I don’t know who started the idea of the first look but bless them! There’s still a lot of people who want to wait for that moment when the bride walks down the asile to see eachother for the first time on the wedding day but personally I really enjoyed having some time with my husband to soak it all in before the walk down the asile, plus it allowed us to take all of our group pictures before the wedding and that’s just more practical.
I have terrible eyesight and the distance between the bridal suite door and our ceremony arch was 60 feet – there was no way I was going to see his face down at the end of the asile so by doing a first look I actually got to see his reaction to seeing me in the big princess dress he wanted to see me in.
As much as I’d like to tell everyone I spent the morning being bridechilla that’s s lie – I felt rushed, exhausted, and a little snappy; but all of that melted away in that moment when we saw eachother during the first look – I felt happy and relaxed.
Prior to the wedding we took a few dance lessons but having a first look also gave us a chance to practice our turns with all the fabric of my dress in the way – have I mentioned I’m clumsy? I was terrified of tripping over all that fabric in front of our family and friends.
I think our first look photos are some of our best. Don’t get me wrong, we wanted all of the posed photos we have but besides dinner, in which we were busy actually eating this was the one time we had together on our wedding day and I love the unposed, candid emotion our photographer captured.
After the ceremony while our venue was being flipped for the reception we took a few portraits as well and they are also some of my favorites from the day – the lighting was great and I love the direction from our photographer.
Doing a first look gave us the best of both worlds and I don’t regret it for a second.