Five years ago, when I began my wedding photography journey, I had no idea what to wear to shoot a wedding. So my very first wedding, I showed up in a maxi dress. I felt so professional and cute, but then quickly realized it was a terrible mistake. I was tripping on my dress all day, I was paranoid every time I squatted to get a photo, I sounded like a walking parachute, and the list goes on. I said to my husband on the way home that I would never wear a dress to shoot a wedding again, and I’ve never gone back on my word. I see some photographers wear dresses, and I say more power to them, but honestly, I’m constantly bending, squatting, kneeling, even laying down sometimes to get a shot. I’ve already got a million things to worry about and think about on a wedding day, and I certainly don’t want to add “flashing everyone and embarrassing myself” to that list of worries if I can help it.
So after nixing dresses, I tried several different combinations, and I want to tell you what worked and didn’t work with each one. I then went to jumpsuits. That seemed like the next logical outfit for me if I wasn’t going to do dresses. It seemed like the next best thing. Honestly, I rocked jumpsuits for a few years. I found several good ones that were super comfy, modest, and very professional looking, and those made up my wedding wardrobe for a while. I had a couple small complaints though. Going to the bathroom was a process. And if you’ve ever shot a wedding before, you know that sometimes bathroom breaks need to be as quick as possible as you may be trying to go in between a couple formalities. Well jumpsuits certainly don’t lend to quick bathroom breaks. Another complaint I had was that I wanted to wear comfy shoes (we’ll discuss shoes below), but I felt as though comfy shoes or boots looked a little odd with my jumpsuits. Finally, if I needed to throw on a jacket, depending on the jumpsuit, a jacket could potentially look a little silly. Therefore, after rocking jumpsuits for a few years, I finally decided to try something new.
My next idea was to wear leggings and a long shirt/ short dress over them. I got the leather-looking black leggings from Spanx, and I found a really cute long flowy blacktop. I would typically add a long black blazer or green blazer with this outfit. I got blazers that were long and stretchy so that I could move comfortably in them. I felt as though this really opened up my shoe options, because you can easily add boots/booties with leggings. My bathroom breaks were so much faster with this new outfit. Finally, it was SUPER comfy! And who doesn’t want to be comfy shooting a wedding? I honestly thought this would be my forever wedding attire. I would typically throw on a pair of statement earrings too, and I would always get compliments on my outfit. I recently decided to switch it up one last time though for one small tweak.
I bought a new harness for my camera. Which by the way, if you don’t have a harness for your camera, pause this reading, pull up a separate tab, and order yourself a good harness. Having a harness rather than a neck strap helped relieve so much neck and back pain for my husband and I. Anyways, my new harness I bought had a hook on it that you could hook your camera onto your belt if you weren’t using it for a few moments to totally relieve the weight of it. However, I couldn’t wear a belt with a flowy top and leggings, so thus my wedding wardrobe changed one last time. I now wear a simple black top (usually a turtleneck) and simple black jeans. I do black jeans rather than dress pants so that they have belt loops, but I get ones that look very nice and not too much like jeans. My harness is brown leather, so I usually do a brown leather belt and brown leather booties. I’ve always worn mostly black though, because I just think it looks very professional, it’s easy, and I like to be a ninja during ceremonies. I don’t want attention drawn to me when I’m walking all around during a ceremony, kneeling at the front of the aisle for the processional, etc. Now let’s talk shoes. I started out by buying some cute flats, but after limping the day after the wedding, I realized I needed shoes that had a little more substance to them. I personally really like booties, and since I now wear skinny pants, I can wear booties for my wedding attire. However, I specifically order booties from shoe brands made for comfort. These have worked out very well. I would highly recommend getting a brand of shoe that is made for comfort and long wear. You will be on your feet for typically 6-10 hours, so you will need to make sure you have comfortable shoes.
Once you settle on your perfect wedding attire, you will probably want to have two to three outfits in case you have a doubleheader weekend, or you get behind on laundry and don’t have your clothes clean by your next wedding. Once I settled on my latest outfit, I went out and bought three pairs of black pants, two long sleeve black turtlenecks, and two short sleeve black turtlenecks.
This is obviously not the only possibility for wedding attire. However, I’m just sharing my journey and what’s worked for me. I know I tried looking up ideas of what to wear when I first started and couldn’t really find much, so I wanted to share in case anyone else felt as lost as I did and needed some guidance. Feel free to comment below if you have any questions or if you have an outfit not mentioned here that’s worked really well for you. And make sure to follow Meagan Gaines Photography on Facebook for more helpful tips.
