The French Quarter Wedding Chapel

You’ve just become engaged. Whether you are a young couple just starting your lives together or a couple melding families, your wedding photographs are important to you.  The very first item on your checklist is which city or town will you actually get married in.  Next is the venue.  

Of course budget is a big factor in choosing your wedding venue.  From a wedding photographer’s point of view, choose wisely.  A venue with onsite wedding coordinators is a plus.  They know their venue, their staff and any challenges you or they may face.  But what most venues and onsite coordinators sometimes don’t consider are limitations of photographic equipment.  No matter how much a wedding photographer spends on his or her gear, there are challenges we meet that make it exceptionally difficult and challenging to provide images that you expect when you see them for the first time.  

Your Wedding Ceremony & Reception Room Colors

The wall and ceiling colors are important at a wedding venue for bouncing flash.  If they are dark wood they will absorb light greatly and require more time for most flash units to recharge before firing again. What does that mean to you?  It means if your photographer wants to take two shots rapidly in a row, every other shot will have a flash misfire which ultimately means you won’t get those photographs.  If the photo happens to be an awesome moment, it will be a shame to lose it.  

Wedding Lighting

Most wedding venues in New Orleans use incandescent or soft lights and many use those tiny bulbs for chandeliers which put out beautiful ambient light but are usually nowhere near enough to light the room properly without utilizing additional lights such as flashes.  Ask the venue if the lights are on dimmers. That way, if it's a dark day out or it's night time, the photographer has the option to slightly bump the lights up to allow opening up shadows in the corners and areas at a distance.  Otherwise, you have nothing but subjects with a blacked out background.  If the venue is really cool you lose those images without sufficient ambient light.  I have found that I have shot many weddings lately using 10,000 iso with my flash which allows me to open up those shadows.  But many times I have to sacrifice the shutter speed which means blur can be introduced. That's cool for dancing shots, but not so much for vows and posed group shots. 

True, we can bring in light stands with off-camera strobes attached but then that also means you will have flashes going off all the time.  And you'll see giant light stands most likely in your shots unless we have a spot to stash them where they won’t be photographed.  Tough in a small venue.  Another really problematic situation is when the wedding DJ or venue uses pin-lights or colored strobes that shine on the guests.  Ick!  Little colored dots all over your faces do NOT photograph well AND require lots of additional retouching time which most photographers will require additional pay to accomplish.  The use of candlelight only at a night event isn’t a good option.  You will either receive very noisy, dark and yellow/orange images if a flash isn’t used or lose the ambiance of the candles as they will be blown out flat white most times.  All due to high contrast situations that sometimes can be ‘fixed or altered’ in post processing but don’t count on it.  In general there MUST be light on the subject that is being photographed or you will have noise/grain.  I like grain but I hate muddy noise. 

Room Size and Ceiling Height

If your room is small and the ceilings are low it is quite challenging unless there is a tremendous amount of natural or artificial light.  If the ceiling is low, bouncing off the ceiling to light the room usually doesn’t work because it casts horrific shadows under your eyes.  Ewww.  Another biggie regarding room size.  If there is little room between the wall and the seating your photographer is limited to using the aisle which I feel is quite disruptive to the ceremony.  If we choose to shoot from the back we have a multitude of lenses but we still only get the back of your heads unless you turn to face each other or your guests.  Where you and the altar are placed has bearing on shots also.  If there is little distance between them and the wall behind it may not be possible to get shots of your expressions during the ceremony.  

Things to Look For When Choosing an Outdoor Venue

We all like to think it won’t rain on your wedding day but it is New Orleans; it rains here often.  The very first thing you must consider is where will your ceremony and wedding reception be held if we have inclement weather such as rain.  Many venues have gorgeous gardens such as City Park but if you have to move inside and you didn’t reserve that option you might be stuck in some hideous room not suitable for photographs.  Think tent as an option.  And not those clear ones!!!  Imagine the glare of flashes going off EVERYWHERE in your shots.  Hideous!  And for the record I can’t imagine not having a flash on my camera at all times even in daylight outdoors.  Every wonder how we get such cool shots of you with the sun at your back yet the background is kinda dark instead of blown out white?  Yup, fill flash.  And it can take several flash units to overpower the sun.  If you are getting married at night and outdoors, be sure there is lighting provided behind the altar.  You need that light to create beautiful photographs, without it, it's just a black hole that once again absorbs all your flash output slowing down its recovery to fire again and yielding ugly shots.  We can often setup a flash unit if there is somewhere to hide it from view which is not often possible.  Who wants to see ugly light stands in the background?

The On-Site Wedding Coordinator

Most are amazing and brilliant at coordinating and running the show.  But there are those who have been doing it a long time, THEIR WAY.  Which is great for those traditional style weddings where everything is posed and expected.  Some will shuffle you to spots and tell the photographer when and where to shoot.  While this can be helpful in small doses, if a coordinator is overly ‘take-charge’ it will make your photographer go crazy!  I don’t need to be told where, when and how to photograph your wedding especially since you hired a photojournalism style photographer who is looking for moments not posed replicas of everyone.  Be sure the coordinator you speak with matches your needs.  You know, all the little details you hand over the day of your ceremony.  Timing is essential and this is what they do best.  

Last Minute Changes

If I haven’t been to your wedding venue before, most times I will make a special visit before the wedding.  But sometimes it just isn’t possible. Recently I visited a location and was assured if it rained the wedding would be moved inside to a specific room which I viewed and analyzed to determine what additional lighting gear would be necessary.  Well it rained.  And when I arrived they changed the room to a dark dungeon with no option to turn the lights up.  It was pouring outside and very dark so there really wasn’t any ambient exterior light to rely on and I didn’t bring the special gear needed to shoot in this room, since the booking was only 1 ½ hours which included traveling to another location for portraits.  This particular situation doesn’t happen often because with small elopements and weddings I don’t do multiple locations under two hours.  But the couple was tight on funds and I wanted to help.  Huge mistake!  So be sure it's in your contract that the alternate location is indeed the one you were sold.  It makes a photographer weep inside when they know they can’t provide what you wanted because of circumstances out of their control.  

We are professionals and are expected to be prepared but we can only be properly prepared when we are kept up to date on changes.  Even if the changes occur an hour before your booking we can scramble the gear together if necessary but not after we have arrived.  

Lastly, if you have fallen in love with a venue that may fit all the negatives in this post then let your photographer know well in advance so they can prepare by either bringing the additional necessary equipment or renting what they need.  Usually 2-4 weeks is adequate to assure availability on rental lighting equipment.  Another option that shouldn’t be too costly, and is one that many people don't think of, is to pay a lighting specialist to light your venue.

So take great care in choosing your wedding venue with your final photographs in mind.  Ask your wedding photographer if you should hire them before securing your venue.  They have favorites that accommodate all budgets.  

Now go find that perfect wedding venue!