We usually arrive between 11am and noon on your wedding morning. Hair is underway, dresses are hanging, and the day is starting to feel completely real. It’s a moment we genuinely love, intimate, quietly charged, and often where the first truly meaningful images of the day are made.

Your wedding getting ready photos are also the ones where your preparation has the most direct impact. You don’t need an extraordinary setting, just a few simple things in place that make the difference between images you’ll love and images you’ll wish had gone differently.

Here are our 5 practical tips, built from years of photographing wedding mornings across the French Alps and beyond.

Natural light: the single biggest factor

This is the most important detail in any wedding getting ready photo session, and the hardest to fix once we’re on location.

Natural light renders skin beautifully. It’s soft, flattering, and gives your images a warmth that no artificial light source can replicate. The problem comes when a room mixes light sources, a cool, bluish window on one side, warm orange lamps on the other. That clash of colour temperatures is one of the hardest things to fix in post-processing, and it never looks quite right on skin tones.

What we ask of you:

• Switch off all the lamps and work by window light only
• Move closer to the windows if the room feels dark
• If the weather allows, consider outside, open shade under a tree, a covered terrace, a quiet courtyard

One of our favourite brides ever did her entire morning prep outdoors, in the shade of a large tree in the château’s courtyard. Soft, dappled light, generous space, a beautiful backdrop. Those images are among the best we’ve ever made. préférées depuis le début de notre activité.

Space: clear the room before we arrive

We know a wedding morning is organised chaos. Open suitcases everywhere, bags piled in corners, gifts stacked on chairs. We get it. But a cluttered room makes it nearly impossible to move, we end up stuck at one angle, and the backgrounds of your images are full of everyday objects that have no place in your wedding photos.

We once photographed a morning where the room was so small and so full that it was literally impossible to change position. Every single getting ready photo from that day was shot from the same spot. It’s frustrating for everyone, and the images show it.

Before we arrive, take 10 minutes to:

• Move suitcases into another room or tuck them out of frame
• Clear the surfaces, tables, chairs, the bed
• Free up the area around the mirror and the windows
• Remove everyday objects: chargers, plastic bags, anything that pulls the eye

It’s the simplest preparation, and the most consistently overlooked.

Details: prep your flat lay the night before

Rings, shoes, bouquet, cufflinks, perfume, jewellery, invitations, every element you want photographed as a flat lay should be gathered in a pouch or box the evening before.

On the morning itself, everyone is moving fast. No one knows where the grandmother’s ring is. You lose precious time searching for things that could have been sorted calmly the night before, time that could have been spent with the people you love, in the moments we’re there to capture.

A great flat lay is straightforward:

• Beautiful, meaningful objects, your own details are more than enough
• A clean, neutral surface, a white linen, a wooden table, a tray
• Good natural light near a window
• Restraint, less is almost always more

Your wedding detail photos are a crucial part of your full story. They’re the images that anchor the day in the specific, carefully chosen things that made it yours.

Your dress and getting ready outfit: think it through

The dress hanger

A beautiful wedding dress on a thin white plastic hanger looks cheap on camera, even if the dress cost thousands. Invest in a wooden or padded satin hanger, or ask your bridal boutique for one. Hang the dress somewhere with a clean background and good light: in front of a window, against an old door, at the end of a corridor with some height. This single detail changes the shot entirely.

Your getting ready outfit

This is advice we rarely give but that makes a real difference in wedding getting ready photos. You’ll spend several hours in this outfit before putting on your dress, and you’ll be in the images the entire time.

You don’t need to invest in a silk kimono or an embroidered robe, as lovely as those are. A well-cut white tracksuit can have exactly the same effect if it’s worn with intention. What matters is that the outfit is chosen, not just grabbed from the wardrobe on the morning.

And while you’re at it, pour yourself a drink. Champagne, juice, whatever feels right. That quiet morning ritual with the people closest to you is often one of the most genuine moments of the entire day, and it’s one we love to be there for.

The people around you: keep it simple

Wedding mornings usually have a full room, bridesmaids, mothers, close friends. That energy is wonderful, and we love photographing those group moments.

But do let everyone know to come in neutral clothing: no visible logos, no colours that clash with the overall mood of the morning. We’ve photographed mornings where one person’s outfit was so visually dominant that they appeared in nearly every frame, and it was very difficult to manage in editing.

It’s not a restriction, it’s just thinking collectively about the images you want to keep.

The perfect morning checklist

Here’s what we hope to find when we arrive on your wedding morning:

• ✓ A clear room with good natural light
• ✓ All your details gathered in a bag or box
• ✓ Your dress on a beautiful hanger in a good spot
• ✓ A getting ready outfit that was chosen with intention
• ✓ Everyone around you in simple, neutral clothing
• ✓ A drink waiting on the table

That’s it. Nothing complicated, but all of it together makes a real difference to your wedding getting ready photos.

There’s a full guide waiting for you

If you’d like to go further, from your wedding day timeline to a complete list of details to prepare, our full preparation guide is included for every couple we work with after signing.

Want to talk through your project? Get in touch we’d love to hear about your day.

Émilie & Stéphane