- gunnabamissus
- 2 months ago
- Wedding: August 2019
Hey Bee’s,
So I am having a little bit of a dilemma and I need some good valid arguments to convince me one way or another. I’ll give some background and hopefully you can all give me your wonderful opinions of which route I should take.
[TL;DR: I can’t decide if I should do a first look or not. What would you do and why? More details below]
Initially I had been very firm on not wanting to do a first look. My reasoning for this was I really wanted that special moment where my FH see’s me walking down the aisle for the first time and get that emotional moment captured. My FH is not super emotional, so I really wanted to have this moment for the both of us. It was one of the first things I immediately knew I wanted and have stayed firm on through this process.
I didn’t see any huge issue with is, as loads of people do this all the time! However, there have been a few thigns that have made me think a first look might be the way to go.
First off, I am really concerned about not being able to get all my photo’s completed in 1.5 hours. That is the maximum amoutn of time we have to get them all done without a first look, beacuse my ceremony and reception are at the same location. We can’t extend cocktail hour past 1.5 hours, plus that would be too long a gap in between and I wanted to avoid a large gap between ceremony and reception as much as possible. Therefore, a first look might be a better plan as we’ll have loads more time.
Second, as I know many Bee’s will say “1.5 hours is totally enough time, trust your photographer!” The photographer doing my wedding is not a professional wedding photographer. I will have 2 photographers, both professionals and family friends, but they do not shoot weddings, as it is not the type of photorgraphy they like. It’s not that they are not capable, just not what they enjoy doing. I worry that the short timeframe may be difficult for them to get everything done, so a first look might be beneficial.
Third, Initially I was very worried about the location to take all my photo’s at. There are no locations that are within 10 minutes of my venue that we could go to and get any gorgeous pioctures. So I would likely have to do them in the ceremony space (a garden) while cocktail hour is going on in the same space! I worry that this will be problematic for getting all the photo’s done, since guests will be mingling literally feet away!
and Fourth, I have now rented a beautiful victorian air bnb to get ready in the morning of my wedding and return to on my wedding night. I was thinking of doing family photo’s and all that there prior to the wedding, but now I am thinking I would love to have some photo’s of me and my FH all dolled up in this beautiful house as well. We can only do that if we have a first look, or jump in the car for a 15-20 minute drive each way for photo’s during cocktail hour. I worry this would take to long, so again, first look might be a better plan.
So these are my issues and my rationals for first look versus no first look. In my heart I think I would realy really rather not do a first look, but the more I get into my planning, the more I think I’ll just have to suck it up and do one.
Give me your thoughts Bee’s! What would you do? Why would you do it one way or another?! TIA! <3