Among the most crucial choices when the time comes to organize a wedding is deciding when to hold the ceremony: morning or evening? There are many elements to take into consideration: from the possible preferences of the guests - especially if there are many children and elderly people - to the season, without forgetting of course what the couple likes most. Finally, among the selection criteria the photographic service cannot be missing. An evening wedding affects the photographs and tone of the album exponentially.
Don't worry though: I'm only talking about style, not quality. In fact, a good professional wedding photographer knows how to get by both under the baking sun of a summer morning and under the moonlight of a beautiful spring evening. Indeed, just as the daytime wedding offers some advantages when it comes to photos, the evening one also has its unique points.
Advantages of evening wedding for photo shoot
Unfortunately, sometimes the spouses come to the conclusion that the evening wedding entails serious limitations for photography. Attributing a consequentiality between light and photos is natural, but not therefore correct. As mentioned, an evening wedding does not constitute a limit to the photo shoot, any more than a wedding at the seaside rather than in the mountains, or in the city instead of a farmhouse in the countryside, and vice versa.
In other words, it is not a question of better or worse, but of two different settings. The secret of us professional wedding photographers lies in knowing which best aspects each circumstance presents and focusing on those to obtain the maximum result: that is, a wedding album that leaves the couple without anything. Discover the advantages of choosing an online photo album.
The main advantage of an evening wedding and how it affects photography is certainly the more suggestive and romantic atmosphere. In fact, this is the reason why many opt for this version. Moonlight, soft lights, outdoor candles, white lanterns flying in the sky and fireworks are small touches that can transform the ceremony and banquet into a fairy tale: but above all these are elements that could never be present in a daytime wedding.
Clearly this atmosphere is reflected in the service that we professional wedding photographers offer. Our evening albums contain shots of enormous emotional impact, which are perfectly suited to being printed in multiple versions. Parallel to romance, the feeling of elegance also increases. The lights that are reflected in the services of the set tables, the contrast between the dark and light of the decorations and the bride's dress, and a more gala dress code mean that the evening wedding influences the photography also from the point of view of the refinement of the shots.
Finally, a wedding ceremony - and above all a party - at sunset adds a pinch of young energy to your event. For both the organizer of the celebration and the wedding photographer, it is easier to create the club feeling, with laser lights and disco party sets.
Wedding in the evening? Leave it to us
The wedding photography studio is very well prepared when it comes to moving to an evening location. Both from a technical and equipment point of view - which I will talk about specifically a little later - and as regards what are the unmissable shots of the ceremony.
Some examples of evening shots for your wedding that we recommend are:
Guests and newlyweds dancing.
The bride and groom kissing with fireworks or other trails of light in the background.
The bride and groom lighting a lantern before letting it fly.
The external location still empty and illuminated.
Specific information on the topic, for photography enthusiasts
Evening wedding photography deserves a technical aside to explain how we professional photographers of the bride and groom keep the quality of the shots unchanged even at night. Let's first talk about the main obstacles, so as to clarify what a professional has to face during an evening wedding.
First of all, if there are many artificial lights of different colors, it will not be easy to calculate the white balance. Furthermore, artificial light sources, and poor natural light, contribute to working against automatic exposure measurement. Finally, every professional photographer knows that at night it is essential to keep the camera absolutely still.
Now that we have revealed these problems, let's move on to how to solve and/or work around them to obtain excellent evening photographs. When we set up the camera, we need to make sure that the ISO is not too high, no more than ISO 1600 in general (although there are exceptions, of course). This allows you to reduce noise, which would otherwise be particularly visible in the dark areas of the photo. Still for noise correction, we then choose the raw format, which also facilitates the correction of the white balance. As a final general consideration, remember to always choose manual shooting - or at least shutter priority shooting - because in low light automatic focusing never gives good results, or doesn't work at all.