5) Please consider your photographer and your guests (many of whom will bring cameras) when deciding the light level of the reception. When dancing starts, it’s common for all the lights to get turned off and for only the DJ’s colored lights to illuminate the room. This can be a challenge for the photographer to get great dancing photos. I love shooting dancing photos. It’s the time when everyone finally lets their hair down and cuts loose. But it’s not so easy to catch that priceless photo of grandma getting down on the dance floor when it’s too dark to see what’s going on.

Cameras vary in how quickly they focus in low light, but no matter what camera your photographer uses, the more light they have to work with, the better. I’m NOT suggesting that the lights be turned up all the way. I find that dimming the lights (instead of turning them off) not only helps a camera to focus quickly and accurately, but the ambient light also creates more depth in the photos, compared to the typical black background that’s common with most indoor flash photos. If you’ve ever seen a movie set, you know that filmmakers use a LOT of light to create depth. They go to this trouble because depth is always more pleasing to the eye than the 2-dimensional flatness created by a well-lit foreground and a black background.