Wedding Recap and Withdrawal

Did you feel rushed with photographer on the big day?

I'm planning my October 2013 wedding, and would like to post this question to the veterans... how much time did you feel was enough with your photographer after the ceremony?  Did you feel rushed? 
I feel like we are spending a good amount on a photographer I love, so I don't want to feel rushed on the day of!  I am trying to decide how early I should start the ceremony to give us ample time, and not have guests waiting tooo long.  We are expecting to take all girl pics and all guys pics before the ceremony to save some time, but we do not want to do "first looks" with each other, we are keeping it traditional.

Any opinions?  Thanks!!

Re: Did you feel rushed with photographer on the big day?

  • We gave ourselves two hours BEFORE the ceremony. One hours of just H and me, one with the family/Wp. I wish we had had a little more time. 
    There was no way I was going todo that in between the ceremony and reception.. I didn't want to make my family/friends wait. 

    If you do all the other photos before the ceremony and just have you and Fi together in between, give yourself an hour. (that's what "cocktail hour" is for). You want to make sure you get a ton with him, and it's a great time to have alone time with him after the ceremony. 
  • We did an hour of photos before the ceremony with our separate parties-- Chris with his family & GM, and me with my family & BM.  After the wedding we spent about 20 minutes doing group photos (combined family & bridal party) and about 45 minutes of just the two of us.  We had more than enough time for all the photos we wanted and got TONS of them.  HTH
  • I had 2 hours before and though the photographer didn't rush me, I felt I was rushing.  I would have liked 3 hours.
  • We did our photos for 2 hours before. I'll be honest- at the end of 2 hours I was tired of having my picture taken and ready to get to the ceremony.
     
      Image and video hosting by TinyPic Lilypie First Birthday tickers
  • We did the same as you-no first look and all girl/guy pics separate beforehand. After the ceremony we needed: formal family pics, pics of just us and pics of the entire WP. We did family shots at the church in about 20 min. We just told our families ahead of time to immediately move into the Church after everyone proceeded out because we were starting pics right away. While we were doing this, many guests were still milling around talking to each other outside or in the lobby of the Church (we didn't have a receivnig line; we greeted people at tables).

    We had a cocktail hour that lasted for about an hour (an hour fifteen min. total) but some guests chose to not go straight there or hung out at the church for awhile. We took a limo with our WP to our reception venue and one other stop along the way to do WP photos. That took about 30-40 min. Then the rest of the time H and I did photos outside at our venue (on a golf course). Honestly I would've liked a little more time for photos with the WP and with H, but didn't want our guests waiting (though I am told by many people that everyone was loving the cocktail hour. Our venue had a patio overlooking the river where they were hanging out, chatting, eating, etc. so it wasn't like they lacked for food or entertainment. Our DJ was also playing music during this time).


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    Vacation
  • We did not do a first look, either.  Before the ceremony, we did pictures with the GMs and H for 30 minutes and pictures with the BMs and me for 30 minutes and .  While our main photographer was taking pictures with H and the GMs, our second photographer snapped some getting ready shots of the ladies.

    After the ceremony, we had one hour to do all of our other photos.  We spent about 20 minutes doing family shots, 20 minutes doing WP shots, and 20 minutes doing shots of just us.  I wish that we would have had a little more time, but in all honesty, after an hour, I was ready to be done with photos and join the reception.  I suppose that ideally we would have had about 15 more minutes.

