time.
If you are planning on getting married during the winter months, you should consider:
Choosing the earliest ceremony time available.
Opting for first look photos before the ceremony.
Summer wedding light best tips
There are, of course, several reasons why more couples historically have chosen to get married during the summer months. While some of these reasons are primarily logistical in terms of being able to secure time off work during planned holidays, along with the increased availability of their family and friends during the sunny summer season, another significant reason is because, in the summer months, we generally experience the best weather and enjoy the most ample amount of natural daylight.
You will hear this popular buzzword quite frequently among wedding photographers, “golden hour”. This refers to that magical time of day, just after the sun rises or just before it sets in the evening. During this short time period, natural light can take on a warm and inviting warm tone, with the sun being high in the sky their also tends to be no harsh shadows, perfect for beautiful photography and this is one of the best times of day to shoot bride and groom portraits. However in Northern Ireland, golden hour can often be spoiled by poor weather or cloudy days, so we still need to make the most out of the time we have after the ceremony. If possible though it’s always a good idea to allow a little time between the end of dinner and the dancing to nip away for a little bit of quality time with your wedding photographer.
When planning a summer wedding these are the things you should consider to ensure the best possible light:
Choose a ceremony time that will allow plenty of time for your photographer to work their magic, while still allowing you time to mingle with your guests.
Consider a first look so that you can spend less time after the ceremony for bride and groom portraits.
Think about sparing 15-20 minutes in your wedding timeline between dinner and the dancing for some quality time with your wedding photographer.
Choosing the best wedding photographer that can make use of the available light
This sounds like such a simple suggestion but is probably the most important thing to consider. There is no point considering all of the points above and then not choosing a photographer that can take advantage of providing the best lighting conditions on the day,
How do I choose the right wedding wedding photographer?
When choosing a photographer for your wedding that will be able to make the most out of the light available these are some of things you can consider doing:
Have an intense look at their online portfolio is always without a doubt the most important thing you can do. Does their work resonate with you? Does their work demonstrate being able to produce beautiful images in all different kinds of light at different times of the day and different times of the year? When checking a photographers portfolio ignore images on social media as these are heavily curated, the best option is to look through real wedding images on their website.
While visiting their website to look at their portfolio, read through their website as well. Do they talk about light or do they just talk about equipment? From their website does it sound like they consider all aspects of light during a wedding day?
Are they an experienced wedding photographer? How long have they been shooting weddings for? If they have a proven history of shooting weddings over even a 5 year timescale it is likely they will have experienced pretty much every wedding lighting scenario and found ways of overcoming it.
If you are interested in knowing more about what we offer as wedding photographers, you can take some time to explore our extensive online portfolio and our wedding packages options by clicking on the buttons provided below.
If you are in the middle of planning your wedding you might also find these articles helpful.
HOW TO FEEL COMFORTABLE BEING PHOTOGRAPHED ON YOUR WEDDING DAY
HOW MANY WEDDING PHOTOS SHOULD I GET?
BEST REGISTRY OFFICE FOR A WEDDING IN NORTHERN IRELAND
HELPFUL QUESTIONS TO ASK A WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER
5 REASONS TO HIRE A WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER IN BELFAST
PRO’S AND CON’S OF NORTHERN IRELAND’S MOST POPULAR WEDDING VENUES
BEST WEDDING TIPS FOR INTROVERTED COUPLES
WHAT IS INCLUDED IN A WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY PACKAGE?
HOW LONG SHOULD YOU WAIT ON YOUR WEDDING PHOTOS?
SHOULD YOU CHOOSE A FULL DAY OR HALF DAY WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER
THINGS YOU MIGHT REGRET NOT DOING ON YOUR WEDDING DAY
WHAT IS THE AVERAGE COST OF A WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER IN NORTHERN IRELAND?