6 Reasons Why You should have a “Getting Ready” Moment on Your Wedding Day

Whether you choose to get ready together or spend the morning with your own families and closest friends, there is a quiet kind of magic that lives in those early hours. Before the music begins, before the chairs are filled, before you take your first step down the aisle, there is this soft and sacred space where time seems to slow down. It feels still. It feels tender. It feels like the beginning.

These early hours are not just about hair and makeup or suits and ties. They are about deep breaths and trembling hands. They are about your favourite people surrounding you, holding space for your heart as it fills with everything this day means.

1. The Morning Where It All Begins

Your wedding story doesn't start at the ceremony. It starts here - in a room filled with sunlight and the people who know you best. There might be laughter and nerves, coffee cups on the windowsill, your favourite playlist in the background, and someone quietly steaming your dress or straightening your tie.

It’s the quiet anticipation. The deep exhales. The first time you see yourself and think, this is really happening.

2. A Chance to Pause and Be Held

The rest of the day will move fast. But the getting ready time is one of the few moments that feels slow, still, and yours. There’s no audience. No formalities. Just you and your very few selected favourite people.

This is when you get to be held by the ones who’ve been with you through it all - your mum zipping up your dress with teary eyes, your friends helping you pin your hair or pour a glass of champagne, your dad sitting quietly beside you trying to find the words.

These are the moments that ground you. That remind you what this day is really about.

3. It’s Where the Details Come to Life

You picked these details with so much thought. The scent you wear. The earrings passed down through generations. The note you wrote last night when the world was quiet. The way your vows are folded with care.

In the getting ready space, these details are not just things. They are stories. And when they are photographed in the moments they are being worn, held, opened, and felt, they become part of the living memory of the day.

4. The Only Time for Those Intimate Close-Up Shots

This is the only part of the day where your photographer can come close and stay close. They can capture the way your hands shake as you open a letter. The softness in your eyes when you look in the mirror. The tear that falls quietly before anyone sees it.

These images carry a quiet kind of emotion. The kind that speaks without saying a word. They are the photos that you will come back to, again and again, because they remind you not just of how it looked, but of how it felt.

5. First Look with Parents and Family: Intimate Reactions That Last Forever

Sharing a first look with your parents or closest family before the ceremony is one of the most emotional moments of the day. There is no pressure. No performance. Just love in its purest form.

Tears fall without apology. Hugs last a little longer. Smiles come through the tears. This is the space where your dad’s eyes fill as he sees you for the first time. Where your mum touches your cheek the way she did when you were little. These are the moments that stay with you forever.

And when your photographer captures them quietly and gently, they become some of the most powerful images in your album. The ones that hold your heart.

6. Slow Moments That Become Timeless

You may not notice them as they happen. The way the sunlight moves across the room. The way a button is fastened. The way your breath catches for half a second.

But your photographer will. And these slow, in-between moments become the soul of your story. They bring texture and quiet rhythm to your album. They remind you that beauty lives in the softest places.

7. A Beginning That Brings the Story to Life

Getting ready sets the tone for everything that follows. It gives space for your story to unfold naturally. With feeling. With depth. With connection.

Without these early moments, your story can feel like it starts halfway through. Including them means your story flows gently and fully from beginning to end.

8. It Looks So Damn Good on Film

There is something magical about the way morning light rests on film. It softens every edge. It wraps around you like a memory. The gentle grain, the warmth in the tones, the way it catches the shimmer in your dress or the curve of a smile - it feels like something from a dream.

Getting ready on film does more than record how it looked. It shows how it felt. Romantic. Honest. Timeless.