SCHEDULE EXPLANATIONS
Please read over the below information which will help you fill in your schedule.
Please do not wait for the last week to send us your schedule, we need time to organize things on our part as well.
Hi There!
We’re excited to be a part of your upcoming wedding & the time has come to start working on your wedding day schedule. It’s important for us to help make sure that your wedding day runs smoothly. For that reason, we have put together information you may find helpful in planning your day. In the email you received to get here, you’ll find attached our Schedule Template.
Depending on your culture, or the way you have decided to plan your day, the order in which the Ceremony, Couple photos and Family photos take place may be different from this template (for example if you are doing a first look). Simply change the wording around so that it is in the correct order for your wedding.
Fill out as much information as you can regarding the timeline, address, postal code, cross street, names and phone numbers. Regarding addresses, if your locations cannot be found using Google Maps (http://maps.google.ca/), then please provide very detailed directions to your locations. We cannot advise you regarding the timing of your day until we have the addresses of your locations. Please also advise us if you know of any roadwork around your area or where events are taking place that might affect traffic and the time to get to the specific locations.
TIMING / The usual time we allocate at various locations is as follows:
Groom’s preparations: 1 - 1 1/2 hours
Bride’s preparations: 1 - 1 1/2 hours
Ceremony: 1 hour
Family pictures and bridal party after the ceremony: 1/2 - 1 hour
Couple pictures: 1 - 2 hours
The times vary depending on the number of people in the bridal party or close family. Please also remember to leave enough time between locations for travel. If you think you need more time at a specific location, please explain why, as these suggestions are based on 30 years of experience and help to create a good flow for the day. Occasionally, Bride’s feel they need 2 to 3 hours for the photos/videos of Bride’s preparations, however we can assure you that 95% of the time, this is not necessary, but if you feel it is, we can discuss 🙂
LOCATIONS for family & couple pictures: If you have locations in mind please write them in your schedule.
FOR FAMILY pictures we STRONGLY suggest you take the family photos & videos at the same area where the ceremony is taking place. You have to find out from the church/synagogue/temple/venue whether there is time after your ceremony to do so though because sometimes there will be another wedding scheduled immediately following yours. You also need to ask permission to remain inside the church/synagogue/temple/venue for family pictures in case of rain. If you really don’t want the family pictures at the church/synagogue/temple/venue then we suggest taking them at the reception hall when you first arrive at that location. Unless you have a HUGE family, then 30 minutes is usually enough time for us to take the family pictures. Generally it is not necessary to bring your family with you on location to your bridal party and couples pictures. The reason is because it takes too much time waiting for everyone to leave the ceremony, driving to the locations, finding parking, hoping no one gets lost, etc. You can end up spending most of your time waiting around for people then you are actually taking photos & videos! So we really suggest the family session taken at the ceremony site.
FOR COUPLES & BRIDAL PARTY pictures, please let us know if you have a specific location(s) in mind or whether you’d like some ideas (please let us know if you prefer nature or urban style shots or something else).
RAIN LOCATION: Please do not forget to put a backup rain location. This is not always obvious, but we need to have a plan B in case of bad weather. It can be the reception venue, a bar, a restaurant, a Historical building that you can gain access to, or any other indoor area or covered area in case of rain or bad weather.
We created an online gallery with some ideas of rain locations. You can get inspiration from it or surprise us with your own ideas 🙂
Click on the link below to access our gallery.
FOR FAMILY pictures we STRONGLY suggest you take the family photos & videos at the same area where the ceremony is taking place. You have to find out from the church/synagogue/temple/venue whether there is time after your ceremony to do so though because sometimes there will be another wedding scheduled immediately following yours. You also need to ask permission to remain inside the church/synagogue/temple/venue for family pictures in case of rain. If you really don’t want the family pictures at the church/synagogue/temple/venue then we suggest taking them at the reception hall when you first arrive at that location. Unless you have a HUGE family, then 30 minutes is usually enough time for us to take the family pictures. Generally it is not necessary to bring your family with you on location to your bridal party and couples pictures. The reason is because it takes too much time waiting for everyone to leave the ceremony, driving to the locations, finding parking, hoping no one gets lost, etc. You can end up spending most of your time waiting around for people then you are actually taking photos & videos! So we really suggest the family session taken at the ceremony site.
FOR COUPLES & BRIDAL PARTY pictures, please let us know if you have a specific location(s) in mind or whether you’d like some ideas (please let us know if you prefer nature or urban style shots or something else).
RAIN LOCATION: Please do not forget to put a backup rain location. This is not always obvious, but we need to have a plan B in case of bad weather. It can be the reception venue, a bar, a restaurant, a Historical building that you can gain access to, or any other indoor area or covered area in case of rain or bad weather.
We created an online gallery with some ideas of rain locations. You can get inspiration from it or surprise us with your own ideas 🙂
Click on the link below to access our gallery.
PASSWORD FOR THIS GALLERY IS: RAIN
IMPORTANT: You need to verify by calling your location(s) as to whether there are entrance fees, or whether a permit or permission is required to shoot there. It is your responsibility to call and determine whether permits/permission/fees apply.
