Getting ready that still feels like the morning, not a checklist

There is a version of wedding getting-ready photography that is really an inventory. Shoes on a windowsill. Rings on a flower. Dress on a hanger. Perfume bottle. Check, check, check. Those pictures are not wrong, and I make them too. But if that is all the morning becomes, the gallery starts with a catalog instead of a story.

The getting-ready hours are the only part of a wedding day that still feels private. Nobody is performing yet. The light is usually better than it will be at noon. People are nervous, funny, quiet, and very much themselves. I want the first pages of the gallery to feel like that morning felt.

Find the window first

When I walk into a getting-ready room, before I say much to anyone, I look for the window. Where the light comes in, how big it is, whether there is a sheer curtain I can use or a heavy one I need to open.

Then I quietly try to get the important things to happen near it. Not in a forced way. I might ask if we can move the chair for hair and makeup a little closer. I might hang the dress where the light will reach it. If the bride wants to put on her earrings, I ask her to do it by the window rather than at the dark end of the room.

Anna's morning is a good example. She was in a white robe next to a tall window with a light curtain, and that window did most of the work. Soft light on her face, the city outside going bright, the room around her falling a little darker. I did not need to add anything. I only had to wait for her to look out.

Details, but in their place

I still photograph the details. Couples choose those things with care, and they want to remember them. The difference is where I put them in the story.

At Ian and Alla's wedding, the dress was hanging high in a stairwell with patterned wallpaper and a dark iron railing. I photographed it from the stairs below, so the picture is about the house and the morning as much as the dress. The rings, the bouquet of deep red roses, the watch, the cufflinks: each one got a frame, and then I went back to the people.

A good rule for photographers: give the details about fifteen minutes of real attention, then stop. If they take an hour, you will miss what is happening behind you.

Photograph the people in the room

What families treasure years later is almost never the shoes. It is a mother fixing a clasp. A friend doing makeup with total concentration. A sister laughing at something just outside the frame.

At Ian and Alla's, one of my favorite pictures from the morning is the bride in her robe, hair half done, sharing a big smile with an older woman in a plaid shirt sitting next to her. Nobody was looking at me. At Anna and Lenny's, it is the corset of the dress being laced by someone standing behind her, both of them looking down at the work. Neither of those is posed. They happen every wedding morning, and they disappear if the photographer is busy arranging perfume bottles.

The other room counts too

Getting ready is not only one side of the couple. While Anna was by her window, Lenny was fastening his watch and checking his bow tie in a mirror. I like using the mirror: it puts the person and their reflection in one frame, and it shows him looking at himself the way you only do on a day like that. Even the family dog, a small Yorkie with a bow in its hair lying across the bed, made it into the gallery. That picture says more about their home than any detail shot could.

How we plan it so the morning is calm

None of this works if the morning is rushed, so it starts during planning. When we build the timeline, I ask where everyone is getting ready, how much light those rooms have, and what the last thirty minutes before leaving look like. I would rather arrive while hair and makeup are still in progress than walk in five minutes before the dress goes on.

[Serge: I usually arrive way before the dress goes on. I got to make sure I captured the details like rings and the bouquet and you won't believe but sometimes even the dress is used alone.]

I also ask couples to keep the room a little tidy near the window. Not perfect, just clear of shopping bags and coffee cups. It saves us twenty minutes of moving things, and it means the background of your favorite picture is not a pile of garment bags.

What I would tell another photographer

Find the window before you find the shoes. Move the moments toward the light instead of moving the light toward the moments. Give the details their fifteen minutes, then turn around and photograph the people. And look for the mirror, the dog, the person doing the laces. That is the morning.

Wedding coverage starts at $350 an hour, and a retouched gallery arrives within two weeks. If you want the morning in your story, tell me about your day, and tell me where you are getting ready.