Most clients know that I encourage my bride and groom to see each other prior to the ceremony. I do this for a variety of reasons. The main reasons being that it a fantastic moment to capture on camera. It’s intimate and emotional. It also allows us to get most formal photographs out of the way so that after the ceremony, the couple can enjoy their cocktail hour. Earlier this year Bridal Buds wrote a blog post about “breaking the tradition” of seeing each other prior to the ceremony, and interviewed me. I just wanted to share the latest response to the post by one of my most recent clients. He explains the magic of seeing his bride before the ceremony better than I ever can… and to illustrate his comment – here are a few photographs from him and his brides’ first look.

Josh Says:
April 23rd, 2010 at 12:51 pm

I know this is an older post, but I feel I must respond:

Dogwood Bud – I got the link for this blog via Emily’s website. It looks like we have many of the same tastes. I just got married on 4/16 at Key Largo Grande, Charlene did our planning, and Emily was our photographer. My wife and I are both a very laid back couple, and wanted a fun intimate setting making KLG the perfect location, and Emily the perfect person to help capture all the great moments. It would be impossible for me to express in words how happy I was with my decision to have her capture our event.

If you look at Emily’s Blog, she recently posted a first set of a dozen or so pictures that she did for us (Lynor and Josh). She has already mentioned that she’s going to do a separate post just for our first glance because of how intimate it was.

Purpose of this post: I agree wholeheartedly with what Emily said to you. She chose an absolutely perfect location for our first look, and I can’t wait to see the pictures from it. Especially with Emily’s talent behind the camera, I beg you to follow her suggestions, and I promise you will not be disappointed.

I have 2 other reasons that are not discussed in the previous comments:

1) The most important reason why the first look is so special: you don’t have to abide by the customs of a wedding when you finally get to see them. I was so moved when I finally got to see my bride all I wanted to do was hug/kiss and tell her beautiful she looked. If we were standing at the end of the aisle when you finally see each other, you have to bottle up all that emotion. You’ve spent a year planning for this day, and seeing her/him for the first time is kind of the kickoff event of the whole thing wedding day. You get to hug, hold hands, share a kiss (if you choose), and most importantly gush over how beautiful she looks. When standing on the alter, you can’t relax and enjoy any of these emotions, because you’ve gotta keep yourself composed for the wedding itself.

2) Everyone get’s pre-wedding jitters. Your nerves start to boil, you’ll flush/feel uncomfortable, your mind races to make sure that everything is perfect, you get so focused on every step that you stop ENJOYING the event. The advantage of the first-look: you can be calm for the actual wedding. I’m a generally calm person, but I can tell you I had terrible anxiety on my wedding day. All the emotions are bottled up because you’re so focused on the making sure everything is perfect. Now you finally get to see each other, and share a fantastically moving experience and within minutes, all the emotions and anxieties come flooding out. Personally, I spent 30 minutes sweating, uncomfortable, and felt completely awkward, because all the knots in my stomach were finally releasing. Fortunately, I still had 2 hours until our ceremony. I’ve got 2 hours with Emily who a) made us laugh, b) made us look/feel beautiful, c) made us relax.

30 mintues later, family/bridal party portraits are done, and I finally have my head back on straight. Follow that with a full hour of just me and my bride taking spectacular photos and getting to kiss 100 times (which will make anyone feel content). By the time I was walking into the actual ceremony, I was cool, composed, and enjoying every emotion. Result = no jitters standing in front of my family. No worries about my emotions getting the better of us. No worries about whether I was making the right decision. Just focused on her and everything that we were about to say to each other.

If you have any interests/questions, you can certainly e-mail Emily and she can pass along my e-mail address. I’d be glad to discuss other specifics of how our event went, and to share stories. I promise you will not be disappointed with KLG or Emily.

To read the full article please visit http://www.bridalbuds.com/2010/01/breaking-tradition/#comments