How To Choose The Best Getting Ready Location For Your Wedding Day

You are busy planning the wedding celebration of your dreams and sometimes, getting ready locations are overlooked during the planning process. You’ve got the beautiful venue and the gorgeous decor but don’t forget about where you and your fiancé will be getting ready. As a photographer that has photographed over 150 weddings, this is a pretty significant part of your wedding day. I truly believe that your getting ready space needs to be an extension of the rest of your wedding day plans. It needs to be thoughtful and intentional. It also needs to make you happy too!

Be intentional when choosing your getting ready location.

We believe that the design and aesthetic of your getting ready location should tie into the overall design of your wedding day. If you are getting married in a beautiful historical building, find a location that is also historical with great architecture. If you are having a midcentury modern celebration, there are airbnb’s with that same aesthetic. We believe in telling the full story of your wedding day and the way this plays out when you have different colors, aesthetics, and styles can really affect the way your story is told. It also plays a key role in the consistency of all of your images as a whole.

Choose a location that has beautiful natural light.

Having a space with ample natural light is always best for photographs. Since we are hybrid wedding photographers, we really talk a lot about natural light with our couples and this is definitely a location where we would want a lot of natural light as well. We adore being able to give you the best light filled images from this special part of your wedding day. This can also be very helpful for your makeup artists as well.

Consider the distance from your getting ready location to your ceremony venue.

This is pretty big when it comes to your wedding budget, timeline and maximizing the time we have with you prior to the ceremony. If your getting ready location is 30 minutes from the grooms getting ready location and his is another 30 minutes from the ceremony venue location, you have an entire hour you are paying for where we are not taking photos for you. Even though I personally offer full wedding day timeline coverage in my signature collection, we still attempt to maximize the day the best we can for our couples.

Consider one location for your entire wedding party.

While this doesn’t seem ideal, it is quite the opposite. We have noticed that a lot of our couples have a little less stress when the entire wedding party is in the same building, Airbnb or within walking distance from one another. This allows us to photograph everything in the pre-ceremony hours pretty smoothly. There are also small things we have noticed that eases the stress as well such as the rings being at the same location for both bride and grooms details, all the florals for both parties being delivered in the same location and much more. Your photographers can pop in with you and then pop right over to the groom with ease. This also allows for the lead and second to be in one location as well so we can offer the maximum coverage as well!

Choose a space that is clean.

This is pretty big for us as wedding photographers. We want to photograph you and your beauty. We want to photograph your bridesmaids having fun and with lots of laughter. We want to focus on storytelling and creating. The last thing we want to do as photographers is move furniture, bags, boxes, and distracting items for clean photographs. This not only takes away from what we are doing but it also takes us a lot of time. When we have 20 minutes for candids of our bride and bridesmaids, we really feel the pressure to produce beautiful natural images. When we have to clean and move furniture or distractions, it really takes away from the time we have with you and the way we feel about that situation. When choosing your getting ready location, keep these things in mind. You also shouldn’t have to clean on your wedding day. It’s your wedding day!

Choose a location that is spacious.

I can’t stress this enough. My advice when it comes to setting up this airbnb or hotel room is to dedicate a space that has all of your bags, clothing and food. Also, consider this space where your makeup and hair artists can set up as well. Then dedicate a space that is strictly for your getting ready photos. Choosing a location that is clean ties into choosing a location that is spacious.

Also consider who will be in your hotel room or airbnb when we arrive. Normally our workflow is to gather your details and find a well lit area to lay out our mat and style your details. We don’t want people stepping on our mats, little ones grabbing our details or a bunch of your guests standing in our light during this time. We are really here to serve you well and while sometimes this does mean we love answering those questions and helping you be your best self on your wedding day, but we are also here to do our job and do it well. We also love keeping the flow going and having our stress free brides to photograph. When littles ones start crying, it can be distracting to you. When there are too many people in one room, it can also cause a lot of noise which can also be stressful to you. I’m a mom of four. I LOVE my kids so much. But really hone in on what is most important to you for your wedding day. Your best friends and family will understand and support any decisions and plans that you make. I promise.

Having a getting ready location that is spacious will really benefit the photographs as well. We will be able to get full length gorgeous shots of you and your mom {or bestie} while getting ready. We will be able to fit all of the bridesmaids in one shot perfectly. I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen 10 girls try to squeeze really tightly into one photo, but I have and it’s pretty hard to do depending on how tight the room is you are getting ready in.

Consider the outdoor spaces if needed.

Occasionally, we have couples who decide to have an all in one getting ready, ceremony and reception location at a country club. That’s ok! Our goal is for a stunning and cohesive gallery. We will always recommend getting ready outdoors. Especially if the indoor option is not that great, is dark or has a lot of distractions such as lockers along all walls. We love giving advice and pouring into our couples in this way. Our couples choose us and trust us and when we say “Let’s get ready outside!” they don’t even bat an eyelid because they know we are going to create beautiful imagery for them that they love.

Have fun things planned for your getting ready location.

This is such an epic part of your wedding day. It should feel epic as well. When you have the perfect space to get professional hair and makeup, are drinking mimosas and laughing with all of your best friends, you will look back at this and remember the fun. You’ll remember all the memories you made. You don’t want to think about how messy it was, or how tight it was to fit everyone or how dark and poorly lit this space was. Here are a few more suggestions I love and want to share about this special part of the wedding day!

Bring mimosas {if you drink alcohol!} Maybe even order monogrammed glasses for your girls. Wear the darn robes. Don’t listen to social media. BE YOU. DO YOU. If you want to do matching robes, so be it. If you think really cute pajamas are more your style, do it. Consider a beautiful charcuterie board as your pre-wedding snacks. This part of the day should be just as special, beautifully designed and cohesive to your ceremony and reception. Once you read over this blog post, you will have the best morning, the most beautiful photographs and the most cherished memories!