Wedding Vows & Ceremony Discussions

what should i do?

it has always been my dream to have a wedding around christmas time. if i have everything at one site (ceremony/cocktail hour/reception) on saturday evening in december, that means we have to get pictures before the ceremony and my fiance will see me before the wedding. the other option is to get married in a church and have guest with a bit of lag time between the ceremony and reception. this wouldnt be a problem if there was longer days of sunlight in december and if i didnt care about my fiance seeing me before we were married on our wedding day. any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Re: what should i do?

  • I'm also struggling with the need to have my FI see me before the wedding, but many couples have said that the 'first look' photo shoot before the ceremony is very romantic... I'm trying to come to terms with considering it.

    You can also get as many formals as possible (all those that don't have both bride and groom in them) done before the ceremony and do the rest during cocktail hour.
  • A lot of people who don't do a "first look" will do photos separately before the ceremon (bride with bridesmaids, groom with groomsmen), then take about 45 min to an hour after the ceremony to take pictures together.   The guests can go straight to a cocktail hour, then when the B&G are done with pictures they are announced as they enter the reception.   

    Depending on what time you have your ceremony, you will definitely have issues with daylight if you want pictures outside.  You can google the sunrise/sunset times for specific cities on specific days of the year.
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  • DH & I were married in December also.  We saw each other before the wedding, but not as a "first look"---that would have been nice though!  We had everything at the church with the reception in the fellowship hall.  We did all pictures before the ceremony & went straight to the reception.  I don't think our parent's even saw us cut the cake---we took care of business quickly so our quests could go through the line.  We had been to wedding receptions where we waited for hours for the couple to arrive & we didn't want to do that. At one reception, we left before the couple ever made it.  They were still making pictures at the ceremony site at least an hour after the ceremony was over.

    As long as you have all but the couple pictures done before the ceremony, I don't see a problem with having the ceremony & reception at different places.  Just see that the guests can go ahead & eat while you are finishing the pictures.
  • We wound up deciding to do a "first look" as well.  I struggled with this a bit and ultimately decided what was the difference if he say me at 4 PM or saw me at 5 PM!
  • I'm confused why you can't take pictures after the ceremony if its in the same location.  If you have a cocktail hour you can do pictures then.  As a PP mentioned, do as many pictures before hand as possible (pictures with family, with BMs and GMs etc) that way after the ceremony you only have large group pictures and B & G pictures.

    I was married in November and it was dark by the start of our ceremony.  I didn't want to do a first look session so we decided to trade our e-pic session (that was inlcuded in our package) with a TTD session (we didn't really trash my dress at all).  We took pictures the following week.  It was awesome to get back in my dress and have my hair and make up done again!  Plus 3 hours of just DH and I taking pictures...ya our fav pics are from this session.
    November 2011 Siggy Challenge: The First Kiss
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    Fall Wedding Bio
  • @ Tiffanie

    I do love that idea (trash the dress without the trashing/ newlywed photo shoot).  Whether you do pictures before or after the wedding ceremony, it's difficult and stressful to get all the shots you could possibly want with your husband unless you wanted to spend several hours doing so. 

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  • I think that my fiance will see me before the ceremony at our pictures. It's not a big deal to us. He's so excited to see me for the first time in my wedding dress it doesn't matter where we are. First Look photos are really cute.
  • I struggled with having photos before the ceremony too... but in the end we did it and I'm so glad we did!    Except for the actual vows and 'i do's'  that time together was my favourte part of our day!!  We had so much fun just spending two hours together, hugging, kissing, (and having photos taken lol) before the chaos of the day started.  It took the jitters away so the ceremony was much less stressful but surprisingly didn't take away the butterflies at seeing hubby waiting for me at the end of the aisle!!  I still got 'that feeling' :)

    84image 73image 11image Wedding date: June 11, 2011 :)
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