Photography dilemma

[aholen]

Hi Ladies,

 

I'm having a photography dilemma. We're trying to decide how many hours of photography to book. Our ceremony is at 2:00 in the afternoon in June in Mexico, so it will be hot, hot, hot. I don't have a strong need for reception pics, but I'm concerned that if we book just 3 hours of photography, our pictures will look terrible since we'll be hot, red & sweaty.  In order to get sunset pictures, or just pictures after it's cooled down some, we'd need at least 7 hours of photography, obviously much more expensive.

 

I'd love some advice here! Especially from those of you that had early afternoon weddings in Mexico!

 

Thanks!

[fmichelle]

I would see if you can have a later ceremony, if possible.  If it's going to be too hot to take pics, then it's going to be hot for your guests as well during the ceremony.  If the wedding time is set and not changeable, you're going to have to decided if you really need the "getting ready pics."  Some of them can be really artsy and beautiful, and a great way to remember the anticipation and excitement before the big moment. I'm planning just a half hour of getting ready shots for ours. Then you have to take into account that the ceremony will be between 15-30 minutes, depending upon who is running it. So that's about at least an hour there.  Usually people will do some couples and "posed" shots for the following hour while the guests have their cocktail hour.  Then you can have an additional hour after that, cut your cake at the beginning of the reception to make sure you have some nice high quality photos of that.  An alternative to the nice "sunset shots" that day would be a trash the dress the following day during golden hour (the hour before the sun sets)  So three hours on the wedding day and maybe 1 1/2 hours the following day may get you what you need and should be cheaper than seven hours on one day.  And then you can put disposable or cheap digital cameras on every table to get some cute and fun reception shots, which usually aren't all that artistic anyway. Hope that helps!