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Proud pup mom, type A creative, lover of the outdoors, Top Chef fan girl, and wedding and portrait photographer. Welcome to the blog!
HI, I'M RACHEL!
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micro WEDDINGS
elopements
Oooh I am so excited to tell you about one of my new fav ways to serve my clients! In this post I’m going to share all about a new service I’m offering: the bridal details photo session.
The bridal details photo session was born out of wanting to better serve my wedding clients both on their wedding day and just in general. This session creates more space and time in a wedding day timeline, which always translates to a better experience for my couples on their big day. It also allows an appropriate amount of time and space on another day to create thoughtful, intentional, curated images that will let your bridal details shine. You get the chance to have your precisely picked out details documented beautifully, and you get to highlight some of your other vendors’ work in a way that really does them justice. Essentially, you’re honoring the investment you made in your details (invitations, rings, shoes, flowers, veil, dress, etc.) as well as giving yourself the gift of time and spaciousness on your wedding day.
I typically do bridal details photos on a wedding day and I allot a full hour on the timeline for these photos. My second photographer will take hair and makeup photos and candids, while I am elsewhere taking your details photos. That may sound simple enough – but it rarely is! haha You won’t see me doing this, but behind the scenes I am scoping out the perfect place with good light and backgrounds, hauling your details (dress, bouquet, shoes, invites, rings, etc.) to that spot, figuring out the most picturesque layout, snapping photos, moving things around, taking more pics, sweating, stressing, cleaning up, and hauling your details back to your getting ready area. It’s a lot to do in one hour! About half of that time is spent scouting, hauling, arranging, and cleaning, which allows only about 30 minutes to do the actual photographing of your things. I get it done but it really isn’t enough time to do the absolute best job.
Getting ready spaces are often not built for the type of natural light I need (clean/free from color cast; not too bright/not too dark; even light). Therefore, it’s usually challenging to find good light for details photos on a wedding day. And even if there is decent light, the space I’m in is often super small/tight and not private, or pretty far from the getting ready area, or the background is off (too dark/not the right colors/a weird pattern or texture/too bright, etc.). I feel like I do a pretty good job of making non-ideal or even straight-up bad light situations work so that we get good details photos (and I will continue to do that for couples who are not interested in this new session). But I want to give you the best images possible and that’s where this new bridal details photo session comes in.
So what is the bridal details photo session? The bridal details photo session is a 1-3 hour photo session where I take photos of your bridal details on a day other than your wedding day. This allows you to get high end, creative, beautiful photos that highlight your bridal details in a way we can’t fully do on a wedding day. I have three different options for how we can do this, which I’ll walk you through below.
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What: Flat lay details – invitation suite; all rings; ring box(es); bridal jewelry; shoes; heirloom pieces; ribbons; loose florals; veil.
What’s not included: For this session I won’t take photos of your dress or bouquet. I want to keep your dress in tip top shape for your big day, so I don’t want to fuss with it beforehand. Plus I like to do dress photos at your actual venue. I also like to include your bouquet with your dress shot, and we won’t have that until your wedding day.
While this is great opportunity to do a test run bouquet with your florist (which I highly recommend if you’re able to do this; if not, it’s totally fine), I want photos of your bouquet to be your wedding day bouquet and not the test run. We can use the test run bouquet for background photos with your other details photos, though!
(Long story short: I will take your dress and bouquet photos the day of your wedding.)
When: Before your wedding, any time when you have all your details complete and in one place, and when you can get loose florals from your florist. Whenever will create less stress for you!
Where: The best option is to do these photos at my home. My home is painted all white, which is great for my style of natural light photography, plus I get ideal natural light streaming in through my windows throughout the day. I could also do these photos at an outdoor location of my choosing that is close to your home (I say my choosing because I want to have control over the light).
Why? This is a good option if you like the idea of checking items off your list before your wedding so you have one less thing to stress about. It makes sense to do this option vs. the post-wedding option if you are going on a honeymoon directly after your wedding or if you just don’t want to be bothered with wedding stuff after your big day.
How: We’ll pick the appropriate location based on a number of factors. This session will take at least two hours. You can drop off your details photos to me and pick them up when I’m done, or for an additional investment I will pick them up and drop them off.
Example: We did Allison’s bridal details photo session before her wedding day when she had her bridal portrait session (I’ll tell you more about that soon!). We did her bridal portraits at her wedding venue, so I took the opportunity to do the bridal details photo session while I was already there. Honestly, this was a case of the light and backgrounds in the hotel room not being ideal for details photos, but I’m still proud of the images I created there. It did give Allison some relief to not have to worry about having those things documented on her wedding day, and gave us extra time and space at the beginning of her wedding day to focus on other things. Like I stated above, for future sessions, ideally the location would be my home or another outdoor area with clean, even light.
Click here to see more of Allison’s bridal details and how I photographed her bouquet on her wedding day. You’ll also find a list of her vendors at the bottom.
What: Flat lay details – invitation suite; all rings; ring box(es); bridal jewelry; shoes; heirloom pieces; ribbons; loose florals; favors; misc. details; program; veil.
