Bridal Portraits

I had my portraits taken about a month before wedding day. I used it as my hair and makeup trial too, so wanted it to be close to wedding day (since alterations needed to be final unless I wanted to pay extra) but have a little flex in case I needed to find new hair and makeup. We took the photos at the venue since it was an included perk as party of our venue package. Since it was just me and the photographer we got to have more fun with it than we might have done on wedding day.


t was totally worth it to me because we took zero portraits of me on wedding day! 😓 I guess that’s kind of expected when you do portraits n advance. We didn’t even get through all the portrait style photography (with family and wedding party) that I wanted on wedding day because it was 1) too hot, way hotter than normal that day: and 2) ran out of time when we cut cocktail hour short in order to start dinner sooner (again becauSe it was too hot to keep people outside for cocktail hour).

Now, I will say, the draw back was that we didn’t quite work my portraits into our wedding album... so I had to create and order a separate album in order to get copies of my portrait photos. I had ordered one print from the portraits to display on wedding day but gifted it to my parents. And the more I thought about not having copies of the bridal portraits, the more I knew I had to splurge on the second album.

Hey Kristen!!

Usually, bridal portraits are taken about a month or two before your actual wedding. As Rachel suggested, it’s a great idea to get your hair and makeup trial done on the same day to try and emulate what you will look like on your actual wedding day. It also means that there is a good chance that any alterations that need to be done on your dress are completed.

Do you want to take your bridal photos at your venue? If so, I would contact them and ask what their stance is on this, and what days they have available if it’s possible.

Have you booked your photographer already? If so, you can discuss availability with them for your bridal portraits.