For Photographers: Shooting Weddings While Pregnant

When Mike and I were planning on starting a family, one of my biggest sources of worry was thinking about how I would handle my workload not only after the baby arrived, but during the months of my pregnancy. Weddings are hard enough without growing a tiny human inside of you … they are usually 10-12 hour days plus a few hours of drive time. You spend a grand total of about 15 minutes seated the entire day during your only break. They are highly stressful and strenuous as you deal with complicated shcedules, not enough time, lugging heavy gear, and many other challenges. But doing all of that while pregnant? I had no clue what to expect. So I began to google….. a lot. It was helpful to read what others had experienced – there was a wide range of experiences, advice and anecdotes I was able to find online and they all helped me to get a little more of a handle on what was to come and how to best prepare so I thought I would share my experience as well.

First off, there is absolutely no way to know what to expect. Pregnancies are so differenct from one woman to the next, and form one baby to the next within the same person. There are many women who don’t have the option of leaving their bed let alonf working during pregnancy, so my experience may be completely different from someone with a more limiting pregnancy. I feel like I lucked out with my first pregnancy in a few respects. Pregnancy is rough no matter what and of cards you are dealt, but in my case there were a few things I was especially thankful for: 1) I did not have to cancel a single wedding. My due date was 12/23/14 and my last wedding was in November, when I was about 34 weeks. 2) I had next to no nausea. I highly doubt I will be that lucky next time around, but it did make a huge difference in handling the long days.

I decided to inform clients as soon as we had announced it to all of our friends + family publically. Many of my clients are very active on social media and would have seen/read mention of my pregnancy and I wanted to make sure I informed them first on how it would or wouldn’t effect their wedding day coverage. For weddings in the last month of my pregnancy I hired a third photographer to come along to help carry gear and be there in case anything unforseen should happen. This was someone who was a regular employee of mine, who knew my style of shooting very well, and someone whom I could trust if I needed to leave for a few minutes, hours, or for delivering a baby on the bathroom floor of the Ritz Carlton… luckilly, that didn’t happen… Everyone responded positively with congratulations and reassured me that they had no concerns.

Weddings days while pregnant were HARD. I made sure that my clients expereinced no difference in level of service, my ability to work how I normally would, or to deliver the same result, but it was definitely a (doable) challenge. The biggest noticible difference was how I felt the day AFTER the wedding. We all know the post-wedding hangover feeling you get from lugging around off of the gear, being on your feet for 12 hours, and good old carpel tunnel…. With the extra weight and center of balance thrown off, you really feel it the next day. Aside form that, the biggest challenges on an actual wedding day were sometimes just the logistics of things. Manuvering between wedding guests in crowded reception rooms was difficult so I relied on long lenses a little more. Loading and unloading gear, walking to and from parking garages to the venues when shooting in the city was another challenge.

One challenge I did not anticipate was how much harder chandid photography would be to achieve. It is normally challanging to get guests to ignore you and go about their business if you are shooting candidly, but if you are 8 months pregnant, you’re a little hard to ignore. Whenever possible, I would duck into adjoining rooms and shoot through doorwaks, behind walls, etc. in order to not distract from the moment.

In general, all of my wedding days were hard but manageable. I did, however have one wedding day in which all of the challenges collided and it was particularly difficult. I dearly loved this wedding day and these clients, so if they are reading and know this was their wedding- I love you guys and would shoot your wedding day all over again in a second even with these challenges! This particular wedding took place when I was early in my 8th month. It was in San Francisco, and had three separate locations- one for preparation, ceremony, and then reception. Their timeline was very tight, and knowing this in advance I pre-planned several parking garages, made sure to drive the route in advance, and made sure to send my second shooter over to their reception venue well before I would arrive with the bride and groom after portraits, so that they were setup and ready to shoot in case we ran late. Well, if you have a wedding on a Friday in San Francisco and have to drive during rush hour, through an area which is completely under construction, which is also right next to a major tourist landmark, you just might have some commuting issues. The drive took much longer than anticipated, my pre-planned parking garage and backup garage were both closed, and I ended up parking at the first location I could find. This happened to be a 10 minute walk from the venue. At 8 months pregnant, I had to carry my rolling bag, my shoulder bag, two light stands, my personal bag, and hold my phone as it navigated walking directions for me through a not so great area of town. Did I say walking directions? Because I ran. Yes. I ran with all of that gear, my pregnant belly, in a dress, and my phone talking to me out load as it rattled off the streets to turn on, because the bride and groom were going to be doing their entrance in 4 minutes. My second shooter was in place to capture the entrance but I like to shoot major moments personally, so I was determined. I made it just as they were entering and was able to capture it. In my hurry to get to the reception, I somehow missed that the garage closed at 10pm. The wedding ended around midnight. Yup, I was locked out of my car. Super pregnant, tons of gear, midnight in the city, and stuck. Incredibly thankful for my second shooter who drove me home. Unfortunately, I had back to back weddings and had another wedding the next day. My car remained locked up in that garage for about 3 days. We won’t even discuss my parking bill……

(http://www.selfiliciouspix.com/)

The other issue which stood out to me was how difficult it was to stay nourished. Catering managers, site coordinators, and wedding planners sometimes think that it is improper to serve the staff vendor meals before the guests have all been served. The problem with this is that immediately after all guests have been served is usually when toasts occur, followed by the first dance, parent dances, bouquet toss, garter toss, and open dancing. This means that the first 15-20 minutes of dinner service is usually the ONLY opportunity for photographers to eat in a 12 hour day. I have never been good at taking care of myself throughout a wedding day in terms of snacks and water as usually I am shooting nonstop, and when your only 10 minutes to sit and eat is taken from you and you are pregnant…. it is a problem. There were a few weddings where I wasn’t able to grab a vendor meal until hour 11 of a 12 hour day, around 9pm, because of this.

So what are my takeaways from my ramblings? In general I would offer up the following advice to those shooting weddings while pregnant:

1) Bring extra help. In addition to a second shooter, bring a third person as an assistant who is also a trusted shooter. Next time around I will add on a third shooter/assistant much earlier on just for the sole purpose of making sure I am eating/drinking and for parking my car, being a runner, etc.
2) Don’t book anything the next day. You will be in significantly more pain the day after a wedding. Don’t make personal plans either.
3) Plan on using longer lenses more frequently in order to preserve candid moments and ease your iability to navigate croded/tight spaces.
4) Everyone’s pregnancies are different, but in my experience I was able to shoot all of my weddings and deliver the same results-Shooting weddings pregnant is hard, but completely doable under the right conditions