Blakelee + Cooper's Bridal Session at Dead Horse Point | Moab, Utah
It was in the middle of my dead season that my high school best friend and I were talking about her wedding photos. We had saved her wedding portraits until the end of the day so that she and her new husband could enjoy as much of their wedding day as possible - something I 100% encourage. The only downside is that she felt that they were both so tired for their wedding portraits, and she felt it showed in their pictures.
(I disagree, but maybe that’s because I’m biased and think she always looks like a babe)
Bridal portraits are a really big part of the wedding culture in Utah and Texas. I remember when I first moved out to Colorado, I had a ‘bridal session’ included in my top wedding package, and every single client asked me what it was.
Needless to say, it didn’t take me too long to take it off of my packages.
This session has me totally rethinking that, though. I think your couples portraits are one of the most important things you can do in regards to your wedding. I think the priorities should be something like this:
1) Celebrate your new marriage with your closest loved ones
2) Create keepsakes that you LOVE that you can cherish forever.
Your wedding day only happens once, and it’ll be over so fast. If you do a separate bridal session you get gorgeous images back and you have to take less time for portraits on your wedding day. Of course, I completely understand that this is a biased point of view because I’m a wedding photographer and would gladly spend every day for the rest of eternity with beautiful couples in Moab, Utah. But I had a bridal session when I got married, too, and I honestly love them more than my wedding photos.
I would highly consider a bridal session if any of these apply to you:
Your wedding timeline feels crunched. You want to be able to be in two places at once, and the last thing you want to do is spend time with your photographer (no matter HOW COOL she is *wink wink*) when your family is celebrating you
You want pictures at a place that isn’t your venue. Who says you can’t have gorgeous mountain wedding photos if you’re getting married at a hotel? Not me :)
You want to have photo mementos to show who you two are together, and couples portraits are really important to you
You need extra time to warm up in front of the camera
Your timeline won’t allow you to take pictures during Golden Hour (the hour before sunset)
After I talked to Blakelee, we started to set up this adventure. We picked a date two months in advance, and started setting up the details.
I don’t know how we did it, but we chose the rainiest weekend possible. Our sunset session turned into a Sunrise session, and by some miracle from heaven, it stopped raining long enough for us to get some gorgeous photographs.
Not so miraculous was our trip home. We got stuck in the aftermath of an avalanche. That meant we were in stopped traffic for a couple of hours, and really, really slow traffic for several more hours. Our 8 hour drive home ended up being a lot longer. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
We spent a lot of time listening to Crime Junkies (a podcast, that I highly recommend to any other true crime fans), chatting, napping (okay that was mostly me), and taking selfies amidst stopped traffic. It really was an adventure, and I’m so grateful that Cooper and Blakelee are resilient enough to be good company after witnessing me pee on the side of the highway. (Stopped traffic and I was desperate, alright?)
That’s all for now! If you didn’t love your wedding photos, I think you should contact me and we can set up an adventure of our own. I promise I’ll try to use a restroom :)
Julia
