Hi, I have a wedding coming up and the ceremony will be outside under “carport” and 1,5 hours after the sunset, I’m really worried how it will turn out, has anyone done it before? I can’t find much inspo for after dark wedding ceremony. The bride said there will be some Christmas lights hanging. Also for the portraits they would like to move it under the oak tree, which will be in a complete dark. Should I bring strobe lights for that or flash would be enough?
That concept is not photography-friendly. I once shot a wedding during the day, and I was planning to do the group shots right after the cerimony with plenty of light and everyone was roaming the place for snacks and talking. It was the best time of the day for that. The mood was nice, the weather was great, but then… The bride and groom, specially the groom, a close friend of mine from high school, told me “we’re running late, lets go inside for lunch and we do the group shots later”.
He always told me from the start that those “standard” photos were not their priority, they prefer casual, candic photos. I’m fine with that, but I told him to remember the 100s of guests they were having, and people ALWAYS loved to have group photos. If not for themselves, for the guests. The old people, grannys, uncles, aunts, and so on. They ALWAYS want the traditional group photo with the bride and groom. As for the rest of the photos I was more than happy to shoot as they wanted. In fact, they loved how the photos came out in the end.
But we had that issue of the group photos. They posponed them for later, but “after lunch” was actually AT NIGHT! So I got a hundred guests wanting to take photos with the bride and groom.
I had my flash with me and I used a fixed lamp near a wall of stone. Was a nice scenario, but I felt the light was faulty. I managed to carry out the group photos with a mix of luck, skill in the lighting and people position.
Guests knew the groom was the one to blame, so I was not subject to the guest’s pressure for the lack of quality of the group photos. The groom also told the guests that was his fault too so they don’t blame on the photographer…
Anyway, the photos came out relatively nice for the scenario and I even got a bunch of print orders from guests.
Photos at night need a LOT of light. Ideally, without flash so you don’t depend on batteries. Get permanent light, with tripods or lamps, whatever. Just get some light spots to make the scene well lit. Remember: there is no such thing as too much light… (during the night, at least).
Thank you for sharing! I’ll let you know how mine goes this Saturday! I agree the more light the better!