How to do Pre-Wedding Consultant for Melbourne Wedding Photography, Complete Guide

The pre wedding consultant or so-called pre wedding meeting is an essential part of wedding photography service in Melbourne. The well-organised pre wedding consultant can help wedding photographer understand bride and groom’s clear perspective and also create a solid relationship between the wedding couple and photographer.

What is pre wedding consultation definition?

The pre wedding consultation is a meeting that wedding photographer make an accurate wedding day timeline, location addresses and details of wedding information for the bride and groom.

The pre wedding consultation is advised to be face to face or video virtual meeting such as via Zoom or Skype if the bride and groom are living far from wedding photographer.

When the pre wedding consultation does arrange?

The ideal of time of pre wedding meeting is arranged 2-4 weeks before the meeting. Most of bride and groom would confirm the wedding suppliers, such as celebrant, makeup, hairdresser, MC, florist, car and etc at this time.

It is a good time for wedding photographer to gather all information from the couple, if the meeting is organized too earlier, the wedding couple might not confirm everything and while the memory of conversation in the meeting would be fade out which is due to the meeting held too ealier.

In contrast, it shall avoid to be organized the pre wedding meeting last week prior to the wedding, the bride and groom can be busy and it is hard to find a time to fit both wedding couple and wedding photographer at the same time.

Where is pre wedding consultation?

The ideal of location for pre wedding consultation is the wedding photographer’s studio rather than a public coffee or restaurant. The noisy coffee shop is not convenient and private to discuss the wedding details.

Tree studio is located at 246 Coventry St South Melbourne. The couple can get 1.5 hours of free parking at Coles underground parking which it is opposite to the studio. It is also free parking after 6 pm and Sunday.

Except the free parking time, there are plenty of parking spaces in front of Tree studio and parking is affordable which it is under $2 per hour.

How long does the pre wedding consultation last?

The average time of pre wedding consultation would be 30-60 minutes. the meeting can be finished in short time, like 15-20 minutes, if the wedding is held in one location and wedding day timeline is simply and standard.

Conversely, if the wedding involves lots of traditional activity, such as Lebanese, Asian wedding and Jewish wedding, the pre wedding meeting can be upon one hour.

There is no certain rule of accurate time of pre wedding consultant, but at the bottom line, the wedding photographer shall get clear information of wedding details, such as wedding timeline, addresses and personal contact information and not rush over the important information.

The other important purpose is to build a great rapport between the wedding couple and photographer, it is a fundamental condition to let the bride and groom feel comfortable and confident with the wedding photographer before the wedding.

The substance of pre wedding consultation workflow

First of all, we shall discuss the wedding day timeline, it is the first priority to be confirmed.

As we know, the wedding day has 5 parts in most Melbourne wedding.

1. Groom preparation
2. Bride preparation
3. Ceremony
4. Location (wedding photo location)
5. Reception

The wedding photographer can ask the bride and groom about the starting time of wedding ceremony and reception, then we’ll backward to calculate the bride and groom get ready time, and the window time between the ceremony and reception for wedding photo location time.

Wedding Ceremony Time

There are two timeframes for ceremony.

1. The bride’s arriving time at the ceremony
2. The guests and groom arrive the ceremony

The bride’s arriving time is very important. Apparently, the wedding photographer shall be fully ready at this point, because the bride would be walking down the aisle in any second on the wedding time, the photographer shall not make any negligence for this moment.

The time of guests and groom arriving time. Generally, we suggest the wedding to allocate 30 minutes before the bride arrive at the ceremony.

The guests and groom would arrive at this time, ideally the wedding photographer shall arrive this time (30 minutes before the bride arrive) as well. It is allowed the wedding photographer check his or her cameras, lenses and take the photos of guests and groom.

If the wedding ceremony is held in Melbourne city or parking is a challenge, the wedding photographer can ask more time for pre ceremony.

After the ceremony, the wedding photographer can allocate 30 minutes for mingling and family photo. If the couple have large family, the wedding photographer can leave more time for the family photo.

Bride and groom preparation time

Now, let us backward the bride and groom preparation time.

Normally, we start at groom’s preparation first because the bride and bridesmaids need more time to do makeup and hair in the morning and also the groom shall be arrived at the ceremony earlier than the bride.

However, there is also some exemption. The bride and groom get ready at the same time in a traditional wedding, it requests two wedding photographers to work at different house in the morning.

Also, sometimes, the groom’s house is close to the ceremony and the bride’s house is far away from the ceremony, or the morning time is tight. Therefore, the wedding photographer can go to the bride get ready first and take less time in the groom’s house.

The groom preparation time is advised to be 45-60 minutes.

The bride preparation time is 1.5 hours, the bride needs more time to get ready than the groom.

One thing the wedding photographer shall remind the bride is the makeup and hairdressing time. Lots of wedding makeup can be finished behind the original plan, there are many unexpected things to be occurred on the wedding day.

