Why to Avoid Having Your Photographer Take Table Shots at the Wedding Reception
If you have looked through your parents or grandparents wedding albums, you may see a few shots of guests with plates full of food in front of them smiling at the camera. These are called “table shots”, and were once taken at nearly every wedding reception. Today, most brides and grooms do not want table shots taken at their wedding, and there are many reasons that this is the case.
Inconvenient
In order to take table shots, the photographer has to inconvenience the guests who are trying to visit and eat, it is not uncommon for a guest to become very agitated and upset with the photographer even when the photographer is being polite. Also, the photographer might be asked to wait a few minutes for a guest to return to the table, which slows the whole process down and missing people is unavoidable in the time allotted for these shots. The wait staff is inconvenienced as well and it will cause guests to have to wait longer for their dinner and can cause timelines of later events to be pushed back.
Unappealing Photos
Do you really want your wedding album to be full of half empty drinks, crumpled napkins and picked over entrees? Because the photographer is likely going to be interrupting the meal
to get the shot, this is exactly what you can expect to see in table shots.
Who is Featured?
Another good reason to nix the table shots is that you don’t really need pictures of your mother’s boss, former roommate’s latest boyfriend, or your great niece’s date. While many of the guests at your wedding will be important to you, there are some that will be less so. For this reason, most brides opt not to have table shots of every single guest at their wedding.
Of course, you do want some pictures of your guests, but instead of the table shots, ask your photographer to take shots of people dancing or chatting. These photos will be more natural, and the photographer will not have to disrupt the meal to take the pictures.
While this idea is a bit outdated, some couples leave a disposable camera on each table. This allows the guests at the table to snap shots of each other without tying up the wedding photographer who is needed to take the shots that you really want.
Just because things were done a certain way when your mother or grandmother got married doesn’t mean that you have to do it the exact same way. Capturing table shots, once an important part of the wedding photographer’s job, is now something that can be replaced with more natural shots of guests enjoying themselves while at your wedding. You will still have some shots of your guests to include in your wedding album if you so desire.
Talk to your wedding photographer about nixing the table shots. He or she will be more than happy to accommodate your wishes.
