Venue Discussion

Why would you be taking photos after dinner? I don't quite understand.

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Any photos after dinner I would be taking either inside or near lighted areas (like the gazebo). I plan to go there in between the ceremony and reception for photos

So my wedding is on 11/07/20 the weekend after daylight savings so I'm in the same boat. I wanted the wedding party and FH to come early so we could do pictures before the ceremony. FH does not want to do a first look so I'm going to have to deal will dark pictures at night, because our ceremony is at 4:30 pm. I had talked to our photographer and they can use lights to make it look better when we take pictures outside in the gazebo.


So either do the first look and get the pictures you are looking for or see if your photographer can do their magic! Good luck.

I had my wedding this past November (11/09/19). We had our ceremony at 530, so it was dark by the time we were saying I Do so the windows didn't show much. BUT if you have your ceremony around 4pm then you'd be fine. We also took first look photos so that we could have the light.

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Thank you for the advice! I think that we will have to choose an earlier ceremony time

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Thank you! I was thinking of moving the ceremony up to get pictures on the course before it gets dark

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The majority of your photos should be taken before the reception. Is there a specific reason or specific photos you'd want to leave the reception to take after dinner?

My brother-in-law got married on a golf course and they took photos at sunset of just the two of them and they turned out really pretty. They left their reception for probably about 30 minutes to go take the photos because they wanted ones at sunset. If you don't want sunset photos, I would move up the start of your ceremony.

I think doing a 4:00 or 4:30 ceremony time, plus doing a first look, is your best option to get the best photos. You can also take photos after the ceremony during cocktail hour when it’s beginning to get dark which will give you several different lighting options in your photos (before, during, & after ceremony).

We had all our ceremony at 3:00 so all our photos were done by 4:30

We're getting married at a country club in October - won't be quite as dark then, but the sun will still set relatively early.

Our ceremony is at 4:30. We're doing a first look and taking some family portraits beforehand, then doing our remaining outdoor pictures during cocktail hour.

I'd talk to your venue & photographer about a timeline to ensure you get the photos you want. I'm sure they're both very experienced and will have plenty of suggestions for you.

If you have a photographer, I would ask them their thoughts on the best time for lighting purposes. My photographer checked when sunset would be on our day then based when she would have the best light off that. We set our ceremony time around this.