Therefore, all ladies which includes the bride, bridesmaid and mother of bride shall be finished 30 minutes before the wedding photographer arrives. Extra 30 minutes is a buffering time to allow the bride party makeup time is little bit behind the schedule.

The time of wedding photo location

The wedding photo location shoot is also called bridal party shoot. There are two kinds of wedding photo locations in Melbourne.

1. Wedding photo location onsite of wedding venue
2. Wedding photo location offsite of wedding venue

For wedding photo location and wedding venue are located on one place. We would suggest allocate at least one hour, it can extent to 1.5 hours and longer if the bride and groom wanted to mingle with guests or they just simply want to give more time to wedding photo location.

For the offsite wedding photo location, the wedding photo location time can be from one hour to 3 hours, you could consider the travel time in your plan. Some location, such as Carlton garden you can allocate longer time due to there is a lot of photo opportunities, and some locations such as Parliament house can be less time due to there is less photo opportunities.

Wedding reception time

Normally, the wedding photographer gives the direction of wedding timeline prior to the wedding reception. The wedding MC and DJs are in charge of the wedding reception for the first dance, cake cutting, speech and rest of evening.

However, the wedding photographer also have the authority to give some suggests to bride and groom for the evening time. Sometimes, the bride and groom want to get some sunset photo during the reception for a summer wedding.

The wedding photographer can ask the wedding couple to leave 10-15 minutes break time before the sunset for sunset photo.

In addition, some wedding reception formalities is too close each other. For instance, there is no gap between the speech and first dance, that means the bride and groom would have their first dance straight after the speech, then it leaves no time for the wedding photographer to do the preparation, such as changing the lens and set up the lighting.

In this circumstance, the wedding photographer can suggest the bride and groom to create some gap between each formality.

It also brings the immense benefits to the wedding videographer in Melbourne, the wedding videographer needs to take more time to set up the cameras, lightings and audio system.

The wedding photographer shall confirm the exact time of every wedding reception formalities:

1. First dance
2. Cake cutting
3. Speech
4. Father-daughter and mother-son dance
5. Sunset photo

The pre-wedding consultation checklist

After we got a clear timeline of the wedding day, we shall clarify all the information as much as possible.

1. Bride and groom contact number
2. Emergency contact number (it can be parents or bridesmaid and groomsmen)
3. Wedding photographer contact number
4. Address of bride and groom house, ceremony and reception
5. Wedding photo location option
6. Bridesmaid and groomsmen number and guest name
7. Flower girl and page boy number
8. Wedding photography style
9. Wedding suppliers list
10. Whether the wedding reception provide food for wedding photographer
11. Bride and groom signature on the pre wedding consultant paper

Most of information in the checklist is easy to understand. I only explain few things to make it clearly.

      2. Emergency contact number: except the bride and groom contact number, the wedding photographer also needs at least one additional emergency contact number. It can be selected from the bridal party, parents and wedding planner.

On the wedding day, the bride and groom can be quite busy and might not be able to answer the phone, we need another person who is always contactable during the wedding day.

Or sometimes, we can’t find the bride and groom during the wedding photo locations on the offsite of wedding venue, the emergency contact is practical and convenience to assist wedding photographer get quick connection with the bridal party.

5. The wedding photo location option: if the wedding photo location onsite of the wedding venues, it can be quite simply. The bride can give the wedding photographer the direction where she wants to take photo at each spot.

On the other hand, some bride wants to go to offsite of the wedding venue for the bridal party shoot, such as Melbourne city and nearby the wedding venue.

The wedding photographer shall discuss what type of wedding photo location the bride preference, for instance, historical building, garden, beach or anywhere combinate different sceneries.

Here is top 20 wedding photo locations in Melbourne, you could learn from this guide.

8. wedding photography style: the wedding photographer shall get insight of the bride’s perfective at the pre wedding consultant. What’s the bride preference of the wedding photography, is it candid, editorial, classic, or modern?

The wedding photographer can also get a clue from the wedding genre and wedding colour theme.

Alternatively, the wedding photographer can check the bride’s inspiration photos from her Pinterest board and social media.

9. Wedding suppliers list

The wedding photographer ask for the gather of the wedding suppliers’ list, for instance, florist, wedding planner, makeup artist and etc. The photographer can hashtag the other wedding suppliers.

On the other side, the wedding photographer can get insight about the bride’s personal touch through her wedding suppliers.

10. Food for wedding photographer: most bride and groom provide the food if the wedding photography coverage is upon 6 hours. Also, some wedding photographers have some specific requests, such as vegetarian.

Summary the pre wedding consultation

1. Go through the wedding day timeline
2. Get accurate address detail for each location
3. Get bride, groom and emergency contact person’s number
4. Wedding photography style and inspirations
5. Specific request, such as traditional ritual

This is brief of pre wedding consultant, if you want to get an idea of wedding day timeline and wedding day guide, you could contact us.