Photo's Before the Ceremony?

Hi!!

We are getting married on the beach and wanted to have the ceremony at sunset (5pm ceremony in October, sunset is at 5:35pm). However, that would mean doing pictures before the Ceremony as it might be too dark after.

Is it worth doing the pictures before the ceremony or should we just move up the ceremony and not do it at sunset so that we can do pictures after? Any thoughts…what did you do?!

i think it really depends on what you envision for the day...i personally don't want to see my FI until i'm walking down the aisle, so pics before the ceremony are not an option. also, i remember seeing a thread on here awhile ago about the sun setting really quickly and that most of the bride's pics (even some ceremony ones) where kinda dark. for these reasons, we decided to move the ceremony from 5pm to 4pm.

if you don't mind seeing FI before the wedding, then you could do pics before hand and have a sunset ceremony. just remember that the closer you are to the equator, the faster the sun sets; so you might have a 15 min window rather than a half an hour one.

The sun does set very quickly down there...you basically get 15 minutes TOPS from the time it starts until it's completely down and that's not much time for pictures.

I am debating with taking pictures before the ceremony. Our ceremony is at 2 pm (earliest we could get, ugh!) so we'll have tonnes of time afterwards for pics. And it's gonna be hot at 2 pm so doing some pics before means I risk being tired, hot, and not as fresh looking for the actual ceremony.

But I'm considering maybe just taking some nice indoor (ie: air conditioned!) pics around the resort lobby and whanot, just with my FI. Might be kind of a nice intimate moment for us, because following the ceremony, we're not gonna get a second alone until later that night after the reception finishes. So I think there's advantages in that sense to doing some pictures before.

We did our pictures before the wedding and although I preferred not to see my FI, it was more important for me to have lots of pictures before dark. So we took pictures before the ceremony and then a few between the ceremony and the reception. I did not want to be gone for 2 hours taking pictures while guests wait as well as worry about not having enough light.

We are doing our pictures before hand and I was really against it initially. After my photographer recommended it, she showed me a lot of pictures that she was able to capture that she couldn't with us being on opposite ends. I noticed in most of her shots that she was able to capture the emotions of both bride and groom that most don't get to see. Another thing, the bride in the pictures seemed a lot more relaxed and happy walking down the aisle versus crying (like I know I will do). We have decided to go with our pictures before hand so I can hopefully not cry my eyes out and so we are able to capture both of us seeing each other first before everyone else. The other point my photographer made was that we were more relaxed for the wedding and for the after pictures, which made some awesome pictures of the couples pictures she showed us.

At first I was totally against seeing my FI before walking down the aisle - but my photographer set up a private "first look" moment that they captured on film, and then we took a bunch of pictures before the ceremony, which was also nice so we had some time to ourselves before having to go into "wedding mode". After our 4pm ceremony and cocktail hour, we took some other sunset pictures, but definitely wouldn't have had time to take a lot of formals between the cocktail hour and reception if we hadn't had the earlier pictures taken first.

Feel free to look through my pictures and you can see our "first look".

http://www.pictage.com/829817

Also, Carolina24 is right, the sun set very quickly - it was definitely down in less than 30 minutes.

I like the idea of a "first look" moment.

We'll be doing photos before hand so we can do them privately without being rushed to get back to the reception. Also, all the photographers I've found are way more than my original photo budget of $1500 so if i'm paying thousands of dollars for photos I want to make sure my hair and make up are fresh and that my guy isn't all sweaty in the photos of us together

I guess it all depends on what you really want.

Personally, I don't want to see my FI before the ceremony... but if having the ceremony at 5PM was our only option, than yes, I would arrange to have our pictures taken before.

This is my problem also. My ceremony is scheduled for 4pm in November, and the sun sets at 5:07. Does that mean that the sun is completely down by 5, or it starts to set at 5? I want to have the sunset ceremony, but also want to make sure I get good pics. Not sure if I should move up the ceremony or not.