Tag Archives: wedding photographer ireland

Wedding Photography Tips

 

Once you have chosen your preferred wedding photographer, there are a number of ways you can be more prepared for the big day. Today we are talking about the top wedding photography tips that will ensure your finished product is truly beautiful.

Family Photos

Here is a handy list of what photo combinations you will want to get with your family:

Bride and Groom & Bride’s Parents

Bride and Groom, Bride’s Parents & Bride’s Siblings

Bride and Groom, Bride’s Parents, Bride’s Siblings, partners and children.

Bride and Groom, Bride’s Parents & Groom’s Parents

Bride and Groom, Bride’s Parents & Groom’s Parents

Bride and Groom & Groom’s Parents

Bride and Groom , Groom’s Parents and Groom’s Siblings

Bride and Groom , Groom’s Parents, Groom’s Siblings, Partners and Children

Bride and Groom with Grandparents

 

David McAuley Photography wedding family photos

 

Little Details

Certain details will make for great photographic opportunities on your wedding day.

  • Personalised or embellished clothes hanger for the dresses
  • Fabulous shoes
  • Antique Jewellery
  • Unusual centerpieces
  • Favours
  • Pocketwatches
  • Hip flasks
  • Wedding speech notes
  • Something old, new, borrowed or blue

 

 

David McAuley Photography wedding detail photos

 

 

David McAuley Photography wedding detail photos

 

Emergency Kits

No big day in Ireland would be complete without a little adverse weather, and it is worth being prepared. Your emergency kit should include a pretty umbrella and heel covers so that your beautiful satin heels don’t sink into muddy ground. Tissues, baby wipes and chalk can cover up a multitude of stains on your wedding dress or shoes if a little bit of mud spatters or you get a grass stain on the bottom of your skirt. Even if the weather is dry on the day of the wedding, be wary if it has been raining in the previous few days as the ground may still be soft. Bring a few white towels to place under your dress while photos are being taken outside.  Ensure your bridesmaid has hairspray, extra hair pins and powder to hand in case it is raining or indeed if it is very warm and humid, as your hair and make-up may not stay in place.

 

David McAuley Photography wedding detail photos

 

DIY Wedding Ideas

With many couples now eschewing the tradition of having their parents pay for their wedding, saving money is more important than ever. Brides and grooms are now choosing to DIY many elements of their wedding, so today we’re featuring some of our favourite DIY wedding ideas to give you some inspiration!

Candy Buffet

This has been a really popular option for weddings in the past number of years, but if you can’t afford to pay a couple of hundred euros to have someone create a professional candy buffet at your reception, you could give it a go yourself with some help from friends and the staff at your venue. While many suppliers will display the candy on a cart, you could just use a table from the venue and decorate it with a colourful table cloth that matches your wedding theme. See if the venue has any boxes or crates you can stack underneath the cloth to create different heights to place jars and bowls on. You can get some great jars in discount stores and IKEA; and if you know of someone with an account at a cash and carry, ask them nicely if you can use this to buy boxes of your favourite sweets. For a really impressive and professional look, work with your colour scheme and use sweets in varying shades of that colour, or decorate the jars and bowls with ribbons in your theme colour. Don’t forget scoops or spoons for the jars, and paper bags for people to collect their sweets in. You could also jazz the table up with LOVE signs, balloons and tealights, or even a personalised poem.

 

DIY wedding candy buffet david mcaulley photography
Image via Runaway Chef

 

‘Will you be my bridesmaid/groomsman’ kits

Ask your bridesmaids and groomsmen to be part of your big day with cool DIY gift boxes. A heavy duty cardboard or a wooden box can be filled with colourful tissue paper or raffia, and filled with the following:

For the girls

  • mini bottle of champagne
  • necklace or bracelet
  • nail polish in the colour scheme of the wedding
  • votive candle

For the guys

  • mini bottle of whiskey
  • cufflinks
  • socks
  • bottle opener

On the inside lid of the box, decorate with the question ‘Will you be my…?’

 

DIY bridesmaid gift box david mcauley photography
Image via Secret Wedding Blog

 

Photo Booth

If you can’t afford to splash out for a photobooth, set up a stand with a polaroid camera that also saves the images to a digital file you for to keep but lets your guests keep their polaroid as a keepsake; or alternatively ask them to take two photos and stick one of the pictures to a pinboard for you to take home after the wedding. You can get great props online or in joke shops such as mustaches, crowns, silly glasses and noses, feather boas and signs.

 

DIY wedding photobooth david mcauley  photography
Image via Wedding Tweets

 

Do you have any great DIY wedding ideas? Share them with us here!

Advice for the Groom

Going by tradition, some might say that the groom makes the biggest decision when it comes to wedding planning, as they will more than likely be the one to pop the question. There is often a misconception that once a couple is engaged, the groom takes the back seat and lets his partner do all the planning. However, there are so many ways the groom can stay involved in the wedding planning process, so today we are offering up some advice for the groom and what to expect in the run-up to the big day.

 

The Big Decisions

 

Advice for grooms David McAuley Photography

 

Give your input on the big decisions for the wedding – the date, the location, what kind of ceremony you have, who’s invited, what entertainment you’ll have and what kind of food will be served. Your partner will appreciate the help and you will feel more at ease knowing that you have given your input. It’s likely that you and your partner will have discussed things like the style of wedding you want long before the ring goes on; so ensure that you are on the same page when it comes to this. If you are envisioning an intimate soiree while your fiance is planning for 300 guests in a huge ballroom, now is the time to have a conversation and find a compromise. The same goes for choosing what type of ceremony you’ll have; if you come from different religious backgrounds this will be a very important conversation to have, as you will both want to make your families happy.

