Vermont Wedding Photographers

Photographing weddings in Vermont is the dream of many wedding photographers, and we consider ourselves lucky to be able to do so in the summer and fall months. Not only is the scenery breathtakingly beautiful, we’ve found that the couples who choose to marry in Vermont are easy-going and are looking for wedding photographers who will document their day in a natural and unposed style. 

What about Vermont makes it photographically desirable? Many things! When you picture Vermont you might envision the rolling hills, layers of rounded green mountains, sparkling blue lakes and rivers, and picturesque farms with red barns and Holstein cows dotting the countryside. While all of this is helpful, the main reason we love photographing Vermont weddings is because of the light. This can be broken down into a couple of key concepts; the first is one of latitude. Photographically speaking, the closer you are to the north pole the softer the light gets due to the Earth’s angled axis and the layers of atmosphere the sun then has to penetrate to reach the subject. Vermont is between 43º and 45ºN, which is approximately halfway between the North Pole and the Equator. Our local shooting area in South Florida is between 24º and 27ºN; this is a significant difference from Vermont and even New England in general! As you get closer to the equator the light can be very direct and harsh around the summer solstice, providing an extremely short “golden hour” before sunset for our Florida weddings. While we have adapted to shooting in light such as this, once we travel north to Vermont we breathe a sigh of relief. The golden glow of the pre-sunset light lasts for much longer in the northeast, giving us ample opportunity to create stunning portraits with a soft and flattering feel, and even the midday sun is filtered somewhat by the atmosphere, even on very sunny days. (This effect is amplified the further north you travel; when we visited Iceland at 65ºN we were amazed by the duration of golden hour, which has a slightly somniferous effect in the winter when it lasts for the majority of the daylight hours.)

Working within a state known for its beauty certainly has photographic advantages. Even a parking lot in Vermont can be a beautiful location, but when we’re given time to create images on the wedding day with clients who want a special location for their romantic portraits things can really get magical. Finding a special location can be something our clients do when they’re exploring Vermont for their venue and vendors, or we can pull from our knowledge of the area and network of other knowledgeable local photographers to find the perfect place. This could be high atop a mountain with dizzying views of the valleys far below or it could be at the bottom of a river ravine with the gentle spray of a hidden waterfall. If you don’t want to travel far from your wedding venue be sure to think about what you’d like your romantic portraits to look like when choosing your location. (Or if you’re torn between two different types of locations you can choose to book a Day After Session with us, which can take place later in the week once you’ve recovered from the wedding’s festivities. With a Day After Session we can take a few hours to explore a different location with your wedding outfits in tow; this is a great way to have the best of both worlds and stay rested and relaxed on your big day.)

Working the landscape of Vermont into not only the portraits of you and your new spouse but also the scene-setting images of your venue is very important to how we document weddings. Our goal as photographers is for someone who wasn’t present at your wedding to be able to feel like they were there; this could be someone who was sick or otherwise unable to attend, or someone you haven’t met yet but who becomes very important to you later in life. Thinking about your wedding images from the perspective of someone in the distant future is a somewhat unusual way of viewing the day, but we’ve found that it works to make sure we don’t miss images that feel very “now”. This could be something as simple as including your cell phone in an image; while it’s a modern phone on your wedding day, what kind of cell phone will your granddaughter use? An iPhone may look as quaint and archaic as a rotary wall mounted phone does to us today. The same thing goes for documenting the actual weather, regardless of what it is. If it’s surprisingly windy we’ll embrace the blowing hair and dresses and strive to capture the feel of the gusts of wind so that you can look back in twenty years and remark, “Remember how windy it was the day we got married?” There is beauty in the mundane details of life; there is truth in images that show things as they are, not as idealized versions of themselves. 

Throughout most of the wedding day we blend into the background whenever possible, creating images that document the feeling of your celebration without interfering with the events as they unfold. We help arrange things like a First Look if you want; finding a location with beautiful light and some privacy (and a beautiful backdrop) is essential, but then we step back and let you react to each other with whatever emotions, expressions, gestures, touches, or words that come to you naturally. We’ll gently guide you during your portraits, but for the most part we want to capture genuine emotion and see the real you without micromanaging how you stand or what you touch. Even if you haven’t often been photographed by a professional you don’t need to worry; we’re practiced and experienced at capturing real couples and the love they share. Many of our past clients have exclaimed over how easy their portrait time felt; we prefer to treat that time like we’re old friends wandering a beautiful location, which removes the stress of having a shot list and lets us focus on what we do best: creating images filled with genuine emotion, laughter, and friendship.