    After dinner and dancing, H and I were able to sneak away for about 15 minutes and get some shots with the sun setting.  These are actually my favorite photographs.  Even with feeling a little pressed for time, we still had over 600 photos, and I am very happy with how they turned out.
  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_wedding-recap-withdrawal_did-you-feel-rushed-with-photographer-on-the-big-day?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:12Discussion:7f7bf441-a682-4ef6-b27a-23d769653a38Post:9c358db7-147b-4240-a5e2-0278b68de963">Re: Did you feel rushed with photographer on the big day?</a>:
    [QUOTE]We did the same as you-no first look and all girl/guy pics separate beforehand. After the ceremony we needed: formal family pics, pics of just us and pics of the entire WP. We did family shots at the church in about 20 min. We just told our families ahead of time to immediately move into the Church after everyone proceeded out because we were starting pics right away. While we were doing this, many guests were still milling around talking to each other outside or in the lobby of the Church (we didn't have a receiving line; we greeted people at tables).
    Posted by Summer2011Bride[/QUOTE]<div>
    </div><div>We did this too--no first-look. and plenty of separate pics beforehand. Right after the ceremony (no receiving line) our family members gathered in front of some greenery by the church, and we hammered out all of the family pics in about 20 min. We had a shot list, so it went really quickly but still turned out great and we didn't miss any important people/combinations. </div><div>
    </div><div>Then our family was free to go over to the reception. We spent about 45 min on wedding party pics, and I was done and ready to mingle with guests! Our photographer was nice enough to let us split up our 6 hours, so because we had a really simple, informal reception, we didn't have it professionally photographed (but my best friend got some awesome pics!), and then around 8pm H and I went to the lake near my house for an hour and half long photo shoot of just the two of us. It was awesome and intimate, and then we went straight to our hotel. :)

    </div>
  • We set aside 4 hours before the ceremony to do photos with the whole bridal party and I actually felt like I had too much time. We gave ourselves that much time because we were driving around the city to a ton of different locations to get pictures. The last 45 minutes was spent just relaxing at the venue, which ended up being really nice right before the ceremony.

    We did another half hour of photos with family immediately after the ceremony.
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  • Yes, we didn't have time to do any girl shots before wedding because I was late getting to church to get ready due to hair salon taking a lot longer then I planned & lucky me had the president, vice president, the republic presidental & vice president canidate in my town in four different locations on my wedding which caused a bit of a traffic nightmare as the freeways were shut down twice while people were heading to the church.

    Anyways, it depends on how many photos you want to & where you want to go for photos. I say we spend about 30 minutes at church doing just family photos. Then we spend 2-3 hours (i know that wasn't proper but oh well) doing photos with the wedding party. The photographer kept us moving. But she was experienced and she didn't mess around with getting us positioned and she took a ton of photos (all in all we have about 1500 pics from the whole day and those are the good ones). So did it feel rushed at times, yes but we still had fun doing them.
  • I'm getting married on Saturday and our photographer wants me ready to start at 1:00 - our ceremony isn't until 5:30.  So I'm a little annoyed with the idea of spending all of that time taking pictures, but we will only be spending 20 min or so after the ceremony to do a few extended family shots.  We want to get 90 percent done before hand.  My photographer says I won't regret it.  We'll see!
  • Wow, this is great feedback everyone!  Thanks so much.  I think I have a better idea of how to plan my day!  (hope this posts helped some other brides too!)
  • I didn't feel rushed by my photographer but due to my lateness, it threw off the schedule so things had to get rushed.
  • I didn't feel rushed with our photographer at all, but he was very organized and had a good gameplan for the day.  We did the traditional, not seeing each other before the wedding.  So all of our pictures beforehand were separate. Here's how our timeline worked out.
    1:00 - Pictures started of Bride and BM's/Family
    2:00 - Pictures started of Groom and GM's/Family
    3:00 - Ceremony started
    4:15 - Pictures together, with entire bridal party, and family
    4:45 - 2nd location pictures (only the bridal party went to the 2nd location, and this is where we did most of our pictures of everyone together)
    5:00 - Cocktail hour started
    6:00 - Dinner served

    We had about a 20 minute drive from the ceremony to the picture location, and another 15 minutes from that location to the reception hall.  Our guests had about a 30 minute drive from the ceremony to reception. So that is why we had a lot of space inbetween.  It seemed to work out perfect.
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