4 Tips For Choosing Which Personal Items to Include in Wedding Day Detail Shots
When it comes to your wedding day, it often involves capturing not only the moments of the day, but those that are meaningful to you because of your background or history.
This is where detail shots combining your invitation uites (or any paper goods you have) and personal items come in. For grooms, we often like to take pictures of shoes, socks, watches, and any other accessories.
Today, I’ll be sharing a few tips to help you choose which personal items to include in detail shots. Typically, I shoot these detail shots first thing in the morning, as you are getting ready.
Tip #1: Choose items with sentimental or historical value
As you can see in the image below, some of the items I’ve chosen are items you wouldn’t commonly see. These items either have a significant meaning, such as the opal ring given to me by my grandmother, or the bag of potpourri from France, that my mom gave me, which acts as a symbol of love as well. Ultimately, you don’t just want your detail shots to look good, but you want to choose items that you would care to remember. Otherwise over time, no matter how pretty these images look, it won’t have any significant value to you.
On my Instagram, I wrote “I love the way a collection of delicate details tells a story and holds significant meaning. The vintage postcard in this image is from the 1920s and part of my postcard collection (ah yes, fun fact, I've been collecting postcards since I was a kid…”
You can read more about the meaning behind these items on my Instagram here.
Tip #2: Choose a variety of different shaped items
In order to form an aesthetically pleasing image, we must consider the composition of the photo and how each item plays into the image. As you can see from these images, I chose a variety of items both delicate and bold. A good rule to keep in mind, is that I start with the statement pieces, which is usually the paper goods, then build the entire image around the focal point. It helps to have small pieces of jewelry, any pieces of lace, bits and pieces from any floral arrangements you have, and matching ribbons that you have.
Tip #3: Choose items that follow a theme or pattern of colors/styles
This tip is probably the most important in making sure the whole image looks cohesive. If you have a particular style that reflects your personality and the relationship you’ve built, I would try to play in on that. These themes can range from elegant, rustic, and ethereal. Understanding colors and styles will help with this, but likely, if you’ve already planned your wedding, you already know what you are drawn to. You can see in the image below, that I’ve played upon a cultural theme and tradition. The image reflects a Chinese style with an English twist. Included are the coral ring and necklace and red floral pouches, which are definitely bold pieces that reflect a particular style. You can see how different this image is from the ones above, that take from different colors and have distinctive nuances.
Tip #4: Less is More
In creating an image of your invitation suite and details, ultimately the goal is not to capture every little material good, but to highlight the ones most valuable to you. Perhaps that can mean something old, new, borrowed, and blue. It can just mean your wedding band, your “I am grute” socks (see image below) wedding vow books, a piece of poetry or scripture you love, the veil your grandmother passed down to you, or the shoes that were gifted to you. Regardless, the images most pleasing to the eye often rely on simple elements and careful placing. This means decluttering so that an image is not overwhelming in the amount of things going on in it (unless that’s the look you’re going for).
And those are my four tips! Let me know in the comments below which tip you found most useful, and if you have any other tips to add!
With Love,
Anna