Photography Advice for Couples Planning a Church Wedding

According to the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life, only about four in every ten people living in the U.S. regularly attends some kind of weekly worship service. In addition, religious affiliation has declined with each generation since 1928, and is now at an all-time low of 18 percent among Millennials (people ages 18 to 29).

What that means for local churches, temples and mosques is a flood of requests every year from unfamiliar interfaith, semi-religious and non-religious couples looking for beautiful places to marry.

And, while the rules and stipulations applying to non-congregational weddings vary at each house of worship, couples who marry outside their own churches, temples and mosques can protect themselves — and their wedding vendors — from potentially unexpected surprises by asking the right kinds of questions.

For instance, here are a few rules drawn directly from one local church’s written guidelines for wedding photographers and videographers. The rules are not dissimilar from what we find working at other local facilities, but see if you can spot the challenges the guidelines create for capturing wedding photographs and video at this facility:

• Photographers and videographers will not be allowed in the changing rooms until the wedding parties are completely dressed.

• The use of alcoholic beverages on church grounds (including the parking areas) is strictly forbidden, therefore there won’t be any champagne toasts to photograph.

• We start weddings on time… [Photographer] access to members of the wedding party should not interfere with their duties — such as dressing, greeting and ushering guests, even if the wedding party is late in arriving to the church.

• During the ceremony, still photographers and videographers may take pictures from the narthex and the balcony only. You may not take pictures from the aisles during the processional or during the ceremony. You may be in the aisle during the recessional, but must be behind the guests at all times.

• We ask you not to take flash photographs or to use any special lighting during the wedding ceremony. We do allow flash photographs from the kiss on and into the recessional.

As you can see, each church’s rules for wedding vendors can seriously impact not only the kind of wedding ceremony a couple will have, but also their longest-lasting record of it.

If you choose to marry in a house of worship that is not your own, make sure you request a written copy of the rules applying specifically to wedding vendors before you book the venue.

Don’t book until you are satisfied with what you see, because believe us, the day of your wedding is the worst possible time to discover those getting ready shots you wanted aren’t going to happen.