One of the most important parts of any San Francisco Bay Area wedding shoot are the bridal portraits. Obviously, there is nothing more important than the bride at HER wedding. We try to do our bride individual pictures just after the bridal prep shoot is complete. This is when she is going to be looking her best! Her hair won't be wind blown and her make up will be fresh. This is especially important on a hot Northern California summer day where these items can begin to fade with the heat. We like to start with poses similar to the one shown above with the bride looking off-camera. We will either have her looking out a window or down at her flowers. This is a good warm up and much easier for the bride as opposed to telling her to smile and look at the camera. Although we will often do some posed shots like those, we want to minimize them during the Bridal Prep portion of the wedding day to help keep the stress level down. We are keenly aware that the bride could be quite nervous before the ceremony and we want to be sensitive to that.