So what if it rains on your wedding pictures? Part 2

Your big day arrives and uh oh, gray clouds are drizzling down your plans for a sun shiny day taking photos outdoors in scenic surroundings.

Those weather forecasters were toying with you all week! Now what are you going to do? What are the choices? Find a hotel lobby to take your pictures in? Linger at the ceremony site and take them in the lobby, if possible? A little nook at the reception site somewhere? Perhaps.

Of course, you depend on the photographer you hired for the answer.

I’d venture to say that most photographers would seek out a spot somewhere indoors at the reception site where they’ll then take the portraits of the bridal party, the two of you and your families. Aesthetically speaking however, the problem becomes that chances are it’s a tight little nook or cramped area with a not so desirable background or bordering elements and/or onlooking guests are floating around getting into the frame, as is the wait staff going about their duties to and fro, along with exit signs, fire extinguishers, other signs, wall outlets, crookedly hung paintings and whatever assorted other elements that, in a still photo, would be undesirable in your portrait images.

I’ve had the banquet hall manager point me to a blue drape for a spot to take photos in front of. I thought they were kidding! That would look like I took the portraits in 1969 (“That’s what all the other photographers do” is exactly what they told me. Even more reason my instincts pull in a different direction). Another well known venue has a little room, if it’s not being used by another party, which resembles a small living room. Many such bridal suites are not much bigger than a walk-in closet. Add in all the bags the bridal party brings with them and parks there and catering trays half-eaten off of and people stuffed into the room, and once again, it’s not at all much of any space to get much of a decent image out of, while other popular catering halls may offer a small communal area that’s basically a wall and a fireplace with people wandering around it. The Westbury Manor, Jericho Terrace, Swan Club, for example, all have areas just like that.

(Note: For the record, I don’t line people up in front of fireplaces for portraits. That’s what camera-hobbyists do. It seems to be a standard pose, and maybe lots of other photographers do it too, but to me it looks like the kind of rudimentary shot any guest would take, and I’m hired to do a much more creative job than a guest.)

So making the best out of a tight area is where the creativity and expertise of your photographer counts (that’s not the time to realize that it’s for reasons such as this that hiring someone who doesn’t have a whole lot of experience in the field may not have exactly been in your best interest).

When your photographer is faced with limitations, one of two things will likely happen: Whoever you hired will either acquiesce to the surroundings, shrug their shoulders saying “well, we don’t have a choice”, seeing it as a limitation and snap some standard shots of the in-front-of-fireplace kind (being the easiest, quickest thing to do), while some others may put on their thinking caps to give it that extra to figure out how to achieve the goal of portrait quality images in the face of these less-than-portrait-quality circumstances.

You probably came to this blog post looking for what to do for photos if it rains at your wedding, or came looking for places to take wedding photographs if it rains on your wedding day. But what I say is, it’s not about what to do if it rains. Weather doesn’t matter. You can’t stop rain. You will be going indoors or under cover somewhere. Then it’s totally about the ability and expertise of the photographer you hired to know how to turn it from a shot that obviously appears to have been taken by the escalator bank to looking like it was created in a studio.

So I’m not concerned about precipitation. And in the hands of a skilled photographer, neither should you.

Here’s an image I created on a rainy wedding day inside a very tight room at the Three Village Inn in Stony Brook, New York.

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