Optional Items: For this session, I can take take photos of your dress if we do the session at my home. This is a good idea for three reasons: 1. if you don’t want to worry about having those photos taken on your actual wedding day; 2. if your venue doesn’t have a picturesque spot to take a dress photo; 3. I’ll be able to include your dress in your flat lay photos, as you’ll see in the example photos below. Make sure to include your hanger if you have a special one.
Bouquet – I suggest placing your bouquet in a refrigerator the night of your wedding and keeping it there until you give it to me. That should keep it in good condition to be photographed days later. I will definitely take plenty of photos of your bouquet on your wedding day, but it does look nice in your dress photo if I’m doing your main dress photo after your wedding.
When: After your wedding day, within two days of your wedding. Doing these photos close to your wedding day is necessary because of my editing workflow.
Where: The best option is to do these photos at my home. My home is painted all white, which is great for my style of natural light photography, plus I get ideal natural light streaming in through my windows throughout the day. I could also do these photos at an outdoor location of my choosing that is close to your home (I say my choosing because I want to have control over the light).
Why? This is a good option if you are worried about your details getting messed up before your wedding. This option is best instead of the pre-wedding option if you have a long list of to-do items and want to push this off until after your wedding.
How: We’ll pick the appropriate location based on a number of factors. This session will take at least two hours, up to three hours if you’re including your dress and bouquet. You can drop off your details photos to me and pick them up when I’m done, or for an additional investment I will pick them up and drop them off.
Example: Kassidy’s bridal details photo session was a unique situation. I unfortunately got COVID the week of her wedding and was too sick and contagious to photograph her and Colin’s big day (I had someone associate shoot their wedding – read more about it here). One way I offered to make it up to them was to photograph their details at my home. They dropped off all their details and I took several hours to photograph everything very thoroughly, and I love the images I created – even when I was super sick! It let me know my home is the perfect place for details photos. I took these photos the Tuesday after their Saturday wedding and was able to include them in K+C’s Wednesday blog post . (You’ll see she included her dress, which gave me variety in her flat lays especially and helped tie-in the images as a whole.)
Click here to see more of Kassidy’s bridal details and how they seamlessly blend with the photos taken on her wedding day. You’ll also find a list of her vendors at the bottom.
How: This session is a little different than the first two. This is a hybrid session, where I would take certain photos on your wedding day, and others either before or after your big day.
This session will take one hour. We’ll pick the appropriate location based on a number of factors. You can drop off your details photos to me and pick them up when I’m done, or for an additional investment I will pick them up and drop them off. Or I could take the specific details with me when I leave your wedding if you choose the post wedding option, and drop them off or mail them back to you later.
Why? This is a good option if you have a lot of details. We would split the time I take to photograph them between your wedding day and another day. This session will allow me to focus the time on your wedding day to the bigger, important details instead of having to cram in photographing all details in one hour. This will also keep your investment for your bridal details photos session a little lower than the other two options.
What: Flat lay details – invitation suite; all rings; ring box(es); bridal jewelry; shoes; heirloom pieces; ribbons; loose florals; dress; bouquet; veil will all be photographed on your wedding day. I.e., any items that are precious to you or that need to be included in a flat lay will be photographed on your wedding day.
Favors; misc. details; program; extra pieces of your invitation suite; perfume will be photographed on another day. Any superfluous items that don’t need to be included in a flat lay will be photographed another day.
When: Either before or after your wedding day. If before, any time when you have all your details complete and in one place, and when you can get loose florals from your florist. Whenever will create less stress for you! If after, must be within two days of your wedding. Doing these photos close to your wedding day is necessary because of my editing workflow.
Where: The best option is to do these photos at my home. My home is painted all white, which is great for my style of natural light photography, plus I get ideal natural light streaming in through my windows throughout the day. I could also do these photos at an outdoor location of my choosing that is close to your home (I say my choosing because I want to have control over the light).
Example: Amanda and Nick had a large number of details they wanted photographed. I spent the one hour of allotted time on their wedding day taking photos of the dress, bouquet, shoes, and flat lay items. At the end of the hour I still had a handful of other items to capture, so their planner dropped them off at my home. I spent an additional two hours photographing the items before mailing them back to the couple. Those extra photos really filled out their gallery. We ended up using at least one of them in their wedding album design, in addition to the many details photos I took on their wedding day. The photos below with the white backdrop were taken at my home; all others were taken on the wedding day at their getting ready venue.
See more of Amanda and Nick’s wedding here, and scroll to the bottom for the list of their vendors.
If this type of session interests you, please contact me here for investment and planning details. Reference the ‘bridal details photo session’ in your message.
Did this post get you excited to book your own wedding, micro-wedding, elopement, or engagement session?! If yes, send me a note and we can chat about what you have in mind: contact me
Hi – I’m Rachel! A wedding, engagements, and headshots photographer in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and northern Virginia. I love taking photos of elegant people who love to laugh, as well as of much in-love couples. If you’re a dog owner, that’s a plus! I’m currently booking 2022 portrait sessions, as well as 2022 and 2023 weddings.
HELLO@RACHELEHPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
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Rachel is a wedding and portrait photographer
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