Happy Friday, y’all! I genuinely love posting to the blog in Friday’s, it helps get me excited for the weekend (as if I needed help with that!) and is such a nice way to wrap up my busy week of work.
Today’s post is all about vow renewal photo sessions. I had the honor of photographing C + R’s 15 year vow renewal ceremony in my favorite Arkansas mountain town, Eureka Springs, last Fall. If you want to see more from their day, click to read “Eureka Springs Vow Renewal”.
What is a vow renewal photo session?
Vow renewals are for married couples who want to re-commit their lives to each other and re-declare their love for each other.
Your vow renewal can be as formal or as informal as you want it to. For the renewal featured in this post, C and R chose to hire a minister to perform a ceremony. The hotel they stayed at has a small chapel and a minister available, so they were able to book everything as a package deal. But they could just as easily have written new vows to each other and said them without a formal ceremony.
Why should I schedule a vow renewal photo session?
There are many reasons why couples may choose to renew their vows: perhaps you have a milestone anniversary coming up, or you are finally going on the honeymoon you couldn’t afford when you first got married; maybe your wedding was a small affair, and now you’re wanting a big celebration (or vice versa!); or maybe the photos from your wedding simply no longer reflect your style and you want new ones. Whatever the reason, vow renewals are so fun and such a special event to be a part of.
How do I prepare for my vow renewal photo session?
Preparation for your vow renewal will depend largely on your plans for the vow renewal ceremony itself. My best advice is to treat your vow renewal ceremony like a wedding; if you feel more comfortable doing your own hair and makeup, go for it! If you want to pamper yourself and hire hair and makeup artists, do it!
When choosing outfits to wear, there is no pressure to dress in any specific way. C chose to wear a beautiful black gown for their vow renewal, and it was perfect – especially since both their wedding and the vow renewal took place on Halloween! Some advice I give every couple prior to their photo session is to keep the location in mind while choosing outfits, especially when it comes to the shoes. Trying to walk through a field or along a rocky river bank in high heels is not only impractical, but can be dangerous as well.
Here are some of my other blog posts having to do with wedding planning that I think will be helpful to you as you plan your vow renewal ceremony:
How to Write Your Own Vows
How to Create a Unique Experience For Yourself on Your Wedding Day
Keywords to Search for Wedding Vendors
Sustainable Weddings: Tips for Planning an Environmentally-Friendly Celebration
10 Incredible Elopement Day Activity Ideas
Planning an Event: A Wedding Photographer’s Perspective
An Elopement Photographer’s Tips on Choosing Your Hair & Makeup Artist
And more here!
What can I expect during my vow renewal photo session?
Since your vow renewal can be as formal or as informal as you want it to be, so can the accompanying photo session.
If you plan for a minister to perform a ceremony, and a reception with cake and dancing to follow, your gallery will look a lot like the more traditional wedding photos, with getting ready photos and ceremony and reception photos as well as portraits.
On the other hand, if you plan a simple reading of vows to each other in a more private setting like a park or even your backyard, your gallery will look more like elopement photos.
My top priority when photographing a vow renewal is that the whole thing doesn’t just “feel like a photo shoot”. While there will be a time for more posed portraits, during the ceremony I will be strictly a documentarian. I want the two of you to be solely focused on each other and not be worried about me or my camera.
Printing your photos
I wrote a whole blog post on why you should print your photos. You can read it here: “Heirloom Albums & Prints”. So all I’ll say here is that a day as special as a vow renewal deserves to be remembered more often than when you get out the ol’ flash drive and plug it into the computer. Print your photos and hang them on your walls, or put them in an album and set it on the coffee table.
You don’t even have to order prints through me (although I do work with an amazing print shop). But whatever you do, order those prints!
Final thoughts …
I’m not here to convince you to renew your vows – just like I would never try to convince someone to get married. It’s a decision you and your partner should make together. But if you are searching for a special way to show each other that you are still as madly in love with each other as you were when you first got married, a vow renewal may just be it. And if you have already decided to renew your vows, I would be absolutely honored to photograph it so that you can remember it for generations to come!
*All my blog posts contain a selection of images that I’ve taken. If you are interested in booking a wedding or session with me, I am more than happy to send you a full gallery upon request!
I’m a wife, a dog mom, a foodie, a wanderer, a registered nurse, and a portraits/elopements/branding photographer … and this blog will cover it all! If you enjoyed this post, first of all thank you, and second of all please follow me on Instagram + Facebook and sign up for my monthly newsletter to get exclusive wedding planning advice and access to all of my new (and old) freebies! If you have any questions about elopement photography, my journey from nursing to photography, or my time spent as a full-time RVer, drop a comment and I just might write a blog post answering your question (but I definitely will)!
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