The photos from this blog were photographed at a wedding Kent Island Resort in mid-July 2022.

Kent Island resort has several lovely spaces for weddings, both indoor and outdoor. The wedding photographs in this blog took place in and around the Farmstead building, as well as the Manor house.

Here are the vendors from this wedding: 

Venue/Coordinator - www.kentislandresort.com

Hair and Makeup- Behind the Veil www.behindtheveilbeauty.com

DJ- DJ Paul Entertainment www.djpaulentertainment.com

Wedding Dress- David’s Bridal

Bridesmaid Dresses - Azazie

Florist - WildFlower Weddings www.wildflowermd.com/about/weddings/

Wedding Photography Activities with Ideal Times for Photography

Wedding day timelines can vary greatly by a couple's desires, cultures, and budgets. Ideally, each wedding will contain activities that are basic story-telling components. Not every wedding is long enough to allow all of these, but when we have the time, we help the couples fit these into their timeline. Sometimes a couple may need to decrease the time of some activities due to timeline limitations, and we do our best to fall within those constraints, but remember that the more time that we have, the more artistic photos we can take. If you have mixed genders in your wedding party, please feel free to replace bridesmaids and groomsmen with bride's people and groom's people (or bride tribe and groom entourage) in your timeline.

Basic Activities

Details photos

Ideal time 30 minutes

This will give us plenty of time to find a good location and get varied angles and depth of detail. Plus, if the hotel room is messy, or doesn't have an interesting surface, we will have time to take the items elsewhere.

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Bride Steps into Dress

Ideal time - 30 minutes

Depending on the complexity of the dress, this can vary. If the dress is easy to put on, we may only need 15-20 minutes to stage some shots of a family member or bridesmaid helping the bride with the last few buttons.

We recommend timing how long it takes to get your dress on before approving the final timeline. Also, if your dress needs any bustling before the reception, please practice and incorporate that into your timeline as well.

Groom prep

Ideal time - 15 minutes

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Like the bride, we try to incorporate the groomsmen or groom's family in the groom prep to make the activity more meaningful. We will catch a mixture of candid and posed moments. These moments can be fun, emotional, and help relieve stress just before the ceremony, so we recommend this activity in every wedding.

Bride solo portraits

Ideal time - 30 minutes

Windows give off beautiful directional light for solo portraits. During the bride's solo portraits, we focus on her, the dress, the details, her hair and makeup. We endeavor to help her portray her elegance, grace, and charm.

Groom solo portraits

Ideal time - 15 minutes

With the groom, we focus on him, his outfit, and any details like cufflinks and watches. We focus on helping him portray his confidence and presence.

Bride and bridesmaid portraits

Ideal time - 30 minutes

Here we get photos of the bride and bridesmaids in a mixture of fun and candid moments as well as posed moments. We also take time to photograph each individual bridesmaid with the bride.

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Groom and groomsmen portraits

Ideal time - 30 minutes

Same with the groomsmen. We try to capture the comradery in candids and also pose them together in various locations. We might have them do an activity that reflects things they like to normally do like playing a card game or hanging out at the bar. We also get each individual groomsmen posing with the groom.

Bride and groom portraits (Preferably during golden hour)

Ideal time - 30 minutes

Golden hour is what photographers call the last 2 hours before sunset. This is when the sun is close to the horizon and gives a beautiful glowing backlight to our subjects. Generally, this is also when we can get the best dramatic and romantic closeup and landscape imagery.

If you're in the city or the venue is surrounded by tall buildings, golden hour still helps but it won't have the same effect. If you have a venue where you chose it because of the scenery, we highly recommend scheduling this activity in 30-40 minutes before sunset, even if it means sneaking out during the reception.

Ceremony

Ideal time - 30-60 minutes

For this activity, we will have little to no involvement other than photojournalistic coverage. Before the wedding, we advise that our couples do any activities in such a way that the audience can see. In other words, try not to have any activities where your back is to the audience, or they cannot see you pushing the ring onto your spouse's hand.

Also, for important moments like the first kiss, try to hold the kiss for several seconds to ensure we can capture the photo.

Bride and Groom family formals

Ideal time - 30 minutes

We ask that the couple provide us with the list of names of each grouping, and to keep in mind that each grouping will take between 2-4 minutes to photograph depending on size. It's a good idea to start with the larger groups first, and any groups that include children, or people who have difficulty walking or standing.

Also, we ask them to notify the specific family members before the wedding day and right after the ceremony not to go to cocktail hour but to stay behind after the ceremony has ended. This way, we don't need to send someone to chase them down and hold up the family formals. If we do have to chase people down, assign helpers from each side of the family to help retrieve those who have wandered off.

Bride and groom and wedding party portraits

Ideal time - 30-45 minutes

Of course, we must get the get group photos of the entire wedding party as well. We would start off taking classic formal photos. The more time we have, the more creative and fun photos we can take.

Ceremony and reception space photos

Ideal time - 30 minutes

You have been planning this wedding for months, so we do our best to capture the details in wide, medium and tight shots. We prefer that we are allowed to access and photograph these spaces after the staff has deemed them "picture perfect" and before guests are allowed in. Also, this should be scheduled before or after other vendors like the DJ are testing their lights or walking through to set up.