Many of our clients ask us during their wedding planning what they can do to help make their wedding photography better. The short answer is that they (and you) do not need to do anything. We are professional destination DC wedding photographers. Creating beautiful images that capture the emotional tenor of your wedding day is our job, our mission and our passion. We have you covered, so you do not need to worry about a thing.
That does not mean, of course, that we do not encourage our couples to find ways to personalize their wedding photos. Bringing a bit of yourselves to your images — particularly to the couples portraits — is one of the best ways to ensure that you will love them. The more those pictures highlight your and your future spouse’s personalities, the more personal they will feel to you. You will seem less like every other newlyweds smiling and looking at the camera. You will instead look and feel more like the unique individuals and unique couple that you are. Everyone who sees the photos will see what makes you special. They will also get an idea of what brought the two of you together in the first place. Whether the images reveal your shared sense of humor or your common interest in a leisure activity, the people captured in the portraits will be undeniably you. With that in mind, we suggest that you work with your destination wedding photographers to personalize your couples portraits.
Again, we do not want you to feel any pressure to do this. The last thing that you or any spouse-to-be needs is more to worry about during your wedding planning! At the end of the day, you hire us because we are experts in our chosen field. As we said above, the entire responsibility for ensuring that your pictures stand out rests with us. So you do not need to come armed with ideas for poses, scenarios or props. You can literally show up with nothing, and we will make sure that you get unforgettable portraits on your wedding day. We will find ways to bring your individual and collective personalities out so that the resulting images are undeniably “you.”
If you do decide to personalize your couples portraits, what sort of things can you do? The short answer is whatever you want! The only limits are your imaginations! (Well, that and the relevant laws of your country, state and locality. And those of physics, naturally.) When asked, we typically suggest that couples come up with ideas that highlight what defines them as a couple. So if you share a love of reading, think about scheduling your couples portraits in a library. If you both have offbeat senses of humor, then find ways to make your portraiture silly and fun. If you bonded early in your relationship over classic movies, maybe wear outfits that hearken back to Old Hollywood. In the end, we recommend that you pick anything that helps show the world who you are as a pair and why you are going to be spending the rest of your lives together.
In the case of the bride pictured here, sports were a big part of what brought her and her future wife together. In fact, the other half of this same-sex couple worked as a physical education teacher. Because their shared love of all manner of games was such an important component of their relationship, they decided to make sports a part of their couples portraits. They brought soccer balls and cleats, in addition to the tennis balls and rackets. You can see one of the latter in the image featured here.
After their first look, we took them out to the spacious lawn behind Ringhotel Forellenhof Walsrode, the venue just outside of Hannover, Germany, that they had chosen for their nuptials. First, they laced up their soccer cleats (with their white wedding dresses still on!) and kicked the ball around a bit. Then they grabbed the tennis rackets and starting batting the little yellow orb back and forth.
Because it was such a beautiful day, we decided to try to work in the gorgeous blue summer sky into the shots we were taking of the brides. So we lied on the ground between them and aimed our cameras upward. As you can see in this image, this angle also made the brides look regal and majestic as they swatted the ball from one end of the lawn to the other.
Location: RInghotel Forellenhof Walsrode, Hünzingen 3, 29664, Walsrode, Germany.
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