New Wedding Portrait Trend: Take Photos at Meaningful Locations

Wedding Portraits

My advice? Throw tradition out the window. Posed, perfectly lit bridal portraits are boring. Your wedding day portraits should be all about YOU. They should reflect your personalities, your style, your favorite things, and of course - your love for each other. Wedding photography is not just about capturing gorgeous images but also about telling a beautiful and meaningful story. Each wedding, and couple is unique, so my goal is to create stunning and interesting wedding portraits, based on who the couple is.

Choose Meaningful Locations

Where did you two meet? Where was your first date? Where was your first apartment together? Wedding photography has definitely moved away from churches, ballrooms, barns and traditional venues. (Don't get me wrong, these venues all still have their place). You can literally take your wedding portraits almost anywhere you want these days. My advice is to choose one beautiful, epic location for portraits, and then really sit down with your partner and make a list of all the important places you have experienced together and then narrow that list down to 2 or 3.

Day After Bridal Portraits

Did you know you could take your bridal portraits the day after your wedding!?! I always give my couples this choice, for a few different reasons. First, you may not want to leave your guests for a long period of time during your wedding day. Second, you can't fit in numerous locations on your actual wedding day. Third, the locations you want to photograph at are too far away to travel to on the day of your wedding. And finally, you just want to relax, have fun, and go on an adventure the day after and enjoy that newly wed bliss.

Make a Plan

Talk to your photographer. Tell them your ideas, and listen to their advice. We know where the best light is, when is the best time is to go to a certain location, and how to make it all come together. Work together to come up with a plan for the day, what props/activities you might want to include and how you will be getting to all of these different locations.

Not Just for Weddings!

You could totally adapt this idea for an Engagement session, or a Couple's session too! Imagine this: you get down on one knee and propose to your partner, and after they say YES, you have a whole day planned out to go take photos at all of the special places you two have made memories together. Your partner would be SO impressed with how much time and effort you have put into this photography session. In the end, these types of photos end up looking like scenes from a movie. After all, don't we all just want our own romantic comedy...?