Planning Your Dream Wedding
Many, many hours are invested into researching and planning all the details of your wedding day. Details such as the wedding dress, the bridesmaids’ dresses, the groom’s and groomsmen’s attire, the wedding rings, the invitations, the programs, the bride’s bouquet, the wedding party’s flowers, the family’s flowers, the ceremony site and decorations, the reception site, the table centerpieces, the timeline of the day, the dinner menu, the wedding cake, the musicians, the songs to play during the ceremony and reception, the videographer, and the photographer are all important aspects of planning your dream wedding.
Amazing Photographs of Your Wedding Day
Planning a wedding can be fun and exciting, but it can also tend to be stressful, especially the last few days leading up to your wedding day. But when your wedding day comes, all that hard work pays off as all the details come together. And hopefully, by your wedding day, you are able to relax and just enjoy your day with your family, friends, and new husband or wife. One of our primary goals as the photographers of your wedding is to help you to relax and feel at ease with knowing that you will have a great experience with us. We want you to have a wonderful day and to have amazing photos of your wedding day just the way you remember it.
When taking your wedding photos, we make sure to capture all the planned events as well as spontaneous moments that take place throughout your wedding day. In our article on How to Prepare for Beach Wedding Photography we talked about tips to prepare for your beach wedding with us as your photographers. After the ceremony and the formals are over, the focus then shifts to the celebration at the reception – another aspect of the wedding day that requires just as much attention, but is photographed in a much different way.
Photographs of Details at Reception
At the reception, we make sure to capture the special planned events, the momentous candid shots, and the important detail shots. The planned events include moments such as the grand entrance of the bridal party, the announcement of the bride and groom, the bride and groom’s first dance, the father/daughter dance, the mother/son dance, the bridal party dance, toasts, bouquet toss, garter removal, garter toss, and cake cutting. Some of the candid shots may include moments such as the best man doing a crazy dance on the dance floor, the flower girl asleep in the corner of the room, the bride giving her grandmother a hug…anything and everything that happens at the reception.
The details that we photograph at the wedding reception include things such as the table seating display, the guest book or framed picture for people to sign, flowers, party favors, chair covers and bows, other special table decorations, the beautiful cake, and the uniqueness of the wedding table centerpieces. This article is going to focus on photography of wedding table centerpieces.
Possibilities for Wedding Table Centerpieces
The possibilities of wedding table centerpieces are endless. Flowers of any shape, size and color, candles, candy, chocolates, sea shells and sand, individual wedding cakes, and fish bowls are just a few of the unique wedding table centerpieces that we photograph. Wedding table centerpieces are unique to the personality of each wedding couple, so we make sure to capture creative images of your table centerpieces for you to have for your wedding album.
Outdoor Photography of Wedding Table Centerpieces
For the weddings that have their wedding reception outdoors, the ideal situation would be for us to take pictures of the wedding table centerpieces while there is still available daylight. Using daylight, as opposed to photographing the table centerpieces after sunset, allows us to take wedding table centerpiece pictures without using flash. With enough daylight, we typically photograph the table centerpieces using our lenses with a wide open aperture.
This allows as much light in as possible and it creates a shallow depth of field for striking images of the details of the table centerpieces. When outdoors at night we will set our cameras on a tripod or use our flash equipment for wedding table centerpiece photos. When possible, we will bounce our flash against the ceiling of a tent, a wall, or even a reflector to create a more natural look than using direct flash on the table centerpieces.
Indoor Photography of Wedding Table Centerpieces
When the wedding reception is indoors, we take pictures of the wedding table centerpieces using a tripod as well as using bounced flash. If there is enough available sunlight, we can also take wedding table centerpiece pictures using our lenses with a wide open aperture. Our Nikon 50 mm 1.4 AF lens is a studio favorite for wedding table centerpiece detail shots. Photographing the centerpiece details at a 1.4 f-stop brings in as much light as possible and creates images where the details are tack sharp in the foreground and everything else is out of focus.
When there is not enough light to hand hold our cameras without flash, then we use the tripod to take pictures of the table centerpieces without flash. This allows us to still get wedding table centerpiece photos with the lighting provided without flash. We also take photos of the wedding table centerpieces using bounced flash off of low ceilings or a wall. This works best when the ceilings are white so that the light reflecting on the table centerpieces is a clean white light.
Artistic and Creative Photographs of Wedding Table Centerpieces
When photographing the wedding table centerpieces we shoot from all different angles in order to get a variety of creative and artistic images of the table centerpieces. We start by taking a straight on picture of the wedding table centerpieces. We proceed by taking closer and more focused pictures of the details of the wedding table centerpieces. The most artistic wedding table centerpiece images are when we use a wide open aperture and focus on one detail such as one flower so the only thing in focus is that flower and the rest of the centerpiece in the picture is out of focus.
Since wedding table centerpieces are different at each wedding, we are able to take artistic shots unique to each different wedding table centerpiece. In addition to close up pictures of the wedding table centerpieces, we also like to take some fun pictures of the centerpieces such as with a table centerpiece in focus in the foreground and the bride and groom’s first dance out of focus in the background. The type of wedding table centerpieces, the room set up, and the lighting all play into the creative images we take of the wedding table centerpieces.
Two Photographers are Better Than One
One of the reasons that our wedding packages include two photographers is so that while the first photographer is taking pictures of the bride and groom, the second photographer can be taking pictures of the details of reception site, including pictures of the table centerpieces. This is when most of the still life pictures of the table centerpieces are taken because usually it is before sunset and there is more available light. This is also a good time to take the detail shots of the wedding table centerpieces because the guests have not entered the banquet room yet and we can photograph the centerpieces and the whole room without people in the background.
Selecting Wedding Table Centerpiece Images for Your Album
A lot of planning and care is put into the details of the wedding table centerpieces, so it is no wonder that when selecting which images to use in your wedding album, a picture of the wedding table centerpiece is almost always one of the bride and groom’s choices. Wedding table centerpiece pictures make great selections for the wedding album as full page images, small images, or even as background images.