We can’t over-emphasise just how important this section of the day is. The drinks reception is a time for everyone to relax a little and will be the first proper opportunity for you and the guests to chat.
The drinks reception is the busiest point of the day in terms of photos and we love the variety and excitement of this section of the wedding day.
We always do our best to fit in with the venue, but as a rule, these are the timings we need to do our job properly:
We need longer as the months get darker because we lose the light so much earlier and therefore so much more has to be done during the afternoon.
The above are guidelines and every wedding is slightly different, so if you’re unsure, do talk to us and your venue about this as far in advance as you can.
We put an emphasis on this because so much photography has to be done during the drinks reception and we need a definite point at which we know we have to be completed by. We plan the entire afternoon’s work upon it and if it’s arranged with thought, means that we can get a lovely balanced set of images for you capturing the atmosphere, detail, formality and everything else that is part of this section of the day.
We ask that the venue don’t suddenly bring forward the calling-in time on the day. It’s unprofessional and generally messes up our plans! Sometimes venues try this because they think we’ll keep the two of you away for too long, but we don’t do that! If the venue need you back by a certain time, we’ll bring you back for then and won’t make you late. Promise!
As wedding photographers who like to capture the day as it happens, we find the drinks reception is where many of the best ‘candid’ moments occur. By this point in the day people are used to our presence and we find they generally just get on with enjoying themselves! The guards come down, everybody is more relaxed. Ideal conditions for capturing the atmosphere of your wedding at its best.
Although the vast majority of our pictures are unposed, arranged group photos are an important part of any wedding.
Group photos are a more organised record of you with your most important people. Although we love capturing photos of guests in a natural way, there’s no guarantee that certain people will be talking together or that we’ll be in the right place at the right time for that photo to happen. Groups then, are a record of family and friends. They don’t need to take long at all, but never underestimate how important these photos may be to you in future years.
Closer to the date, we will ask you to draw up a list of groups including the names of everybody involved. This makes the process much smoother on the day and will make you really think about who to include. You may find that other family members want to have some input – this is to be expected, but as a generational ‘thing’, they may be expecting there to be many more group photos than we’ll have time for.
We’ll work with you to ensure your groups list is manageable and relevant, so that when the time comes, they’ll feel like a natural part of the drinks reception. Groups are usually wrapped up within 20-30 minutes.
Shortly before everyone gets called in we’ll spend a bit of time photographing the room set up ready for the wedding meal.
We think the details are important. Whether you go for sparse and simple, or glitz and glam, the photos of the table details help define the signature look for your wedding. You’ve spent lots of time deciding on how everything will look so it seems right to us that we put aside a bit of time to get really great photographs before all the guests take their seats.
The speeches are a key point in the day. It doesn’t matter if they are before or after the meal, but we’d really appreciate you keeping them all together if possible.
If you’re thinking about having speeches between courses then this takes a lot more planning with accurate timings. You’ll need to talk about it in detail with the caterers as it increases pressure on them considerably. So in short, we strongly recommend not having speeches between courses! :-)
Speeches are a mix of nerves, reflection and laughter and the range of expressions we capture is amazing. And although we can’t record what is being said, we try and make our pictures remember how you felt.
