Hey future brides & grooms! It’s Paul Kwak, your local Maryland, Virginia, & Washington DC wedding videographer/filmmaker!
Your photographer will tell you exactly how to pose, be, and how much to smile – with teeth, without teeth, just a smidgen, etc…..but what do you do in front of OUR cameras?
HAIR & MAKEUP/GETTING READY:
Many times we tell our couples to pretend that we are not there. During the getting ready portion of your day, that is a little easier to heed. The brides have to sit there and not move too much anyways, so we like the reality of those situations. If a bride is grinning from teeth to teeth while getting her hair did, that’d be scary….
COUPLES PORTRAITS:
For couples portraits and sessions on the wedding day, many times after the photographer is done with a specific pose or setup, I will tell you guys to simply “Hold that pose!!” and sweep right in like an eagle and get my shot and move on. Literally can take 2 seconds sometimes.
Sometimes I will ask you to simply walk towards me looking at each other (without tripping in front of a large rock of course or falling down a set of stairs – none of which has ever happened, thank God!)
Sometimes I will ask the groom to twirl his bride like a ballerina to have her dress catch in the air.
If there is a little more cushion room in your schedule, we’ll get you guys in some epic, vast landscapes….
DON’TS:
What you DON’T want to do is pose in front of our cameras the way you typically would in front of a photographer’s camera, namely looking right at the lens, smiling big with a lot of teeth. We do rarely ask you to do the aforementioned things sometimes, but many times the photographer’s pose on video will look just like that – a pose for the photographer. It definitely looks – I hate to use the word staged or fake, but…… not authentic.
BEING YOURSELF:
Even though some of the direction coming from us is technically staged, the words used from us are at a minimum, creating an atmosphere and room for you two to take over and be yourself in those moments. And it shows in our films because these moments seamlessly fit right in with our editing style and looks and feels authentic with the tone of our films.
Now there are also moments we do not pose, but direct you two to just be as well. These candid moments are gold simply because generally in a timeline of a wedding day, things can feel rushed and hectic sometimes. These moments stick out because they’re pure and everything else going on throughout the day temporarily becomes a blindspot.
SUMMARY:
So to summarize, you DON’T need to worry how to pose. Your photographer will direct you well and the photographers and us can piggyback off each other. A lot of the day is trusting your photographer and your videographer and that we’ll direct and ultimately edit your wedding day into the masterpieces they deserve to be!
