Wedding Photography Clothes - What Should I Wear
It seems a little strange to say we've been wedding photographers and videographers for over six years now. We're so grateful for these years of growth and the amazing couples we get to work with every weekend. Through those years, we've learned what works best for us. We totally realize our systems may not be everyone else's preferences, but for us, these systems have been our saving grace. Everything from the way we outsource, plan our days, pack our gear, even down to the clothes we wear to shoot weddings.
We could talk a lot about these systems, but today we want to specifically share about the clothes we wear to shoot weddings. There's is an important WHY behind our clothes, it comes down to two main reasons.
1. When showing up on weddings days, no matter how fancy or casual the guest attire is, we always strive to look extremely professional. We want our outfits to represent our brand and what we stand for. We want to blend in with guests while looking our best.
2. This next one's very important. We need to wear things that are comfortable in extreme heat that we can also can be very active in. We need to be able to squat, or even run in this attire. Yes, you will see us running around sometimes on wedding days!!
After six years of trial and error with what felt comfortable on wedding days, we have our clothing attire down to a SCIENCE. As a wedding photographers and videographers, I've had countless conversations, read thousands of comments on Facebook and blogs about what other wedding professionals wear so I know this is a topic of interest among our community. Our outfits might not be what you prefer, but I love sharing what we've learned along the years and what works really well for us.
What to wear as a male videographer...
Let's break down Stephen's go-to wedding videographer outfit. If you're wondering what to wear as a male videographer, this outfit is dialed in to perfection. Let's start from the bottom.
Wedding Videographer Pants for Men Top Recommendation: Lululemon ABC Pants
Because we often work in 90 and often triple digit temperature wedding days, having attire that is breathable is key. Stephen naturally sweats a lot, so a lot of his clothes are optimized for this. If he were to wear a anything else in our California heat it would only be a few minutes before he would be dripping in a pool of sweat, poor guy. He needed to find clothes that were stretchy and breathable which is very uncommon for nice dress pants. A friend recommended he try Lululemon's ABC Pants. You'll have to click that link above to find out what ABC stands for...
At the time, we didn't even know Lululemon made men's dress pants but we figured we give it a try. The minute he tried these on in the dressing room, he said he literally LOL'd (like, for real, laughed out loud). He was smiling ear to ear because he had never in his life tried on pants that felt the way these did. They are $125 and you get what you pay for, top notch quality and design. He has many pairs in different colors and they have lasted him so many wedding seasons!
Runner Up: Nike Golf Pants - Little less of an investment, but less durable and classy. If you can splurge on the Lululemon's you'll be much happier.
Top Wedding Shirts Recommendations for Guys (who sweat): The Mizzan & Main + Thompson Tees + Vest Combo
Mizzan + Main Dress Shirts are one of a kind. They look ultra professional, yet are made of incredibly light athletic stretchy material. These are the dress shirts professional athletes wear when they need to dress up. They keep you looking nice, but comfortable at the same time. Stephen got this recommendation from one of his favorite author's Tim Ferris. They run around $125 a piece and are worth every penny. They even are wrinkle proof, so you can stuff them in a suitcase and pull them out and be looking fresh with no ironing or steaming needed. Even though Stephen is tall at 6'5", he recommends getting the normal size (not the tall version), unless you have VERY long arms (think that pro football and basketball player size arms). Because these shirts are so thin and comfortable you'll feel like you're wearing nothing when you wear them. Any slight breeze God blesses us with on those triple digit days is felt right through the shirt like a refreshing dip in the pool. For that reason however, Stephen likes to dress these shirts up a vest and tie combo of some sort.
Thompson Tees is Stephen's secret weapon. He's a huge fan of this product because it absolutely changed his life. When I say Stephen sweats easily, I'm not joking. Before discovering Thompson Tees, Stephen only wore dark colors. He would never DARE wear a light colored button up shirt because he would soak it. When he discovered Thompson Tees it was life changing. He had tried all the products out there. He had tried the clinical strength anti-perspirants, he had tried the so called "sweat proof" shirts (this is something Mizzen + Main claims too... but it's not enough to be extra breathable). Nothing worked to hold back the sweat and allow him to wear light colored shirts without embarrassment. That was, until he discovered Thompson Tees. He now has about 20 of the V-Neck Slim versions that he wears almost on the daily. They work incredibly well and don't let any moisture through at all!
Stephen's #1 Wedding Videographer Clothes Hack - SHIRT STAYS
Stephen always used to hate helping me hang the dress up high because his shirt would get all untucked and he'd have to go fix it to look nice again. At our good friend Rachel and Jeff's wedding, he noticed his friend was wearing something under his pants to keep his shirt tucked in. Jeff is a Police Officer and it turns out a ton of law enforcement guys wear shirt stays because they are required to keep their shirt tucked in looking nice...while being super active. A lightbulb went off in Stephen's head and he hopped on Amazon and ordered a pair right away. The first wedding he wore them to was a game changer, he never went back to his old ways! He loved this product so much he contacted the manufacturer to improve them and now we even learned to sell our own version on Amazon.
