Dressing Up For Wedding Portraits

Did you know that many years ago it was considered poor taste and bad manners to take pictures of people that were candid?  Photos were thought to be something that you should prepare and pose for.  If you look at photographs from a century ago and even several decades ago you may notice that very rarely do you see pictures that are candid and spontaneous and that express any emotion whatsoever.

This may explain why so many poses for portraits were also what you might call stiff and formal.  The subjects would either sit or stand and be staring directly at the camera.  Portraits of couples usually had one sitting with the other standing, and sometimes a mother would be holding her baby, but that was about it when it came to the variety of poses for portraits.

Today’s pictures are of course anything but stiff and formal, especially when it comes to wedding portraits.  Even the most elegant of couples still want some personality and emotion expressed in their wedding photographs and portraits, and many want to have some fun with them as well!

Wedding Portrait Ideas

If you’re the photographer at a wedding it will probably fall to you to take responsibility to convey this in wedding portraits.  You may need to dress up the pose, the angle, the lighting, and the decorative elements in them to accomplish this.

Have the couple pose by looking at each other rather than the camera.  They can share a quick kiss while the husband pulls the bride’s veil around them.  Many also have the couple even walking away from the camera, as if walking toward their new life together.  They can also be looking out a window, the bride in front of her groom with his arms around her waist.

Couples that want to have fun with their portraits can be bouncing on a trampoline, tossing a beach ball between them, having the bride being carried “piggyback” by the groom, and so on.

Studying other portraits and pictures of weddings can help with your own wedding portraits and photographs and their poses.  Be inspired by what you see and use those pictures as an example of how dressing up your poses can really improve the quality of your wedding portraits.

(Dressing Up Those Wedding Portraits)