Great tips… I really like the shots that you have included here. By allowing for extra time it gives you the opportunity to become more artistic and capture that individual shots that every bride and groom are looking for!

Amen, Andrew! I always dread it when the couple books us to create these “magical” images, then proceeds to limit our time with them to a bare minimum. Even worse, is when we are rushed by the couple during the “cool location portraits”, so they can go spend an hour or two with their friends to a local pub and have cocktails/beers. Um, guys, the booze at the reception is FREE! It is the couples who allow the time and flexibility that find their album/gallery containing fantastic images that make them gush. No matter how hard you try to convince a couple to take the time, sometimes it just falls on deaf ears. In that case, you make the best out of whatever time they give you.

Unless the couple wants to go to several locations for photographs, I think that an hour of time for just the bride and groom is way to much time and I would bet most couples would rather not shoot portraits for that amount of time too. Plus, this hour doesn’t even include the family and bridal party shots.

Personally, I think an hour is plenty of time not only to get the bride and groom portraits, but also the family and bridal party shots. Just be sure to pick a nice place to shoot and be sure the couple and their family and bridal party knows the when and where. Shoot deliberately, quickly, and with shots already in mind before you start clicking away. Your clients will absolutely love you for not only getting fantastic photographs but also for not monopolizing their time on their wedding day.

The day is all about the photographs for us photographers, but we have to look through our clients eyes. Did they plan all year, and pay lots of money to spend the day posing for their photographer or did they do it to celebrate their love and commitment to one another with their family and friends.

Andrew, it really depends on who you are as a photographer. I know that many photographers in Australia will take 2-3 hours with just the bride and groom.

For our studio, portraits are extremely important on wedding days, so we set extra time aside. It’s a way to differentiate ourselves.

Fundy

Wow 2 to 3 hours, I think one of my clients would take me out and have me shot

I do agree with you that it depends on the photographers style and the clients the shooters studio is wanting to attract and shoot for.

Cheers!

I appreciate your point 100%, and respect you for making your clients aware of your time requirements up front. I’ve taken another approach, to attempt to serve those couples for whom an hour (let alone 2 or 3) is far too much of a sacrifice in an already busy day. Unless otherwise requested, we usually spend 20-40 minutes of the day on portraits, including all family, wedding party and bride and groom images. The style works for me, and for my little slice of the market. And I do talk about this up front as well: “Your wedding day is 24 hours long — how much of that do you want to spend following a photographer’s direction?”

There are so many more photographers shooting weddings than when I started — all the better to create a diverse market, so that each couple can find the perfect fit for their event.

Thank you for posting this! I always try to get as much time as possible but in my area, formals right after the wedding are normal and that leaves little time for portraits before the bridge & groom are scheduled to make their entrance. I have started recommending the bride & groom see each other before the ceremony and shoot the formal photographs then, leaving us much more time afterwards to work with just them.