Wedding Wednesday | How to Prep Your Bridal Suite/ Getting Ready Room

I know most of you aren’t photographers, but today’s post is super important for your wedding day photographs. Today we will be discussing How to Prep Your Bridal Suite / Getting Ready Room because this is where your big day begins. You want a beautiful start to your day and get off on the right foot. Wedding photographers, like myself, start our day by capturing your beautiful photographs in the bridal room/getting ready room.

The light in your getting ready room is so important as well as the way your room looks so that you can look and feel wonderful. This is just a recommendation, but anytime I have natural light for your wedding details, life is just so much easier because you won’t have to worry about where I’m at with your ring. If you don’t have natural light, I will more than likely be looking for other areas close by where I can photograph you details in their best light. After all, you put so much time and energy into planning your day that we need to make sure everything gets their own spotlight!

As for you, your hair and makeup artist will have lights for what they need, but there’s just nothing that’s going to look as good without some form of natural lighting. Some individuals have a difficult time seeing past a florescent lighting and even though they trust their hair and makeup artist, they don’t believe they look as good until later on in the day. So while the makeup and hair artist require this lighting, it is best to have natural lighting so you can see you true beauty without feeling self-conscious under those harsh lights. 

Here are few checklist items that you can look at before choosing the getting ready room on your wedding day:

Room with windows:

When you are going to prep your bridal suite / getting ready space, a room which welcomes sufficient natural light is a key to beautiful flawless pictures. A room equipped with good natural light looks best on any skin tone and a majority of hotels, beauty salons, and most venues will have something that you can use that has the perfect amount of natural light. The Knot has a great article about this, you can find it here.

Clean walls:

Now, I don’t mean you have to literally clean the wall, but you should try to take down as much artwork as you can, remove any cords, and just try to have a blank wall. My reasoning behind all of this because I focus so much on people. This is your day, and the wall is a simple background element. For your getting ready photos, you are the main focus!

Let the photographer choose the natural light:

When it doubt, ask. In my personal photography business, I plan extra time to clean different elements out of the room as needed. However, not every photographer does that though. So if you’re unsure, you can always ask them or, on the day of, they’ll be able to look for a space that will work out well. Your photographer might find a different space than you were originally planning and it’s just because we have a trained eye to look at the world differently. As such, if there are any specific shots that you would like for us to capture, let us know. My SP Brides and I go over all of the details 2 months in advance and then again 2 weeks before their wedding day. If your photographer doesn’t do this though, you can simply chat with them the morning of to let them know! Brides has a great article that talks about this, you can find it here.

Have the bridesmaids and moms get ready first:

Your best friends are going to be involved in helping you get ready for your day. That’s why you chose them to be with you right? Because of this, your mom, and any other mom you’d like there, along with your bridesmaids should get dressed before you do. I’ll capture all of you in your matching robes before you all get dressed, but this is also about getting your bridesmaids and moms involved by taking shots of them helping you to look like the beautiful bride that you are! The reason why we want them dressed is because the dresses add to your photographs. Everything looks so cohesive and well put together. Plus, extra pretty ladies always makes it easy to get great photos!

Hopefully these simple tips help you prep your bridal suite / getting ready space. The end goal is to just give you the best wedding photographs that you can look back on and fall in love with all over again!

Happy Wedding Wednesday!

Stephanie

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