The Root Photography Blog

I would like to send a huge thanks to Mindy of Budget Fairy Tale for October’s First Look on the 1st! You can visit her blog here, and read her full wedding recap here. :)

We had always known we wanted to do a “first look” before our ceremony simply for logistic reasons. We didn’t want to have to rush through our photos between the ceremony and reception, and we also wanted to join our guests at our cocktail hour (hey – we were paying for it, after all). But my strong, feminist side has always had a problem with the way traditional first looks perpetuate the myth that the bride is somehow more important than the groom and has to be hidden away for a big reveal. So we elected to do a “reverse first look,” where Tim came up behind me and I turned around to see him. This actually worked very nicely for me because I had yet to see his full wedding day ensemble. So when I turned around to see him, I actually was truly surprised and excited! It was so nice to have some time to ourselves before the chaos hit.

One of the unexpected perks of the reverse first look was it resulted in one of my favorite pictures from our wedding day, which is the photo of me standing in the grass among the fallen petals of a Jacaranda tree, waiting for my soon-to-be husband. Even though I had walked around the grounds of the Disneyland Hotel several times before, the place felt different and the area felt so much more magical to me at that moment, and I was standing there by myself waiting for Tim it really hit me that my fairy tale was coming true.