Mary Sledd’s Blog | Austin Wedding Photography and Stuff

Formal portraits are an important part of documenting a wedding day, but it can also be a point of stress. The suggestions herein are things that I find work well with my style. Other photographers, planners and books will have many other suggestions.

How long will formals take?

20 - 45 min * You can use the info below to figure approximately how long formals will take.

– Estimated times per group size –

2 people - 1 minute

3-4 people - 3 minutes

5-8 people - 4 minutes

8+ people* - 5+ minutes

*Larger groups take longer because I have to pose everyone and inevitably someone is missing.

What is the best time to do formals?

Immediately following the ceremony is the best time to do formals. After the ceremony everyone who will be in the formals is on site (no waiting for aunts or wayward cousins). The light (at outdoor weddings) also tends to better post ceremony.

If you do want to do formals before the wedding I suggest having the photographer (me) arrive 2.5 hours before the ceremony and starting the formals 1.5 hours before ceremony. This will allow enough time for me to do candid getting ready photos and enough time to get through the formals before guests arrive.  The nice thing about doing all of the formals before the wedding is that you can start partying right after the cermeony.  Remember, however, your family may have other things they need to take care of on your wedding day and asking them to arrive two hours early may not be ideal.

Can we split the formals and do some before the ceremony and some after?

Think carefully about why you want to split formals. If you want to see the groom before the wedding so you will not be as stressed when you walk down the aisle - that is a great reason to do some formals before the wedding. If you are trying to “save time” by splitting the formals this is not a good idea. It takes much longer to get everyone ready and in place before the ceremony than it does afterward.

In a perfect world it would be possible for me to do the groom+groomsmen and bride+bridesmaid photos separately before the wedding. Unfortunately this does not work with my style. It does not allow me enough time to catch the real candid moments that are the signature of my style. A lot planners suggest this method and it works well for many photographers, but not for me.

If you are splitting the formals please have me on location 2.5 hours before the start of the ceremony and plan on being ready 1.5 hours before the ceremony so we can finish these photos before guests arrive.

Should I provide a list of who will be in each formal?

Sure, if you want to provide one that is great. When working on your list please include the group name and first names of each person in the group - Expample : Smith Family (brides mother’s side) - Joan, Bob, Carol, Andy and Rebecca. If you do not prepare a formal list I’ll use an impromptu version of the list below.

What is the best order for the formals?

Do the formals in an order that will flow smoothly placing photos with same people in sequence. You also want to move from larger groups to smaller groups -  Here is a sample ….

- B&G + Brides Extended Family

- B&G + Brides Immediate Family

- Bride and Brides Parents (w/ and w/o siblings)

- B&G +Brides Parents and Grooms Parents

- B&G +Grooms Extended Family

- B&G +Grooms Immediate Family

- Groom and Grooms Parents (w/ and w/o siblings)

- B&G + Full Bridal Party (including ushers, flower girl, ring bear)

- Bride+ Bridesmaids

- Groom + Groomsmen

- Bride and Groom - ALONE

How do you handle divorced parents?

Please let me know if your parents are no longer together and we can work out a strategy that will work for your family.

When should we do portraits of just the bride and groom?

I like to do romantic portraits of the happy couple after we finish the family photos. I usually spend about 10 minutes photographing the bride and groom formally. If the light is not perfect we may only spend a few minutes right after the ceremony and then spend more time working on the photos later in the evening when the light is prettier.

I’m happy to announce I’m changing my print pricing for 2008 weddings. The new prices are “at cost” to encourage guests to make as many prints as their hearts desire.

The inspiration for the change is the amount of fun I’ve had ordering prints of my little niece who lives in Seattle. I’ve loved being able to order all of the photos her mom posts and having the bill only be a few dollars plus shipping.

Professional photographers are encouraged to mark up print prices because it adds to perceived value of the services. (read this) I’m not buying into that strategy anymore!!! All of my brides own their digital negatives so their is nothing stopping them from posting all of the images in an online gallery for friends to order. I’m making it so they don’t have to go through the trouble! This does mean I’m giving up a couple of thousand dollars of print profits annually, but I’d rather have my photos in the hands of potential future customers.

What’s funny is my boyfriend has been telling me to do this for 2 years. Babbling on about scarcity and abundance and how the internet changes the economics of such things (here’s an article he sent me that tells part of the story), but i haven’t really listened until now.

I read a great Q and A this morning on Canon Professional Network with Mary Anne Golon the director of photography at Time magazine. If you are interested in the whole article it is here. Here are a couple of the parts I found most revealing.

So a lot of that editing process has shifted to the photographer?

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Yes. And I think a lot of photographers are very pleased about that because before they didn’t have any reasonable level of control over their work. They’d just send in the unprocessed film and then it would be, “Oh my God, why do they always pick the wrong picture?”. How many times have we heard that! But it’s also created a much bigger workload for the photographers and I think it’s almost been crushing for them. With the new technology they’re not only photographers but they’ve had to become editors and technology specialists too. What I think they should be focusing on is what they’ve always focused on – taking great pictures.

How do you feel about the trend towards more ‘celebrity-style portraiture’, often at the expense of traditional photojournalism?

One of the things that’s really hard to make interesting is business editorial. So if it can help you to bring to life concepts and ideas for those readers, then great. Fortune and the whole financial magazine group here have done a really good job with that. For Time it’s been a great departure for us to start doing many of our portraits of world leaders and political figures in that stylised fashion. I think it’s just been a response to a weariness with conventional political coverage which has tended to be controlled photo opportunities and set scenes.

Photo by David Hill

Austin photographer David Hill wrote an interesting blog entry about post processing in wedding photography. I’m guilty of some of his complaints. Many of my photos are vignetted because I use a 50mm f1.2 lens with a hood in dim environments. And sometimes I vignette in Lightroom. I use canned Photoshop actions and presets sparingly. The problem I see with heavy handed Photoshop work is it will look dated in a few years. Remember the SUPER AIRBRUSHED Glamour shots of the 1990s? I custom correct the color and crop each of my photos and I sometimes use effects, but for the most part I try and shoot cleanly and keep “enhancements” to a minimum.

I’ve been testing the new camera in ambient darkness. It does very well with converting color temperatures. The tungston lights all look like they’ve been geled. Its wonderful. It will save me tons of time in photoshot. It is also amazing how it deals with reciprocity failure. The exposures are more acurate than they would be with the sekonic. just amazing.