The grande finale of The Experience series has arrived! Today, we are going to be sharing with you guys all about the wedding day experience with Mike and I as your photographers!

About a month out from the big day, we send our couples a (5 page) questionnaire – don’t freak out…it’s large font with lots of space for you to write in! We ask about 20 questions to help us prepare for their wedding day…questions like where and what time are the bride and groom going to get ready, are they interested in a first look, are there any ceremony restrictions, where will they be living after the wedding, etc. (If you guys are interested in getting a more in-depth feel for the questionnaire, comment below, and we can elaborate on it in a future blog post.) After we receive their questionnaire back, Mike and I “game plan” for the big day! This usually includes us determining when and where we will be eating breakfast that morning (one of our favorite things we do before heading out to a Saturday wedding)! But, breakfast aside, we start the day off in separate locations…I’m with the bride and all the ladies while Mike is with the groom and the guys! Since the ladies start getting ready much earlier than the gents, Mike will usually head out to the reception hall to get all the detail shots and scout for a first look/portrait location before meeting up with the guys! This is reason #942 why I love photographing weddings with my mister!

While I’m with the ladies, I am photographing all the bride’s details (shoes, jewelry, dress, flowers, etc), all the girls getting their hair and makeup done, and some of the bride and bridesmaid portraits after they are all dressed and ready to go. This is another reason why I love when our brides have the hair stylist and makeup artists come to where they are getting ready…we are all in one place for the getting ready pictures! As I’ve said (many times before), this time is one of my favorites of the day! I thrive off of the excitement and anticipation my brides are feeling, and I love being with them to document those moments before she walks down the aisle!

While Mike is with the guys, he is photographing them getting ready, fixing their hair, putting their shoes and cuff links on, etc. He is also getting some candid shots of the guys interacting together as well as the formal groom portraits.

After everyone is all dressed and ready to go, we would do the first look (if the couple has chosen to go that route) or Mike and I would meet up at the church or ceremony location. If it’s the first look, then Mike escorts the groom to the chosen location, and we photograph the bride coming up to him and their interactions together as they see each other for the first time on their wedding day! Then, we continue to photograph the bride and groom portraits as well as all the bridal party portraits before they head to the ceremony. If the couple chooses not to do the first look, Mike and I are heading to the ceremony location to set up and plan our shooting strategies.

If I am allowed by the church or pastor (and I usually am…about 95% of the time) I stand at the front of the church, just to the side of the center aisle to capture the bride walking down with her dad. I also sneak a couple groom shots to capture his emotion as his bride is walking towards him. Mike is in the back of the church photographing the groom’s face as the bride and her dad make their way up to him (these are some of my favorite shots from the ceremony). Throughout the wedding, Mike and I subtly make our way around the church photographing different angles of the bride and groom as well as some candid shots of the families. Then, we make our way to the back on the church in time for their first kiss and their recessional! When the couple makes it just about to the end of the aisle in the back of the church, we ask them to kiss one more time to get the entire church and all the guests in the background (another one of our favorites). We are sure to be as discrete and candid as possible throughout the ceremony. We cherish this intimate time as the bride and groom make a commitment in front of God, their friends, and their families, so we strive to be as invisible as possible!

After the couple makes their exit, we head back into the church (or outside if there is a good location and the weather is appropriate – we prefer the outside option if possible) for the family formal portraits. We have really learned how to get through these in a timely manner to allow the bride and groom to have enough time for portraits of them together and to get to the reception as soon as possible. If the couple chose not to do a first look, we ask for an hour and a half between the ceremony and reception for all the bride and groom and bridal party portraits. Then, it’s time to par-tay!

We are going to be real honest right now, receptions use to terrify us! When we first started, we struggled getting consistent images during receptions because of the low-light situations and our lack of knowledge on how to use flash. We are proud to say that we have come a long way, and while I’m sure we have tons more to learn and improve on, this past year we really focused on nailing down off-camera lighting and reception lighting in general. Okay, enough of the technical talk…we love receptions (now)! We love being able to capture the smiles, the laughs, and the kisses shared during the First Dance and the heartfelt embraces during the Father/Daughter and Mother/Son dances. We get a kick out of the nervous laughter from our brides as her (now) husband crawls on the floor toward her to remove her garter. We get excited to capture your nephew singing karaoke to Usher or your college friend attempting a split! We literally laugh out loud while we are editing reception pictures and reliving the fun from each wedding!

As you can see, we end up spending the entire day with our couples on the biggest day of their life. That is why we feel it is critical to find photographers that you mesh well with and why we enjoy building relationships with our couples before their wedding day. We don’t want to come in as strangers who just pose you and tell you to “Say Cheese!” (Just for the record, we’ve never asked a couple to do that!) We are there to make your day as comfortable as possible and to capture the emotion and the special moments. We want to invest in our couples, just as they have invested in us, because we love love and we love marriage! By the time your day is over, we truly feel like we have become friends.

With our couples, we want to be there for them in any way we can leading up to that special day and anytime after. We are in this for the long haul!