Wedding Dress Styles - How They Photograph
Your wedding dress is one of the most important and special purchases you will make for your wedding day.
You may have spent your whole life thinking about the style of dress, the cut, the colour and now the time has come to wear it for your wedding day. But how will it be captured in your wedding photography? Will the wedding dress details show up in the photographs?
Immortalise Your Wedding Dress With Photography
I have put together some of my favourite photographs from my real-world weddings to show you how your wedding dress can be captured. Of course, you are going to be photographed wearing the dress at every angle and moment of the day. But I like to photograph the details and flow of the wedding dress throughout a wedding day.
Photographing the wedding dress is always on my checklist of shots I want from every wedding. If you want to talk about your shot list and what’s included in my wedding packages or if I am available to photograph your wedding dress, I’d love to chat more with you.
Lace and Satin Wedding Dress Detailing
One of my favourite elements of a wedding dress is the fine detailing. Often floral patterns and shapes sit neatly on the sleeves chest allowing the perfect texture for the camera to photograph. I like to use the natural light of a window to wash across the dress in order to accentuate the texture giving the photograph a tactile feel. It’s important that the material and detailing of a wedding dress are photographed as each and everyone is so different. It’s one of the elements a bride has thought long and hard about and so photographing close-ups is really important to the wedding dress story.
A designer like Sophie Rose uses detailing to create simple elegant patterns across the wedding dress. In the first image above you will see a perfect example of this in her Cosmos design I photographed at South Farm.
Hanging Your Wedding Dress For Photographs
The beginning of a wedding day is my favourite as it’s the first chance to see some of the details and elements of the day with the most important being the wedding dress. Often safely wrapped in a dress bag from the bridal shop, my first port of call is to ask a bridesmaid to help me take it out let it breathe and find a spot where I can photograph the dress hanging.
A lot of wedding venues will have a dedicated place where wedding dresses can hang safely off the floor and often these are perfect for me to photograph the dress in order to show the style of wedding dress. South Farm’s bridal suite has great rafters which are perfect for this. The hanger used to hold the wedding dress is really important in my eyes. Whilst it doesn’t need to be an artisan, bespoke wedding dress hanger, the main thing to avoid is a plastic shop hanger as these can look jarring against the beautiful wedding dress fabric. A solid plain wooden hanger or black metal hanger strong enough to hold up the weighty wedding gown is a great solution and keeps the focus on the dress and the material.
Where Is Best To Hang A Wedding Dress For Photographs?
If the weather permits and the location is right, outside can work really well for photographs of the wedding dress. If it can be hung from a branch or pergola with greenery and flowers surrounding it then all the better. As we all know wedding gowns are normally a shade of white and so contrasting this against the earthy tones of the wedding venue gardens, plants and trees will always look great.
Most bridal suites are really well laid out and offer a place to hang the dress. Even if the room is not clear, for me the dress hanging in a room full of excitement, wedding clutter and commotion is equally special. After all, you want your wedding photographs to convey your wedding day as it happened, and your wedding dress will have been present to witness it all quietly in the corner or hanging above the bed. I photographed a styled shoot at Milling Barn in Throcking and they have a beautiful rustic barn which when the main doors are open are perfect for hanging the wedding dress from. Take a look at one of my Milling Barn weddings and if you’re booked in there, think where you might like to see your gown photographed.
What Style Of Wedding Dress Photographs Best?
The best style of wedding dress is a style that you love. I know that might sound like a cop-out answer, but this is your day. No one else’s. Every part of your wedding day including the dress needs to reflect you as a person, your likes, taste and style. So there is no wrong or right answer. The best wedding dress style is the one you love, and my job as a photographer is to record the journey of the dress throughout the day.
You can read more about my journey into wedding photography here and if you would like to chat more about your plans and ideas, please get in touch.
Go check out the amazing suppliers featured in this blog post.