FOR SPECIAL PICTURES: You don’t have to write down pictures such as: Exchanging of the rings, bride with her parents, groom with his parents etc. since those are pictures we always take. You can write down the ones that are special to you. Examples: Yourself with your dog or cat. A picture of you and your spouse in front of a particular location. Yourself with an out of town cousin or with your group of childhood friends.
CEREMONY: Please advise us if there are any church/synagogue/temple and/or priest specific instructions regarding photography or cinematography.
LIMOUSINES: Please make sure that you have booked enough time with your limousines or car rental company. We have noticed that some of these companies book another job immediately after your wedding and leave no margin for delays. You can send them the schedule so you have proof that you sent it. Even with sending this message, car issues still happen at 25% of the weddings we shoot.
MAKEUP & HAIR: Please make sure that your hair and makeup people are aware of your schedule. From time to time hair & make-up have no clue of the schedule and this can cause major delays as well. This point is super important, as too often, hair & make-up throw the schedule completely off course. As an example, if your ceremony is at 3pm and you need to leave at 2:30pm, then your hair and makeup should be 100% complete by 1pm….NOT complete at 2:30pm, otherwise no time for photos or videos. Even with sending this message, make-up & hair issues still happen at 25% of the weddings we shoot. Just letting you know.
MEAL FOR OUR CREW: Please do not forget the meal for the photographer / cinematographer & assistants. Also, please make sure they are seated in the same room as you since they need to capture of all key moments of the reception. People sometimes think they are doing us a favor by giving us our own little private room to eat….but the reality is that it is a dis-service to yourself, because if we are not in the same room as you, we can not see all the events happening as we eat. So please, keep us in the same room as you, we want / need to be where the action is at 🙂
PLEASE RETURN YOUR SCHEDULE by email to: yourwedding@debellephotography.com. Once we have received your schedule with all the information filled out, we will then call or email you a couple weeks before your wedding to review the schedule and let you know if the timeline is OK and to discuss any questions you may have. Do your very best to complete it as fully as possible before returning it to us.
Please do not wait for the last week to send us your schedule, we need time to organize things on our part as well. The sooner you return it to us, the sooner we will contact you to finalize it. We will also brief all of our photographers & cinematographers on everything regarding your wedding, so it is best to provide us with all the information you can so we can prepare them.
Thanks very much and we look forward to working with you this year 🙂
BONUS TIP: Let it go & let it flow
Once the big day arrives, let it go and let it flow. By this point you have done everything you can to make your day the best.. Don’t try to control anything, just flow through the day and enjoy. You can never control all of the moving parts around you & some things may even break or not go as expected, but there’s nothing you can do to control that, so just let everyone that you hire do their jobs and just go with the flow & your day will be an awesome one 🙂
FOR SPECIAL PICTURES: You don’t have to write down pictures such as: Exchanging of the rings, bride with her parents, groom with his parents etc. since those are pictures we always take. You can write down the ones that are special to you. Examples: Yourself with your dog or cat. A picture of you and your spouse in front of a particular location. Yourself with an out of town cousin or with your group of childhood friends.
CEREMONY: Please advise us if there are any church/synagogue/temple and/or priest specific instructions regarding photography or cinematography.
LIMOUSINES: Please make sure that you have booked enough time with your limousines or car rental company. We have noticed that some of these companies book another job immediately after your wedding and leave no margin for delays. You can send them the schedule so you have proof that you sent it. Even with sending this message, car issues still happen at 25% of the weddings we shoot.
MAKEUP & HAIR: Please make sure that your hair and makeup people are aware of your schedule. From time to time hair & make-up have no clue of the schedule and this can cause major delays as well. This point is super important, as too often, hair & make-up throw the schedule completely off course. As an example, if your ceremony is at 3pm and you need to leave at 2:30pm, then your hair and makeup should be 100% complete by 1pm….NOT complete at 2:30pm, otherwise no time for photos or videos. Even with sending this message, make-up & hair issues still happen at 25% of the weddings we shoot. Just letting you know.
MEAL FOR OUR CREW: Please do not forget the meal for the photographer / cinematographer & assistants. Also, please make sure they are seated in the same room as you since they need to capture of all key moments of the reception. People sometimes think they are doing us a favor by giving us our own little private room to eat….but the reality is that it is a dis-service to yourself, because if we are not in the same room as you, we can not see all the events happening as we eat. So please, keep us in the same room as you, we want / need to be where the action is at 🙂
PLEASE RETURN YOUR SCHEDULE by email to: yourwedding@debellephotography.com. Once we have received your schedule with all the information filled out, we will then call or email you a couple weeks before your wedding to review the schedule and let you know if the timeline is OK and to discuss any questions you may have. Do your very best to complete it as fully as possible before returning it to us.
Please do not wait for the last week to send us your schedule, we need time to organize things on our part as well. The sooner you return it to us, the sooner we will contact you to finalize it. We will also brief all of our photographers & cinematographers on everything regarding your wedding, so it is best to provide us with all the information you can so we can prepare them.
Thanks very much and we look forward to working with you this year 🙂
BONUS TIP: Let it go & let it flow
Once the big day arrives, let it go and let it flow. By this point you have done everything you can to make your day the best.. Don’t try to control anything, just flow through the day and enjoy. You can never control all of the moving parts around you & some things may even break or not go as expected, but there’s nothing you can do to control that, so just let everyone that you hire do their jobs and just go with the flow & your day will be an awesome one 🙂