Shirt stays are essential for any wedding professional who is looking to stay looking fancy, while being active. Crouching down, reaching up high, carrying things around, these are all standard procedure for wedding photographers and videographers. This often leaves us looking like a mess. With shirt stays, it keeps your shirt tucked in all day without any fuss. It also saves you time in the morning because connecting your shirt to the stay keeps it taught and you can now avoid ironing.
Chelsey's Attire Recommendations for the Female Wedding Photographer
Now onto what I wear. My requirements were that I wanted to have a comfortable dress that was around knee length that had sleeves. The material had to be soft enough that wouldn't rub my arms raw from lifting 1000's of times a day to take photos. I've tried so many dresses that would work for one wedding but afterwards I would vow never again because of this reason. I'm also short at 5'4" and although there are so many cute dresses or jumpsuits I could wear, I wanted a length that I could wear with flats with and still look cute in.
My Best Dresses For Wedding Photographers
Old Navy Ponte-Knit Sheath Dress - I'm sure there are other brands that make a similar dress but so far this is where I've found my favorite professional wedding dress. I know Banana Republic or even Nordstroms have similar styles but for now this is why I love this version. This dress is made with very stretchy cotton and it semi-fitted. The reason I wanted something that was semi-fitted is because we work outside and gust of wind might blow and flare the dress up. I wouldn't want to flash everyone in attendance and distract from the important moments I'm trying to capture haha! This dress is also priced very affordably so you can buy every color and rotate through them. This also makes them easy to just throw away and replace if they get worn out (so far mine last about a whole wedding season). I love this dress and will probably be getting every color they have in the near future!
My Best Shoe Recommendations (flats) For Wedding Photographers
Dexflex Comfort Women's Claire Scrunch Flat - I know photographers who will wear cute name brand boots, super stylish flats, or even sandals to weddings. I just can't do that. I wish I could, but I come from a long line of feet issues and my feet will scream at me halfway through the wedding and I'll be miserable. For me it comes down to this, I have to wear shoes like those Dexflexes or these Clarks that I can put insoles in. For insoles that work well for being on your feet all day at weddings, I HIGHLY recommend superfeet insoles. More on these below...
Comfortable flats have been tricky for me and definitely one of the aspects of our attire I've experimented with the most. These two options linked above are working well for me now! I'll update this blog post in the future if I try anything else :)
Best Insoles for Wedding Photographers & Videographers - SUPERFEET
Insoles have been a game changer for both of us, specifically the superfeet brand. Make to get the right size and color. Each color of superfeet insoles has a different density and shape. You can probably find a local place to try them on, or just order a bunch online and return the ones that don't feel right. When getting sized for these at our local shop Fleet Feet, we learned that even really good shoe brands that have great support are designed to put insoles in to properly support you. Stephen and I are on our feet all day long with little to no breaks. We have to take care of our feet and so investing in good insoles is one of those ways we do this. I highly recommend fitting insoles into whatever wedding shoes you find!
We hope this post breaking down our top recommendations for professional photographer and videographer wedding attire has been helpful to any of you out there reading. If you try any of these items and love them, TAG us on Instagram @chels_diaz and @steezdiaz, we'd love to see!
We'll keep this post updated if we change anything or add anything to our wedding day clothing essentials! Cheers!
-S&C
Did You Know: You Can Make Passive Income Creating Brands Like The Products You See On This Page?
Dear fellow photographer… it’s been a handful of years since this blog post went live and it’s been one of our most popular blogs for wedding professionals trying to figure out how to optimize their wedding day outfits!
If you found this helpful, you may be interested in hearing about another popular resource we’ve created to help you with another tricky part of being a wedding photographer… the finances!
Specifically, how do you stop trading dollars for hours, and start making your money work for you on autopilot?
We used to shoot 40+ weddings a year, but we were really limited by our own time. We could only serve so many couples, there were only so many weekends in a year…
Then we discovered something else. It started as a “side hustle” and we’d laugh being at weddings and checking our phones realizing we made more that day passively than we did working the wedding.
That’s when we knew we had to go all in and teach others this method.
We have created an online challenge that teaches you how we’ve created an additional revenue stream outside of our wedding business (that’s totally hands off) and how now many wedding professionals are using this same method to make some money outside of shooting weddings each weekend.
The Rainmaker Challenge was originally created when we were pregnant with our son Kaizen to help moms achieve passive income so they could make money during nap time.
Since then, it’s grown beyond just moms and now we’re having many fellow wedding professionals go through the challenge and learn our Rainmaker method for themselves.