Last week was inspiration week here on United With Love. We featured amazing styled shoots from vendors around the DC area. Styled shoots are all the rage on wedding blogs these days and for good reason – the photography is gorgeous. It makes for great blog posts with lots of pretty inspiration! But, no inspiration week is complete without a little truth. There are some realities to weddings-in-the-real-world that aren’t captured in styled shoots. We offered a few tips of our own at the start of the week. And, today we are fortunate to have VA wedding planner, Janice from Bellwether Events, to give you the real truth to styled shoots. Take it away, Janice…
Magazines and blogs feature many styled shoots to provide you with inspiration during your wedding planning. But it is important to remember a few things. The stylists on these shoots spend hours tweaking every detail and posing the models in the carefully selected attire and accessories. The vendors participating in the shoots bring stockpiles of props in order to make sure that the feeling and message they wish to convey is perfectly executed. The photographer often selects the location and times the shoot so that the lighting is exactly what they are looking for. These photos are perfect! Stunning! Yet, I worry that they set unrealistic expectations, and also might miss the real meaning of weddings.
Photo shoots, in essence, are designed to have many options, unlimited time and no budgetary restrictions. In other words, they are not reality. Very rarely do they even depict a ceremony set up, which is the whole point of the day – the getting married part. They are not designed to actually feed and entertain one hundred and twenty guests. Your wedding photographer doesn’t have unlimited time in perfect light with you and a box full of props and accessories. So, your wedding photos are not going to look like what you see in magazines and on blogs.
If you decide to see each other before the ceremony, your photographer will be limited in time and location with this portrait session. During the ceremony your photographer will likely be restricted to the back of the room and may not even be allowed to use flash. By the time he/she gets to the reception room, some guests will have already put down their coats and purses, thus ruining the wide room shots. When your people of honor give toasts, there will probably be something less than perfect in the background, such as an exit sign. Tent poles are unattractive. Thermostats and outlets are eyesores. You will not see these things in styled shoots. These are the realities of real weddings.
But, do you know what real wedding photos trump the styled shoots on? Emotion. You cannot fake the look on a groom’s face when he sees his bride for the first time, or the pleasure a mom exudes when her little girl is getting married. Styled shoots will never capture the perfect combination of elation, excitement and terror that is the Hora, or the pure joy of a bride dancing with her father to their special song. As much as I like to “ooh” and “ahh” over pretty pictures, what brings a smile to my face is the photo of a couple singing their face off to Journey. These are the moments you will remember and cherish. These are the photos that will get framed and hung on the wall or inserted into holiday cards. Not the photo of your table centerpiece or your escort card display.
While it is important to collect pretty pictures from blogs and magazines to help explain to your wedding team what you want them to do, please don’t get distracted from what really matters: getting married and celebrating afterward!
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Thank you so much, Janice! For more from Bellwether Events, check out Janice’s website here.
Photo Credits: Kurstin Roe Photography
19 Comments
I am a lover of real wedding features & styles shoots. I greatly appreciate you posting about this! It’s so important for couples to understand the difference. GREAT post!
Great post Janice! We can always count on you to bring the real talk! Thanks for this post.
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MUST READ. You’re SO right, and it’s so important for couples to know the real behind the scenes on photoshoots. Awesome post Janice!
So true! I have to tell my brides that all the time! Life is messy but that’s what makes it fun!
This is a really great post Janice! I think so many brides and grooms feel disappointed when they can’t attain the look of a styled shoot – and this is a perfect explanation of why that should not disappoint them! Reality really is so much better 🙂
Great, great post , Janice! I wish all brides read this as they stressed about their wedding design, motif, style, brand, and theme.
Yay! It’s so true- everyone needs to be reminded that they’re GETTING MARRIED every now and then. Because I love me some fabulous details, but sometimes we just can’t hide every single service door and thermostat in a real wedding. Styled shoots are for inspiration, which is why they’re often called inspiration shoots. I myself try to keep my own inspiration shoots to where they are easily attainable by brides- not something completely unrealistic that can’t be replicated. 🙂
SO glad to see an article like this. While the pretty photos from a styled shoot can inspire couples, the moments of your wedding day are waaay more priceless and amazing.
This is an excellent post- so very true! The feelings expressed on the actual day cannot be staged in any way, and those feelings really do make the moments!!
Excellent post! Thank you for talking about this and for saying it so well!
This was such a breath of fresh air!! Thank you for sharing!
I really love this post. I think shopping/planning brides have a lot on their plates when trying to find photographers in a world of styled weddings and bridal sessions. It’s misleading for them. But it sure makes us real-world photographers up our games!! I would love to repost this to help lesson the confusion for all planning their 2011 weddings.
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Great post Janice. Truly honest and refreshing.
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