Photographers! If you are not currently photographing bridal details, let me tell you it is a must have for a wedding day. The advantages of the bridal detail is threefold:

BRIDAL DETAIL ADVANTAGES

• It tells the story of the couple.
• It highlights some of the most important decor decisions of the day.
• It’s a time for photographer’s to warm up their creative flow.

However I’ve found that many photographer’s who do details, are doing it in a way that adds stress to the day. I’d love to show you a way that I now practive with every wedding. It’s no stress, it’s seamless and it adds that extra something to your client experience.

First, think of doing details as your “warm up” session to your workout. Your workout being the wedding and your details and flatlay skills are your warm up. You need to get your creative juices flowing and you need to warm up before you jump right into photos. This is why being strategic about how you start your wedding photography is vital to how the rest of the day goes.

BRIDAL DETAIL TIPS

1. The very first tip is you need to do your homework. Visit your favorite photographers pages, go on Pinterest or just scroll through hashtags. You need to find what you like and then start to replicate that in your own time at home. Do not practice your first bridal detail shoot at your client’s wedding!

2. Get a detail kit together and keep it on hand at all times. Some things I include in mine are decorative scissors, spools, antique stamps, ribbons and various ring boxes. Keep them all in a box that you bring to the wedding day.

3. Have a step-by-step approach to your invitation flatlay. This will keep you an a flow state and not just hazardly and randomly laying things in an out.

4. Do details on your own time. My client’s do not pay for coverage for me to get there early and start photographing details. This is a service that adds to my experience and it’s one way that we overdeliver and wow every couple that I work with!

 

That’s just a few tips and there is so much more to share but those are great tips to get you started. Now below I’ve included some images from my past weddings and talking through a bit of how I achieved each one.

For this photos I shot at a very low aperture (1.4)  to achieve the artistic look of a blurred background and chose to keep the leaves of the bouquet in focus. Choosing a chair that reflected the character of the venue was also important as choosing something modern wouldn’t have worked well with Montalvo’s historical context.

When photographing a wedding invitation suite straight on it is really important to get everything super sharp. You are photographing the words, and this image was so crisp you can see the detail in the linen. So I set my aperture to 4.0 and made sure to photograph multiples to make sure I got the perfect shot. Also important when designing your flatlay, you want to make sure your lines don’t match up, all of your lines should be at different places and this creates a more cohesive look

Finding a location to hand the wedding dress is vital to telling the brides story. I open all of my client’s galleries with the dress shot and details as they both tell the story for the day. On my own time, I find a location I will hand the dress and then I keep it simple. I get sharp shots of the full dress and some artistic shots of close up details. That way, the bride doesn’t have to pull out her wedding dress to remember every little detail!

There are just some examples of ways that I have finetune my process of the years and prepare in order to get the perfect details shots. I really encourage you if you aren’t already, to add this to your workflow because it really is so important!

1-1 MENTOR SESSIONS

I am currently offering a limited amount of 1-1 mentoring sessions ranging from 1 hour with me virtually to a full styled shoot and instruction from me. If you are interested in learning more about how I built my wedding photography business or how I photograph, please contact me at info@elizabethnwansi.com or here.