 

Support Your Partner

 

 

Advice for grooms David McAuley Photography

 

 

If your fiance has taken on most of the wedding planning duties, he or she will undoubtedly become stressed out by some of it and will need your support and patience. Take bad moods and tantrums with a pinch of salt, and ask how you can be there for them. Find out if there are any smaller jobs you and your groomsmen can look after, which will lighten the load on your partner. Most importantly, if you feel the stress is getting to your relationship, why not plan a spontaneous weekend away where you can both relax and forget about the wedding for a few days? It can help to put everything in perspective and give some much-needed breathing space to your partner.

 

The Stag

 

Advice for grooms David McAuley Photography

 

 

Your best man and/or groomsmen may be planning this, but ensure you give them your input. If you don’t fancy a night in the casino followed by a strip club, then make that clear to them. Keep in mind the budgets of your friends and family members that will be attending – if you know that your best bud is struggling with his bills, then a long weekend in Barcelona may not be the best idea. Keep things simple – you don’t have to travel for hours to have a great experience. A night away doesn’t have to break the bank if you choose budget accommodation or self-catering, and keep it wallet-friendly with some bar food and a pub crawl. Some wise words – leave plenty of time between the stag and the wedding, just in case you have a little ‘tumble’ and end up with a few bruises, or heaven forbid, a broken bone!

 

Take a time-out on the big day

 

Advice for grooms David McAuley Photography

 

 

On your wedding day, things will go very, very quickly. When the ceremony is over and you’ve taken your photographs, make sure you and your partner take 15 or 20 minutes alone to kick off the shoes, have a small bite to eat (you will be very hungry) and let the events of the day sink in before you return to your guests and the night begins. You will appreciate the day all the more.

 

How to Choose a Wedding Photographer

 

Choosing a wedding photographer is one of the biggest decisions you will make when you are planning your wedding. It can often cost quite a big chunk of your overall budget, but in order to capture all of those amazing memories of your big day, it is an essential purchase to make. Today I’m going to discuss the factors you should take into account when thinking about how to choose a wedding photographer, as well as telling you a little bit more about what I do.

 

How to choose a wedding photographer David McAuley Ireland

 

Personality

A wedding photographer with a good personality is essential for a number of reasons. Someone with a warm and welcoming personality will make you feel more at ease on your wedding day. If they are confident, they will be able to give you direction without making you feel overwhelmed. Ensure you meet with the photographers you are thinking of booking before paying a deposit so that you can see if you ‘mesh well’ together – someone who you get on with and who immediately makes you feel at ease will be a good match on the day. What is very important in making a couple feel relaxed is always remembering that I am there for them and not for myself. Having the bridal preparations as part of the day’s shoot is always beneficial as I’ve just blended into the mix by the time the ceremony comes around. Part of my job on the day is to guide the couples but not dominate their day. If a couple or bridal party or their guests for that matter, are not relaxed with what is happening then it will be reflected in their images. Every wedding shoot is unique to that couple and what might suit one couple wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable for another couple. Ideally,  I will have met my couples more than once before their wedding day and chatted about all aspects of their plans and what’s important to them.   

 

How to choose a wedding photographer David McAuley Ireland

 

Equipment

Is photography his or her full-time job, or is it something they do a couple of times a year to supplement their income? Someone whose whole career is dedicated to photography will have the very best equipment for taking the photos, editing and producing your albums. Someone who has already invested in the right equipment and can work out their costings exactly will often be able to fit into your budget more easily, rather than someone who is perhaps taking a day off their full-time job to shoot your wedding and needs to cover that cost as well as their equipment and time.

 

How to choose a wedding photographer David McAuley Ireland

 

Style

Each photographer will have their own personal style. Some specialise in posed photographs, with a list of shots they need to get throughout the day. This may suit a couple who are very specific about what they want. Others specialise in ‘candid’ or documentary-style photography, which will capture a more natural look and often involves lots of shots of your guests having fun.  My style is a mix of ‘candid’ and ‘directed’ images depending on the stage of the day and often they blend into each other. I may arrange a particular shot but it’s the follow-on images I’m really interested in. For me weddings are about the people involved, not just the couple but also the bridal party, the guests etc. I like to be interactive and try to make people feel at ease. Great venues and decorations are good to shoot but it’s the emotions & interactions between the people that really counts.

 

How to choose a wedding photographer David McAuley Ireland

 

Budget

When it comes to how much to budget for wedding photography, it is a very individual decision for each couple. While some couples have a very comfortable budget, others may not have as much to spend. Some wedding experts suggest that your wedding photography will cost 10%-15% of overall budget. Many photographers however will have a number of different packages that can suit a variety of budgets, for example providing your finished photos in digital format only. This could be a great option for a couple on a smaller budget who may choose to get their photographs printed and framed at a later stage. It is important to bear in mind that a photographer coming in a lot cheaper than some of their competitors may not always mean that you will get the same quality. The overall time involved in shooting and editing photos right through to delivering the final product can be 30+ hours. You must decide how important the photography of your wedding is to you, and decide how that matches into your budget. If it is an essential part of your day, then your budget should reflect that, as it would for any major purchase in your life be it wedding or non-wedding related.

 

How to choose a wedding photographer David McAuley Ireland