How Grooms Can Look Gorgeous in Wedding Photos

So here are my top 5 tips for you, the groom, to make sure you look just as gor­geous as your bride in your wed­ding photographs.

The groom’s top 5 wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy tips

1. Empty your pockets.

You’ve gone to the effort to look smart in a suit. You are sleek, cool, hand­some. But what’s that bulging out of your pocket? That’s right, it’s your mobile phone! (That’s what you were think­ing too, right?)

Your wed­ding day is one day when you won’t need all that with you. Every­one who’s any­one in your address book is either there with you or has apol­o­gised for not being able to make it (and there­fore knows that it’s going on). Bulky pocket con­tents not only drag your suit down, ruin­ing the lovely line cre­ated by your tai­lor (or the tai­lor who made it for your suit hire com­pany) but will also be notice­able in your pho­tographs. Espe­cially when it’s such an easy fix. So as soon as you arrive at your church or venue, give your phone (and wal­let and keys) to your mum, your sis­ter or your best friend’s wife. If there is an emer­gency, they know where you are. Oh, and don’t for­get to tell your best man and ush­ers to all do the same!

2. Undo your jacket buttons.

You’re hav­ing your pho­to­graph taken with all the guys. You know the sce­nario. Awk­ward stand­ing around, ner­vously look­ing at each other wait­ing for some­one to make the first move. Then some­one dares to raise an arm over the groom’s shoul­ders and sud­denly every­one joins in to form a big hud­dle. There’s suit jack­ets crowd­ing around everyone’s ears and gap­ing in front of chests. It’s not really a great look.

Suit jack­ets are cre­ated to hang really well when you’re stand­ing up straight. As soon as you try rais­ing your arms, that great shape sud­denly can become a hin­drance. But with the sim­ple unbut­ton­ing of your jacket, the shape is allowed to flow again.

3. Dare to wear color.

Why let the girls have all the fun in the fash­ion stakes on your wed­ding day? It’s a great oppor­tu­nity to allow your per­son­al­ity to really shine, in a way that you per­haps don’t get to do dur­ing the work­ing week. Don’t think that a groom’s suit is all about black. Or maybe gray. There’s a mul­ti­tude of colours out there to choose from. Or, if you’re not feel­ing bold enough to go head-to-toe in another colour, how about just flash­ing it a bit with the lin­ing of your suit? Or hav­ing a coloured waist­coat? Or a char­ac­ter­ful tie or bowtie? Or even your socks or style of shoes. It’s all about let­ting your per­son­al­ity be seen. Tra­di­tion is great, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get cre­ative too.

Don’t for­get your ush­ers and best man either. You will look fab­u­lous co-ordinated, but all wear­ing dif­fer­ent shades of the same color is the new black.

4. Stand tall.

We all know that you have the physique of a glad­i­a­tor, but just in case you need some help show­ing it off to its full advan­tage (a.k.a. help­ing to hide the bits you don’t like) then these can make a big difference.

No mat­ter how slim you are, tip­ping your chin down slightly is a trick used by all celebri­ties and is much more pho­to­genic than rais­ing it up. If you’re wor­ried about your chin, the best way to min­imise it is to stand tall and bring your chin for­ward slightly (even if it feels slightly odd). Your pho­tog­ra­pher will be choos­ing the most flat­ter­ing lens and angle to pho­to­graph from too, so don’t over­think it. Remem­ber that gen­uine expres­sion and emo­tion wins over a stiff pose every time.

Men nat­u­rally stand fac­ing the cam­era straight on but it’s not nec­es­sar­ily the most flat­ter­ing pose. If you angle your­self slightly and put your weight on your back foot, it will look more nat­ural, unless you’re going for a more graphic and stylised look.

If you’re not sure what to do with your hands, put them in your pock­ets. It’s easy when you’re with your bride, she’s so gor­geous you can’t keep your hands off her any­way! But if it’s just you, or you and your grooms­men in the pho­to­graph, they might not appre­ci­ate the same touchy-feely approach. If you’re feel­ing awk­ward with your hands, just hide them away in your pock­ets (open­ing your jacket but­ton at the same time).

5. Be your­self, have fun and have confidence.

This tip is prob­a­bly the most impor­tant of them all. If you only take one thing away with you, make it this one. Be your­self. If you’re relaxed in your­self, this will come across in your pho­tographs, and most impor­tantly, you will enjoy your day.

Most grooms are not par­tic­u­larly com­fort­able in front of a cam­era, so if that’s you, remem­ber to tell your pho­tog­ra­pher this. Or even bet­ter, sched­ule in an engage­ment or pre-wedding shoot with them. This might sound like your idea of a night­mare (why would you put your­self through this more than once, eh?) but the con­fi­dence you’ll gain from see­ing the pho­tographs your pho­tog­ra­pher can get will mean that it’s not some­thing you’re wor­ry­ing about on your wed­ding day. You know and trust that they’ll get great images so you can just have a great time. Hav­ing no con­fi­dence in front of the cam­era is the biggest dif­fer­ence in terms of get­ting good ver­sus great pho­tographs. And I know you’re after “wow!”

If you have any more tips, all the grooms out there would love to hear them. Please do share them in the com­ments below.

Tamara Kuzmin­ski is a Hert­ford­shire wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher, pho­tograph­ing wed­dings in the Lon­don area and Scandinavia.