Wedding Day Timeline Planning From a Photographer's Perspective

Have you been thinking about working with a wedding planner? With all of the decisions that need to be made, spanning the entire spectrum from creative vision to logistics and organization, there's a lot to think about.

We consider ourselves an integral part of the planning process, and we often work closely with planners to construct the best timeline for the vision you have for your wedding day. While the planners do the heavy lifting for the majority of the planning, there are a few crucial decisions to be made from a photography perspective that the rest of the day's timing hinges on.

One of the first considerations is whether you’ll be doing a “first look” or not. A first look is when the couple first sees each other on the wedding day. Some people want this to be walking down the aisle, some like to try to do all of the portraits before the ceremony even starts. It’s totally up to you. 

Some pros of doing a first look include getting some special time for the two of you to connect on your wedding day before the day really takes off. We can get lots of great portraits of you two then as well as the wedding party, which decompresses the timeline post ceremony, if your goal is to spend as much time with your guests as possible. How this often looks is planning to do the first look about 90 minutes before the ceremony. Having about 60 minutes do do a first look, couple portraits, and a few wedding party arrangements is ideal. Then we like to have you hidden away and relaxing for at least 30 minutes before the ceremony. Immediately post ceremony, we usually do the family formals while they’re all gathered together. Then, we do still like to do some portraits with you two, maybe 15-20 minutes to capture that post-married glow. Alternatively, we can plan to steal the two of you away in the 15 minutes before sunset to make some amazing golden hour portraits (our favorite). 

If you’d like to first see each other down the aisle (which is what we did!) we love that too! The photos of each of your first seeing each other while surrounded by all of your closest people are priceless. In that case, we still do like to fit in some portraits of each side of the wedding party separately prior to the ceremony. This can often be accomplished with good timing, whether y’all are getting ready in the same place or not. If you have both of us there capturing your day, we can divide and conquer. In this case, we’ll do family formals immediately post ceremony, followed by couple and wedding party portraits. In this situation, we’re often given about an hour to work with, but it does depend greatly on 1) how large the family is or how many different arrangements we’ll be doing, 2) the cooperation of the family, 3) how large your wedding party is and 4) how many different scenes you’d like to work with the wedding party for. Please check out this page for more on family formals, as in 75% of timeline crunch cases that happen on wedding days, it’s because family formals went long. We’d love to help you avoid any stress with that!

Ok, so now that we have the ceremony time set, portrait time set, we’ll continue to work back to see when hair and makeup will be done and everybody will be dressed and ready. You’ll want to consult with your hair and make up artists for how long it will take, which is also highly dependent on how many people are using their services and how many artists will be present. We generally show up in the final 60 minutes of getting ready, so we can capture finishing touches, building excitement, dress and jewelry details, etc. We find people get photoed out if we’re there in the morning for too long, so 1 hour usually works out best. This gives us our start time with you on your wedding day.

If you’re booked with our unlimited package and have a sendoff planned, we’ll be hanging out with you for the whole reception. We’ll be around to capture all of your planned events, which aside for trying to save the 15 minutes up to sunset, we don’t really have a preference with timeline. Most likely, your DJ will be most involved with this part of the timeline planning. Just let us know what you come up with so we can be ready on the day. We tend to taper down our shooting into the reception so we don’t overwhelm guests. We get a combination of dancing photos, candids of people mingling, and group portraits. If you don’t have a send-off planned, we stay at least until we feel like we’ve told a solid story of the reception and a good representation of the guests in our photos. We’ll check in with you two toward the end of the night and see how you feel about coverage.

One of the reasons Della Terra is one of our favorite venues to work at is that wedding planning is automatically included with your booking! They help you make all of the design decisions, connect you with incredible vendors that know what works well at this location, and ensure an amazing, seamless experience for you and your guests!

The Best Boulder Photography Spots

OUR FAVORITE BOULDER PHOTO LOCATIONS

We are so fortunate to call Boulder Colorado our home! We moved here in 2017 to be closer to the mountains we love to play in. It also provided a huge upgrade to the scenery in our portrait sessions. Boulder is surrounded by thousands of acres of recreational open space, conservation easements, and nature preserves. Here are some of our favorite photo locations we’ve worked at over the years. This page will focus mostly on locations, however, if you’re interested in learning more about detailed planning and what to expect on photo session with us, be sure to check out this page!

In general, we prefer evening sessions, both for logistics and for the quality of light in the late day. We love the warm tones of the setting sun, crossing our fingers for an epic sunset, and sometimes shooting a bit into the “blue hour.” We plan our photo sessions to start two hours before we lose the light. In the front range, since we lose the sun behind the mountains, this is different than official “sunset.” We have an app we love to use to allow us to visualize exactly when the sun dips behind the mountains so we can plan around that time.

Note that we do not charge for travel within an hour of Boulder.

Chautauqua Park

Chautauqua Park is a classic Boulder destination. You cannot beat the ease of access and proximity to the iconic Flatirons. The large grassy field provides a beautiful foreground, which varies depending on the time of year. In the spring, it’s full of lush, green grass. As the season progresses, the grasses grow longer and brown out, giving us the wonderful warm tones we love! We tend to plan our sessions here toward sunset, so that we have a nice backlit scene. Early in the day the sun is very bright and direct on our subjects, so we avoid those times as well as the harsh mid-day sun. Boulder Open Spaces do require a photo permit which costs $30. We will do all the legwork to obtain the permit, but you will be responsible to cover this cost.

