the photographer's guide
Nine steps for how a photographer and filmmaker works with your planner on the schedule of the day, in plain words. Your venue and your planner may change any of it, and they should.
Look up sunset for your month and work backward from it. Give that number to your planner at the first meeting. In spring and fall, ending the ceremony an hour or more before sunset leaves time for portraits in the good light. In winter sunset comes early, so a first look or an earlier ceremony helps.
Getting ready, a first look if you want one, the wedding party, family formals and twenty quiet minutes for the two of you. Ask your planner to put each one in the timeline as its own line, with a place and a time, so every vendor sees it.
When photography and film are planned together, your planner schedules one set of blocks instead of two, and nobody stands in the other one's shot. Photography and film are available together or separately.
Travel in Savannah takes longer than the map says. One way streets wrap around the squares, and trolleys and carriages share them. A ceremony in a square or a park needs more than a walk through for photos, and your planner or the City can tell you what your date requires.
Send a written list of family photographs with names, to your planner and to me. Ask one relative who knows everybody to round people up. Some planners will help with this on the day, which is worth asking about.
Hilton Head, Tybee and the Bluffton river clubs sit right on the water. Wind off the marsh moves veils, candles and sound, and the tide changes what a beach looks like by the hour. Ask your planner for the wind and rain plan, and check the tide table for your date before you pick a beach portrait time.
A square in Savannah, a beach on Tybee or Hilton Head and a park in Bluffton each have their own permit and their own rules, and none of them is private just because you hold a permit. Ask your planner who applies, and how early. Hilton Head wants beach requests at least 30 days ahead, and Savannah takes square applications up to a year out.
Put the backup next to the plan, not in a separate email. Where the ceremony moves, where the family photographs happen and where the two of you go for portraits if it is still raining. Summer storms here often pass in under an hour, so a flexible portrait block can wait them out.
During cocktail hour your guests are happy and the light is at its softest. Twenty minutes alone in it is usually what ends up framed on your wall. Ask your planner to guard that block.
Twenty minutes alone in the last light is usually what ends up framed on your wall.
light and seasons
Sunset in Savannah around the middle of each month, in local clock time and rounded to five minutes. Hilton Head, Bluffton and Tybee run within a few minutes of it. Work back from it to pick your ceremony time.
a sample day
Sunset in mid October is around 6.55 pm. Working back from it, a ceremony at about 4.30 pm leaves time for family photographs right after, the wedding party next, and the cocktail hour landing as the light turns warm.
That puts the twenty quiet minutes for the two of you at roughly 6.15 to 6.35 pm, with the last light and blue hour still to come for the reception entrance. Getting ready starts about three hours before the ceremony, so the details and the dress go first while hair and makeup finish.
Your planner will move every one of these times to fit the venue, the travel and the vendors. Start from the sunset and the rest falls into place.
from the photographer
I am Vitor Lindo. I have photographed and filmed 450 weddings in 14 years, about 400 of them here in the Lowcountry, from my studio at 1918 Howard Street in Savannah.
Photography and film are available together or separately, with one team planning both. That means one set of blocks on your planner's timeline, and nobody standing in the other one's shot.
questions
It depends on the list, not the clock. Write the list with names, keep it to the groups you will frame, and ask one relative who knows everybody to gather people. Your planner can then give it a realistic block.
It is your choice. A first look moves the couple portraits and often the wedding party before the ceremony, which frees cocktail hour, and that matters most in winter when sunset comes before 6 pm.
With the first draft, not the final one. That is when the photo and film blocks can still move.
Not when one team plans both. Photography and film are available together or separately, and when they are planned together your planner schedules one set of blocks.
keep reading in
Photo And Film
Tell me your date, your venue and your planner, if you have one. You will hear back from me, or call or text (404) 826-4156.