As we say so often on this blog, our favorite thing about being destination wedding photographers is the variety. We love seeing new places, meeting new people, and experiencing local culture. Shooting in different locations for every wedding means that we have the opportunity to put fresh eyes on every event, and we love the inspiration that comes from exploring a brand new place. Even with all of the variety that comes with bouncing from one destination to another, there are a few things that are consistent across most of our events. And for those things, we have to push ourselves a little in order to find our unique take on that part of our couple’s love story.
As destination wedding photographers, we spend A LOT of time in hotel rooms. We sleep in them, sometimes we shoot receptions in them, and very very often we shoot getting ready in them. So many of our brides choose the convenience and accessibility of a hotel room for their pre-ceremony time. When it comes time to showcase the wedding dress for an image, sometimes we have to think outside of the box in order to find a unique take on the typical “dress in a hotel window” shot. This usually means that we scout around nearby for a minute, and once we’ve come up with a potential spot, we take the wedding dress for a walk 😉 We thought it might be fun to share a few wedding dress images from this past year with you. We think it is kinda cool to see the kind of variety that we were able to find, just by looking past the obvious shot.
super fun hotel dress shot #1 – Shayna & Nick – The Omni Hotel
We traveled to Shayna & Nick’s wedding in Providence, RI in our vintage Volkswagen bus, Hazel Grace. (Don’t worry…we will be definitely be sharing the story of that fun trip with you in the future 😉 ) After spending a week meandering up the coast in 88 square feet of cuteness, the room that Shayna and the gals were getting ready in seemed gigantic! When it came time for us to photograph the dress… rather than stay in the room and fight the getting ready madness, we headed out the door with it. When we arrived at the elevators and noticed the fun patterned wall (with a handy hanging spot available) we knew we had our spot.
super fun hotel dress shot #2 – Zack & MacKenzie – The Ivey’s Hotel
We loved the feel of this Charlotte, NC location: the lovely exterior, the adorable bar, the bright & airy rooms…it was a super fun place to photograph and to hang out! We decided to take MacKenzie’s dress on a little tour of the floor outside their getting ready room, and we found this dark and moody spot in the hallway. We chose this spot to showcase this gorgeous dress not because it was grand and beautiful, but because we could use light and shadow to bring the attention straight to the dress. Finding the reflection in the wall art added the little extra something that turns this simple hotel hallway into a lovely wedding dress display.
super fun hotel dress shot #3 – Christy & Eric – 1880 Union Hotel
Christy & Eric chose an absolutely fabulous venue for their wedding. We loved absolutely everything about 1880 Union. It was charming and comfortable and full of fun surprises. The bride and groom and all of their people had taken over the entire place, and they were spread out throughout the building, so we were constrained to the bridal suite for the dress shot. Christy’s dress was in the window, and we grabbed a few lovely images of her dress, but when we backed up and saw this image through the doorway, we knew we had found the shot. All of the dark negative space does a fantastic job of leading your eye straight to Christy’s beautiful dress.
super fun hotel dress shot #4 – Cori & Blake – Sandals
We shared a little peek into Cori & Blake’s wedding weekend in our last blog post about awesome rehearsal dinners. Cori & Blake choose the island of Barbados as their destination, and we had a blast hanging out on the resort with them and their amazing friends and family. We were in a bit of a time crunch when it came time to photograph Cori’s dress, so we didn’t take the dress for a walk. Instead, we utilized the window for light, but rather than using the window as a simple background, we decided to step back a bit and include the geometric light fixtures. The clean lines and strong shapes contrast nicely with the softness of her dress. The mix of textures and materials combined with a very monochromatic color scheme result in a timeless wedding dress presentation.
It is so important that we challenge ourselves constantly as destination wedding photographers. We never want to fall to a formulaic approach to our photography, even with something as simple as detail images. Hope you enjoyed this little behind the scenes look at how this piece of our shooting process works! We are super excited for all of the wedding dresses we will have the opportunity to photograph in 2019!
More soon!!!
xo
ian & amber
