Summer Heritage Gardens Wedding with Sydney & Michael

Grab some popcorn, this is a long blog post with a bunch of wedding photos for Sydney and Michael’s wedding. A while back I posted their engagement photos at the Loft Studio. The wedding was held at Sandy’s Heritage Gardens in the summer.

We started off the day with the getting ready photos. I jump between the bride’s room and the groom’s room. I capture the details such as dress, shoes, boutonnieres, flowers, and more. We also ended up with a few “blackmail” photos of people doing shots before the ceremony. Fun!

Wedding dress

Sydney shows off her dress

Bride’s shoes

It’s also a great time to photograph the bride with her bridesmaids or groom and the dudes.

Bridal party

And then we have the wedding ceremony. Heritage Gardens will usually have the ceremony indoors with the large windows as the background for the ceremony. And this is why you want a professional photographer—it can be a challenge photographing with all the light coming through the window. We also have to balance the color and quality of the light from the window.

Dad watches his daughter the bride

Walking down the aisle

Wedding ceremony at Heritage Gardens

Exchanging vows

And I had no idea there would be a dip for the first kiss. It happens so fast.

Bride is dipped during the first kiss

Man and wife

And be sure to stop at the end of the aisle for another kiss. I’ll remind you, but be prepared to stop.

Kiss at the end of the recession

We then photographed the family, friends, wedding party, and finally the bride and groom. We did all of these photos after the ceremony so the bride and groom would not see each other before hand. It has become popular to photograph the family, friends, and couple before the ceremony. So there is more time for partying after the ceremony.

Taking advantage of the gardens

For the portraits, I like to start with everyone and work our way down to the bride and groom ( or spouse 1 and spouse 2 if the couple is LGBT).

Different poses with the bride and groom

Formal wedding portraits

And there are a lot of options for the wedding party. We typically follow tradition, but we can be as flexible as needed. If you have a list, great. If you don’t have a list, we’ll shoot till you can’t think of any more combos.

The wedding party

The bridal party

We photograph the groom with each groomsman

Then we took Sydney and Michael around the gardens for their formal portraits. And at one point, during golden hour, we had the perfect light. I even shot a bunch of natural light photos. We had Michael step out for some bridal portraits as well. We ended up with some amazing portfolio pieces for sure.

Sydney & Michael

Formal wedding portraits

Dipping the bride

Creating candid moments

A bridal portrait at golden hour

Capturing the bride’s hair

A bridal portrait

Formal wedding photos at golden hour

Natural light for the win

Golden light is the perfect time for photos

Creating moments

Then we had the traditional activities of cutting the cake, tossing a bouquet, and the bride’s garter belt.

The couple’s first dance

Daddy daughter dance

Mother and son dance

The wedding cake

Cutting the wedding cake

We also documented the repair of a wardrobe malfunction. The strap had snapped and one of the mothers had some made sewing skills and tools to fix the strap.