Should You See Each Other Before Your Ceemony

Every bride wants her wedding day to be absolutely perfect. One of the major questions a bride has to ask herself is whether she wants to be seen before the walk down the aisle. Both ways have their pluses. From a photographic perspective, seeing each other beforehand can give you some great photos. So ask yourself these questions to see which way you should do your wedding.

1.) Are you superstitious?
2.) Are you worried about the photos your photographer will get?
3.) Is tradition extremely important to you?
4.) Are you comfortable allocating 1 1/2 to 2 hours between the end of your ceremony and the start of your reception.

Supposedly, the idea of not seeing each other before the wedding comes from arranged marriages. It was believed to be bad luck. Most likely, the bride saw how ugly the groom was and decided to run off with her childhood crush instead. That is a very real fear when you have a culture where marriages are set up by parents.

While our culture no longer arranges weddings, we have held onto this tradition. If the tradition matters to you, then do it because you like traditions, but not because you are worried about bad luck by seeing each other.

1.) Do you want great emotional photos?
2.) Do you want time to enjoy your photos?
3.) Are you comfortable going straight from your ceremony to spend time with your guests?


If you answered yes to these questions instead of the first questions, then it might be a good idea to do a reveal before your ceremony.Your photographer will still get great shots of you walking down the aisle and him at the alter, but there will also be shots of the two of you together with both of your expressions up close from the reveal. The best thing to remember is everything will take longer. A walk that would normally take you a minute will take two because of the dress. If you plan the extra time, at least you can get really cool photos, but if you don’t plan enough, you may not get everything you want.