What is the best time to get married??

jljespersen · January 27, 2008

We are getting married on November 15, 2008 at Dreams. We are having the ceremony at the Gazebo, but I am so undecided what time to have it? I know the sunset that time of year is around 5:30pm... I'm just trying to decided what is best for pictures... before, during or after sunset?

Any advice from other Dreams Brides on what they have done or what they thought would work best...

MissyR · January 27, 2008

Hey there! We are getting married November 27 at the Paradisus Riviera Maya - we are having our ceremony at 3:30 - and then doing pics afterwards... figure that will give us enough time for pictures etc. as the sun sets.

jthrasher · January 27, 2008

from a photographers point of view, it's nice to do some photos before sunset as well as during so that you get a nice variety of lighting.

Personally, I like to have an hour or so before sunset to take photos and then maybe 30 mins during. Once the sun starts to go down, you lose the really good light really fast. The best light is 15-30 mins before the sun sets.

cheese_diva · January 27, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by jthrasherphoto.com

Once the sun starts to go down, you lose the really good light really fast.

Agreed.. we had our ceremony at 4:15 (I think?) and the sun was in my bridesmaids eyes the whole time.. after the ceremony we were able to take a bunch of pictures but I would have liked more sunset time. (It was daylight savings that day)

Be careful with the gazebo because you have the shadow/light thing working against you. A photographer wrote a long post about how our eyes can adjust between the two but it's tricky for the photographer's lense to the do the same.

I would look back at previous brides from Nov/Dec and see what they did. search sunset and you should find a bunch.

Clussy75 · January 29, 2008

We had our ceremony at 4PM (Nov. 11th at the Gazebo there at Dreams) and honestly, the sun was pretty blinding and the video showed us as a bit too bright [read: quite glowing actually] so I'd advise to have it a bit later. Tough call though, because we actually got some really nice sunset shots on the beach after the ceremony (which we really wanted) so I'm not sure what the right answer is. It just depends on what's more important to you in terms of ceremony sun strength or sunset pictures. 4:30 sounds like a good time for the ceremony at that time of the year though.