Lost gulch overlook

A twenty minute drive up Flagstaff Mountain from Chautauqua Park is an amazing viewpoint that showcases the Indian Peaks. This is probably one of the closest locations in Boulder to get views of the bigger, high alpine mountains. With only a minute hike from the lot to the views, it’s easily accessible. We also love this location for the pine forest around the area, so we can get a variety of scenes. This location shoots best in the evening, but also works well right at sunrise where the subject can be in the shade but the mountains in the background will be well lit. We frequently combine Chautauqua Park with Lost Gulch for our two hour sessions, getting two of the best Boulder photo locations in one session. Boulder Open Spaces do require a photo permit which costs $30. We will do all the legwork to obtain the permit, but you will be responsible to cover this cost.

brainard lake

Brainard Lake, while technically in Ward, is only forty five minutes from downtown Boulder, so we love to frequent this location! This really is one of the most picturesque Colorado views with an alpine lake near the base of the 13,000 ft mountains of the Indian Peaks. This location is only accessible from mid-June to around Labor Day, otherwise the access road is closed because of deep snow. It is about a 1.5 mile hike to the lake from the winter trailhead (which we’re always down for!) so if you’re up for a little adventure outside of the summer, the snowy peaks will not disappoint. The field there also has stunning wildflowers in the spring. We’ve also spotted moose in the area before! Given the trek to get here, we generally do this location in the two hours leading up to sunset. We have done a sunrise elopement in the Brainard backcountry that was epic! Just be prepared for a 4 am wakeup. There is an entry fee to this area. We always hold a National Park pass which covers our entry, so if you’d like to ride in with us, we have you covered!

wonderland lake/Fourmile creek trail

Wonderland Lake is a little gem in North Boulder. It starts in the rolling foothills off of Lee Hill Road and hikes south toward the Flatirons. They are at a distance, so it provides a really cool perspective that is lesser seen. We really love this area in the late summer into fall because the browned out rolling hills provide some really nice backgrounds. This spot also works well in the winter, with all of the sunlight it gets, it’s one of the first places where snow melts.

ncar trail

The NCAR trail starts essentially right at the base of the Flatirons and hikes us into the beautiful Boulder Open Space. This is our top pick for a sunrise session, many of the scenes we shoot in are shaded for the subjects while the Flatirons are brilliantly lit by the rising sun! This provides for incredible portrait lighting! The hike out and back is about one mile, and passes through a variety of forest, prairie, and mountain scenes.

Downtown Denver

While many of the photo session we do are out in nature, we also love to get into the city and work with some urban landscapes! Downtown Denver has tons of cool architecture and mini-scenes to work with, so there’s no shortage of great locations! Union Station is frequently a starting point for that iconic Denver scenery. When we shoot in Denver, we love to incorporate some more lifestyle sort of moments, having you get a drink or explore a new spot!

other nearby options

Red Rocks - morrison

Only fifty minutes from Boulder, Red Rocks offers stunning scenery of all types: red rocks, sweeping fields, rolling mountains, and desert vibes. Our favorite trail here is the Trading Post Trail, a 1.5 mile loop with very little elevation gain. We have lots of little scenes along the way we like to stop at to give you a wide variety of backdrops. No permit is required here, the only tricky part can be parking if there is a concert at the amphitheater that night, we just have to plan ahead with where we park and factor in a short, additional hike.

Rocky mountain national park - estes park

Estes Park is only an hour from Boulder and provides some of the most stunning and easily accessible mountain views! Rocky Mountain National Park has a nearly infinite amount of scenic variety. If you’re interested in a hike, we can get away from some of the crowds, get into the backcountry, and have a little adventure! If you’d prefer not to hike, we have a loop we like to drive where we stop at several roadside views to take portraits. We’ll chat with you ahead of time to decide on the sort of views you would like in your photos: high alpine, prairie, forest, lakes, rivers, whatever you’d like! There is no permit required, however entry to the park must be purchased. We always have an Annual National Park pass, so if you’d like to ride with us, we can get you in.

Oldman mountain - estes park

If you want some of the stunning Rocky Mountains in your photo but don’t want to enter the National Park there’s an amazing spot right in the heart of Estes Park called Oldman Mountain. It is a 1.2 mile out and back hike with a 426 ft elevation gain, enough to get you above town and surrounded by panoramic mountain views! There’s lots of forest and interesting rock formations along the way, so we get a lot of variety!

Lookout mountain - Golden

Lookout Mountain is a fantastic and easily accessible area we love to do family portrait sessions at. Just outside of Golden and only fifty minutes from Boulder, there are incredible views of the foothills in Golden Gate Canyon State Park, Clear Creek Canyon, and more! These views can be accessed immediately from the parking lot, so an excellent choice for children.

looking for a bigger adventure?

If you’re up for a long drive and getting further into Colorado’s mountains, we’d love to hear what you have in mind! Colorado has so much beauty to offer and we’re always down for an adventure! Here are a couple of epic locations that are absolutely worth the drive!

loveland pass

Highway 6 will drive you right up to the top of the Continental Divide on Loveland Pass. Here, you’re right in the high alpine peaks, getting some of the most incredible views of the peaks and valleys. We’ve done sessions here at all different times of the year, just make sure you’re prepared for anything from high alpine sun to cold and windy conditions!

Great sand dunes national park

Great Sand Dunes is about four hours from Boulder, so this one requires a big commitment, but is very much worth the drive! If you haven’t been to the Dunes before, it feels like you stepped off of Earth and onto Mars! It has giant, sprawling sand dunes surrounded by huge Colorado mountains. As this is a National Park, there is a photo permit and entry fee required.

any location that’s special to you!

While these are some of our favorite go-to locations, we are always down to explore somewhere new and go on an adventure with you! If there are any hikes or places that are special to you, let us know! Having this added connection to the location can make your photos all the more memorable for you. You are also welcome to let us know the sort of scenic vibes you are looking for and we can do some research and suggest some new ideas!