This gorgeous girl’s name is Taylor, she turned 16 and her mother contacted me couple months prior the event. She wanted an event photographer to cover for four hours but she wasn’t sure how to divide the time. I asked her about the location of the party and where Taylor was getting ready. Since the locations were not that far from each other and from my house. I asked mom , if I could start from the house for at least one hour and then continue to shoot at the party place. I am glad we did! Taylor invited so many friends , I would have hard time trying to capture her beautiful dress and of her for few portraits. Even though when I showed up at the first location, there were bunch of her friends already there, everyone were nice enough to give us some space and then we did some fun photos too of everyone.
The party was great, many kids danced which is surprising, I have been to parties where kids were just standing on the dance floor. Couple of songs were for adults too and kids never left the dance floor. My stay was semi short but I stayed longer enough to photograph the cake and her calling out all the people to share this special moment of her life. After that its usually coffee and cake and I have no reason to stay longer than that. If you want to calculate how long an event photographer should stay, ask the hall manager when do they usually bring the cake out and just add another 30 minutes. It should be plenty of time for event photographer to capture the cake ceremony. You should definitely consider to take photos prior the event, add one or two hours depending on location distances and if you want to do photos in a different location like a park.
