Wedding Photo Ideas

It seems like a lot of couples getting married today are asking family members or friends to photograph their wedding day, instead of hiring a professional photographer. With the exception of a videographer, your wedding photos will be the best way to remember your special day forevermore.

That is why it is crucial to hire the skills of a professional or photojournalistic wedding photographer to ensure your photographs are exactly as you envisaged. This is certainly something you do not want left to chance, even if Cousin Johnny has just bought himself a new digital camera and has kindly offered his services for the day.

Joking aside, it is important to sit down and discuss your wedding photo ideas with the photographer prior to your wedding day. This will ensure that he is fully versed in the type and style of wedding shots that both you and your partner would like him to capture.

This way, there can be no big surprises when you come to choose the photographs for your wedding album. You need to make sure your photographer clearly understands exactly what you want him to photograph and how.

To help you make this decision we’ve put together some great wedding photo ideas that are sure to impress.

Formal Pictures

Formal wedding photographs are what you will see stuck in the majority of wedding albums. They will typically include family group portraits and couple shots of you and your wedding party, normally all with forced poses. Formal wedding pictures are designed to ‘Tell the Tale’ of your wedding day almost in slideshow fashion.

Your wedding photographer will know what is important here, but typically, and aside from the above, most formal pictures should include:

• The bride getting ready
• The groomsmen
• The bride outside the church
• The bride before the wedding ceremony
• The bride walking down the isle
• The bridesmaids carrying the train
• The bride and groom signing the register
• The bride and groom outside the church
• The bride tossing her flower bouquet
• The bride and groom cutting the wedding cake
• The bride and grooms first dance

…And if you so wish, many more besides.

Fun Wedding Photo Ideas

Aside from the formal wedding photos it is highly recommended to include natural or fun wedding photographs. This is achieved by what is known as a ‘roving camera’, where your photographer will capture natural wedding photographs without you or your guest realizing.

Personally, these are my favorite types of wedding photos as they alleviate the awkwardness and staged feel of the more formal wedding pictures, and really capture the buzz and excitement of your wedding day without a fake smile in sight.

Your wedding photographer will easily be able to capture some amazing shots, just make sure you inform him before hand that you want natural looking wedding photographs as well.

Black and White Wedding Photo Ideas

Another fantastic wedding photo idea is to ask your photographer for black and white wedding photos. Assuming he is using a digital camera; and let’s face it, he should be, the process of ordering black and white wedding photos from the original color ones is very simple.

Black and white wedding photographs can create a whole new look and feel to the picture, usually bringing out more detail and appearing much more atmospheric and romantic. This wedding photo idea although not new is something that you should certainly look into.

Disposable Camera Wedding Photo Ideas

Don’t expect anything too amazing here, but if you were to provide each table at your wedding reception with a disposable camera you will get some really unusual wedding photographs that your photographer would never have captured.

What’s more, in most cases, the development costs are included within the purchase price of the camera. This is a great, fun wedding photo idea that can result in some unusual and funny wedding photographs, and is well worth the modest investment of the cameras.

Fun Wedding Photo Ideas

This is very subjective, but if you are looking for alternative and fun wedding photo ideas that are a little unusual, then how about the following humorous wedding photo suggestions:

• Groomsmen holding the bride horizontally
• Bridesmaids holding the groom horizontally
• Bridesmaids hitchhiking a lift to the church
• Brides father with turned out pockets
• Bride and bridesmaids doing the can-can
• Best man dancing with the groom
• Mother of the bride shaking figure at groom
• Bridesmaids wearing groomsmen’s jackets over their dresses
• Groom appearing from under brides wedding dress
• Groomsmen all wearing sunglasses in a gangster style pose
• Groomsmen catching fainting groom
• Groomsmen grabbing escaping groom
• Wedding party to wear bubba teeth
• Groom biting brides wedding garter
• Wedding party jumping in the air
• Revealing leg shot of the bride and her bridesmaids

As you can see the possibilities of funny wedding photo ideas are literally endless. The most important thing to remember is to make sure your photographer knows exactly what type and style of wedding photos he should capture at your special day.

In doing so you can be certain of perfect wedding photographs that you will want to cherish and enjoy looking back on for the rest of your life.