One small step

The bride’s arrival at the church is something that few people ever get to see – guests should be comfortable inside the church before she arrives and the groom and his family have to wait until she walks through the doors to see her in her wedding dress for the first time.  Before that moment there is usually a set of photographs that get captured for the album between the arrival of the wedding car, and the bride’s entrance to the church.  This few minutes offers the opportunity for a mix of formal and candid photography.

The formal photography takes the form of shots of the bride with (usually) her father in the back of the car, and again outside the church, as well as shots of the bride and her bridesmaids outside the church.  More candid opportunites allow some natural images conveying the emotions of the bride, her father and her bridesmaids, as well as some detail shots of the shoes, dress, flowers as she makes her way from the car to the church.

At Aileen and Neil’s wedding on Saturday, while John was taking care of the formal shots and helping to guide Aileen out of the car, I was shooting with a longer lens to allow me to zone in on some of the details of Aileen’s dress and shoes.  As she prepared to step from the car, I captured this candid shot of her foot about to step out, effectively marking the start of her walk up the aisle.

The shoes are important to photograph at a wedding – more often than not alot of time will go into the selection of the shoes, and they can spend much of the day hidden under the dress, so detail shots of them both before the bride has put them on and while she is wearing them are key elements in the set of shots a wedding photographer should get.