Happy Wedding Wednesday! Now that we are back from our wedding I’ll be sharing details each week, addressing more info about registries and gifts, talking about changing your name, and more! Today I am sharing our day before wedding shoot pictures, explaining why we wanted to take these photos, and what we chose for our rehearsal dinner. I’ll also be sharing ideas for all you brides to be for things to wear to your rehearsal dinner!
WHY WE DID A PRE-WEDDING PHOTO SHOOT
In case you are new here, we got married in Florence, Italy. We had a small wedding and while I don’t tend to be traditional about most things, we wanted to keep the original tradition of not seeing each other on the day of our wedding alive. Since we ruled out a first look that day, we knew we’d have limited time after our ceremony while our guests were enjoying a cocktail hour to take our wedding photos together. This mean we had to prioritize where we took our photos. This is sort of hard in a city as incredible as Florence! There are so many amazing spots to take photos that we could have spent half a day driving around to different locations. After our wedding, we decided on a panoramic view of the city at an overlook (I’m dying to get the photos back so I can show you.. you’ll see just why we chose this!). I didn’t want to be in such an incredible place and not get all these amazing spots documented, so we decided to do a day before shoot. This was a fun way for us to sneak away with our photographers and videographers and get to include more of these fun spots!
We got up super early so we could get photos before all the tourist crowds formed. I like doing this anyways when we travel. First off, I prefer to see the city this way and get overwhelmed in big crowds and two, you don’t have to worry about so many photobombers and can get the shots you want. We headed to the Duomo first where we took these amazing photos. 
WHAT WE WORE
For the above photos in front of the Duomo I wore the jumpsuit I was wearing that evening for our rehearsal dinner. Charles wore the suit he was wearing that evening as well. My jumpsuit was sent to me c/o of Jay Godfrey. It was more low cut on me than I wanted for a wedding event, so I took extra lace from my wedding dress and had it added to make it less revealing on the front. I loved how it turned out! I wanted to wear a jumpsuit for our rehearsal dinner because it’s fun, easy, and a little on the edgier side as a choice rather than a typical cocktail dress. That evening I wore my hair up in a ponytail.
Charles’s suit is c/o of The Black Tux. If you haven’t heard of them, they are an amazing choice for suit and tux rentals. Dallas is lucky enough to have a showroom/store so we got to go in and see the different options in person and have him get measured to ensure it would fit perfectly. It arrives a few days before your event (or in our case a few days before we flew to Italy) and then you send it back afterwards. It was so easy to use and we both loved the quality! I got Charles this blue pocket square for a little bit of color and to match the light blue earrings I had chosen.
For the photos below in front of the carousel in the Piazza della Repubblica, I changed into this amazing Yumi Kim wrap dress I had worn the night before for our welcome party to which all of our guests wore white. Luckily I didn’t spill wine or anything all over it! That night I wore my hair straight. I was going to just wear it in my everyday waves/curls on the day of our wedding, so I wore it different each night leading up to our wedding so it didn’t look the same. Charles kept on his same suit. I loved playing around more with these pictures in front of the carousel and putting our sunglasses on, as I really thought it caught more of us as a couple. We wanted a laid back, non-traditional wedding and these photos totally capture the essence of that! My shoes are Schutz for both looks. I’m linking what I can find (or similar items) below for you to shop!
CLICK BELOW TO SHOP MY LOOKS
REASONS TO DO A PRE WEDDING SHOOT
In addition to engagement pictures, I’d recommend one of these for a few reasons. It’s really nice to get you warmed up not only to your photographer but to taking photos together. I take hundreds of photos each week for my blog, but Charles doesn’t, so it was nice to get him use to it all. It’s also nice to have some less formal photos. These are more of our style and I love that we could capture the moments leading up to the big day. I love having more casual photos, too like the ones of us in our sunglasses. If the pre-wedding shoot doesn’t fit into your schedule, a day after shoot is also something to consider.
If you are a bride to be on the hunt for what to wear for your rehearsal dinner, I’m going to include tons of options for you. I went with a less traditional look for my actual rehearsal dinner with the jumpsuit seen above. Make sure you dress for your style and for the occasion. You don’t want to be in a formal dress at a barbeque served on picnic tables or you don’t want to find yourself in a short dress and flat sandals at a steakhouse. Just as your guests will, think of what makes sense for your setting.
CLICK BELOW TO SHOP REHEARSAL DINNER OUTFITS FOR THE NONTRADITIONAL BRIDE
CLICK BELOW TO SHOP REHEARSAL DINNER OUTFITS FOR THE TRADITIONAL, MORE FORMAL BRIDE
CLICK BELOW TO SHOP REHEARSAL DINNER OUTFITS FOR THE TRADITIONAL, LESS FORMAL BRIDE
CLICK BELOW TO SHOP REHEARSAL DINNER ACCESSORIES
Hopefully this is helpful for all of you who are a bride to be when shopping for your rehearsal dinner! I also hope you loved seeing our photos from our day before shoot. I’ve already had so many people think that these are our wedding photos! I keep clarifying, but know it’s kind of hopeless haha. I saw one on Pinterest where it talked about an elopement in Europe. As much as I want to set the record straight, I’m just going with it! However these can inspire people, I’m okay with it. I will treasure these photos forever and I am so obsessed with how they turned out.
Our photographer, Stephanie Parsley is hands down phenomenal. We had her and her boyfriend, Michael Qandah, who served as her second shooter, as well as our videographers, The Frenches of French Film Co, with us for most of the events throughout our wedding weekend. We were obsessed with all of them on a personal and professional level, as were our guests. I can’t wait to see our photos and footage of the actual day!! Stay tuned! XO
