Stylized Wedding Portraits | Virginia MOCA

Wedding portraits, aside from details (which I <3), are something that I really love taking pictures of on the wedding day; whether it’s for a small intimate bridal party, or one where you’ve got all your best friends included (all 19 of them!).
It never fails that doing photos for the wedding party will keep you on your toes! Not sure what to expect? Well I can guarantee a few things:

You won’t have much time. If things are running behind schedule, photography time is always cut first.
Getting all the family together for portraits will be like herding cats
People are going to look everywhere BUT at you

So our job (as the kick-awesome photographers) is to do the best that we can, with whatever we have to work with: whether we only 10 minutes and have to photograph 45 people or have an hour and only 12 people to photograph.
Even though this stylized wedding was MY event, we still managed to run a little behind, so we didn’t have as much time for formal wedding portraits as I would have liked. But that was actually better because it gave the students a more realistic idea of what it would be like on the wedding day.
That being said, here’s how I break it down when it comes to portraits on the wedding day:

Family Pictures – Bride’s Side (and every possible breakdown) then Grooms Side (and every possible breakdown)
Bridal Party Pictures – whole group together, bride and bridesmaids, groom and groomsmen, Individuals
Bride and Groom (with them pretending like they love each other 😉 )