Wedding days can be amazing for so many reasons. All of your loved ones are there, you get to have the celebration of a lifetime, AND you are marrying your best friend! SCORE!:) Wedding days can also present their own stressors. Uncontrollable weather can be a factor, but so can a shrinking timeline.

What can you (the photographer) do when precious time is slipping through your fingers? Your Bride and Groom are counting on you. They trust you to take care of them on their big day and get pictures they’ll treasure in years to come. How do you do that when the window for taking portraits is shrinking?

Here are 5 tips to help you in a time crunch: 

1. Maximize the Location – get the most out of that one spot you can. When you’re on a time crunch, you don’t have the luxury of exploring different locations to shoot in during portrait time. It’s super important to find a location with great light and work it out. You can rock out a lot of different poses in one spot and still get enough unique portraits! Which brings me to my next point…

2. Posing – this is very important when you’re pressed for time. It can help you out a lot when you’re limited to where you can go. You can have your couples pose a lot of different ways and create a variety of shots for them to have. Being creative with the poses and photographing different variations of the pose can provide you with a lot of fun options!

This is a quick example. See how two poses happened and they didn’t even have to move their feet! 🙂 

3. Move your Feet – don’t become sedentary, move around and capture your couple from different angles. When you’re moving around, you’re giving yourself more options which equals more photos. Adjust your composition, shoot wide, shoot closer up, shoot from above, etc. The possibilities are endless and can really help you out in a pinch! 🙂

See how I was able to get 3 different shots just by moving my angles and moving closer in?! 

4. Transitions – as you’re walking from one location to the next, be sure to photograph your couple. Capturing some of these transitional moments can create some really memorable portraits for your bride and groom!

I just LOVE this shot of Andrea and Carlos! And they didn’t even know I was taking it 🙂 

5. Switch your Lenses -I know, you think I’m crazy. Why would anyone want to switch their lenses while shooting in a rushed setting? This is why. When you’re switching up your lenses, you’re giving yourself more options. For example, when you’re shooting with the 35mm you’re getting a wider angle and focusing on the couple as well as their surroundings.  Then you can switch that out for the 100mm, stay in the same location, and just get a closer, more compressed shot. Be intentional with switching the lenses, because when you’re in a rush, it can definitely be forgotten.

I hope these tips can help you, if you ever find yourself crunched for time. I know these help me! 🙂

P.S. I’ll be sending out my FIRST NEWSLETTER this evening! Be sure to “subscribe” to my Newsletter in the right-hand column! 🙂