Bridals & Formals

Bridals and Formal Sessions

I LOVE doing a bridal session (bride alone) or formal session (bride & groom together) with a couple prior to their wedding day. Some of the many reasons I love to do bridals and formals are:

Wedding Day is Always a Rush.
It is stressful. There is never enough time to do everything, so there are trade-offs that must be made. By doing a bridal session ahead of the wedding day, we can relax and take our time and even have a good time taking pictures. With the extra time to go on location, to set up and pose, the images captured can be much higher quality and you can look much more relaxed and in control.

Details
Your dress, your style, your look, is important. On wedding day sometimes there is not enough time to capture all the little details. The hair, the necklace, the earrings, the designs in the dress. A bridal session lets us slow down and concentrate on those areas to a much greater degree.

Practice Makes Perfect
I have had so many brides tell me that they were thankful for the opportunity to do bridals. Trying on a dress in the store is one thing, but actually wearing it out in public, doing the things you will need to do (bend over, raise your arms, wear the dress for more than a few minutes) helps raise awareness of adjustments that may be necessary. Without the bridal session you may be in for a surprise on wedding day.

What the brides have to say:

I always wanted to have bridal pictures done. It's a day that you, as the bride, get to get all dolled up and feel like a model. It gets you so excited to put on your wedding dress and marry that man of your dreams. When I had my bridals done, my mom and sisters were able to come with me which made for a fun experience for all of us.

I'm very happy now that I am married that I did do bridals. I now can look at the pictures and remember how beautiful my dress was! Having bridals done just accentuated the wedding and made it that much more memorable. I'd definitely recommend it!

- Rebekah Pinegar

Why do bridals? Why not?

I absolutely love my bridal pictures. They are my favorites and I had the hardest time choosing the ones I wanted to print for the wedding. Before I got engaged I never really thought if I wanted bridals or not, but when the time came I automatically decided that I wanted bridals.

Growing up, every girl wants to be a princess and doing bridals gave me a chance to wear a big dress and be a princess for a day. A wedding dress can be so expensive and is only worn for a day, I think that doing bridals gave me a chance to wear the dress more than once and really show how pretty it was. It also gave me an opportunity to express my personality and it made me feel pretty and special.

Looking back now, I would do bridals again. There are some many things that go into planning a wedding, but pictures are one of the things that stays. I can look at them when I'm older and I can share them with my grandchildren and they can see what I used to look like. My bridal pictures are something that I will always treasure. I plan on always keeping a picture from my bridals up on my house.

- Paulina Crossley

I always wanted to do bridals. I wanted to get to wear my dress for one extra day and get to do my hair and makeup and feel like the bride for more than the reception. I'm still glad today that I did my bridals. I had a great photographer who knew how to position me and get just the right shots so that during the shoot and now looking at the pictures I feel like I was special and that I looked beautiful. Getting married and planning the wedding is hard and stressful and for me my bridals were fun, about me and I felt like a real bride, beautiful and it was fun.

- Sarah Devereaux

I think that my decision to do bridals started way back when I was 16 when I started actually thinking about my future. I would dream about how my wedding would be like and what pictures would look like, of course back then I didn't know what my future husband was going to look like and my wedding wasn't exactly my "dream wedding" because in reality for a wedding like that, you'd have to be a millionaire :) but it was pretty close. There were 2 things that I wanted more money to go into and those were; my dress, and pictures/wedding video. Mainly because I wanted to look amazing and second because I wanted the memories captured in pictures that would last after that wonderful day. Pictures that I could look at and remember everything. My bridals remind me of how beautiful my dress was and how it made me feel like a princess when I was in it. I loved the attention I got from on-lookers around me as we were taking the bridal pictures! I love having pictures of me in my wedding dress and being able to see how I looked at that time in my life. Now that i'm married there are a few things that I wish we probably wouldn't have done just because I would have more money now but bridals isn't one of them. That's one thing that was definately worth it to do for the wedding. It was just a fun experience and it's one thing that you never get to do again in your life. It's totally worth it.

- Amy Healy

I had never heard of doing bridal photos or even engagement photos prior to the wedding until moving to Utah. I had to be informed by those in the know that that was the norm, and David Terry definitely helped encourage me to do that. The pictures were awesome and if the groom had been around photos most definitely would have been rushed. It's for sure a good idea.

- Marissa Macias

I have always loved the idea of doing bridals. Mainly because It gives the bride a chance to spotlight her beauty, without having to stress about getting them done on the wedding day. I have seen many of my girlfriends do their "bridal" pictures on the actual wedding day. So instead of relaxing before the wedding, they were rushing around trying to get pictures done before the ceremony. Or missing out on visiting time with guests during the reception; because they are not only doing family pictures, newlywed pictures but also pictures of just the bride. It is also a great test run with hair, makeup, shoes and dress all together.

- Lisa Ford