Over the past several years, I have had the pleasure of meeting some very exciting and intelligent men and women who want nothing short of perfection on the day they decide to commit their lives to each other,... In simple terms we call this day Wedding DAY!!
An outdoor wedding is an awesome idea, but perfect timing of
sunset, dusk and the right season could lead to, a great day for you and your
guests, but a dud for your priceless wedding photos and memories
One popular trend these days is couples
wanting to have the pleasure of their wedding ceremony outdoors, as opposed to
a more traditional brick and mortar style ceremony. Outdoor weddings are any
photographer and videographers dream, especially those pesky amateurs, (Just
kidding) Its a good chance for a photographer to shine. Having access to
abundant free lighting in all directions could deliver some of the best
photojournalistic images any bride could ever dream of; as a result more and
more brides are now opting to ditch indoor ceremonies for outdoor ones, except if
you are Catholic like me, and are stuck with brick and mortar church ceremonies
in the same church where you had your baptism, confirmation, and Holy
Communion, and then you are really out of luck.
Usually, having an outdoor
ceremony could be pretty pleasant and blissful, nevertheless its not always
peaches and cream, timing is everything. I have had several brides reveal to me
that they want a nice sunset look for their outdoor ceremony, and I always feel
like a party pooper when I have to tell them “You might need to move your
wedding up an hour, if you don’t want to be shooting in the dark” Lets face it
any professional photographer with a full frame camera and a low aperture lens
can still deliver great photos in low light, this is the reason why we pay
thousands of dollars for great cameras, but it just gets to a point when TOO low
light could become a disaster for any professional photographer who plans on
shooting a photojournalistic style. You can plan to have strobe lights or flash
lights to help with the darkness, but a strobe light could never light up that
beautiful lake that all your wedding guests are assembled in front of, or the
sea of endless landscape that was breath taking only just a few minutes before the
bride walked down the isle.
Here’s my advice
if you are crazy enough to actually read through all my jargon so far. I
strongly suggest to anyone that plans on having an outdoor ceremony to first of
all, check the sunset time for the day you are getting married. You can check
websites like www.timeanddate.com for information about the sunset time for your
city or state. Once you have this time down, plan to start your wedding no
later than 1hr 30mins from this time 2 hours just to be overly safe in case the
weatherman calls for overcast. Now lets be clear, you may not get the optimum golden
feel of the sunset as you walk down the isle, but in all actuality the only way
to adequately sustain sunset light through a 30 to 45 minute ceremony and still
have enough light to take some photos after the ceremony is if you get married
on a desert plain with no hills or tall trees in the distance from where the
ceremony is taking place. Lastly keep in mind that "sunset time" is actually when the sun hits the horizon, and if you cannot see the horizon from your ceremony site, and there are no cumulus clouds to amplify the sunset light, your sunset actually starts when the sun dips behind the closest trees or landforms from your ceremony venue
Some other things
that could affect the length of the golden reflection from a setting sun are
the presence or absence of clouds, which could help propagate the light to last
longer, and during summer solstice, where the sun is bigger and brighter than
any other time in the year. The summer solstice for the Northern hemisphere occurs
sometime around June 22nd and for the southern hemisphere around
December 22nd
I hope you guys
enjoyed reading; feel free to share with friends or any bride that’s planning a
wedding, or any feedback is welcome!
