Getting Ready, Mess it up!

They had this dress on the bed and her jewelry laying out when we arrived to take pictures

The getting ready pics are some of my very favorite, there are a few tips to make them look really awesome.

-take a minute to prep the room. Messes are great, as long as they are wedding related, so take all the wedding stuff out of the boxes (and get the boxes out of the room). Any non wedding messes should be cleared (most applicable when getting ready from home). Hang the dress without the bag over it so that we can get hanging dress pics too.

It's really nice to have window light in the dressing room, but if that isn't possible, you can bring a beautiful ambient glow with candle light around the room. If there is furniture that isn't beautiful, you can cover it with white sheets. Sometimes when the window light is too harsh, with the sun shinning really brightly into the room, a thin white material over the window will soften the light and will look perfect (it will also block the view of people outside without blocking all the light).

-It's helpful for us if the guys are getting ready nearby so that we can get a few pics and then get back to the girls (who take a lot longer and are much more fun to hang out with :). But seriously, the guys are so fast getting ready (generally) and if they are far away, it's really easy to miss them. We have given specific instructions that they should tell us right before they go so that one of us can follow and get the good shots, and they don't tell us and by the time we realize they left, they are all ready and we missed it! If you don't care, then, whatever, it doesn't matter, but if you really want those shots, it makes it easiest if the guys are getting ready close to the girls. If the guys are getting ready far away and the shots are really important we will have to arrange for a shooter to hang out with the guys the whole time for the getting ready shots.

Just some thoughts for the day...