Wedding

First Look vs Walking Down the Aisle

April 28, 2024

This is the ultimate guide to choosing to do a first look vs walking down the aisle being the first time you and your groom see each other. Doing a first look on your wedding day or deciding to wait until you walk down the aisle is a very personal decision. For me, I wanted to wait until I walked down the aisle. It seemed traditional, and what I had always envisioned for my wedding day. However, after much debate with my (amazing) wedding planner, Linda, as well as my (fabulous) wedding photographer, Karen, we came up with the perfect solution.

Fist Look Pros

Having a first look just the two of you is a beautiful way to experience seeing each other for the first time in an intimate setting with just the two of you. This may also be a chance for the both of you to exchange more personal vows to each other. This also is the choice of most photographers that I spoke with. Wedding timelines are stressful, but when you incorporate a first look, it alleviates the need to cram all your photos into the cocktail hour. If you’re the type of person who wants to spend more time with your guests and partake in the cocktail hour, this is for you!

First Look Cons

I think most people’s hesitation with doing a first look is that their groom will only cry once when he sees you. Believe me, this is NOT the case. My husband cried at our first look and when I came down the aisle. The day is overwhelmingly emotional for the both of you and there are plenty of (happy) tears to go around. The only real con of doing a first look that I can think of is that people think it will take away from that first walk down the aisle. For me, it didn’t, but I can see why people would be hesitant to do this if they thought it would take away from that moment.

Walking Down the Aisle Pros

Whenever I looked at wedding videos or photos, I always saw the bride walking down the aisle and her husband crying when he saw her. That’s what I wanted for my day too. It seems like the perfect way to get the shot while also maintaining the excitement of not seeing each other before the wedding. I love the concept of this, but with wedding timelines, it’s not always feasible.

Walking Down the Aisle Cons

When you wait to have your first look as you are walking down the aisle, you miss out on a lot of pictures. When we were discussing the pros and cons of doing a first look vs walking down the aisle, we would have been missing out on 400+ pictures of our wedding. Not to mention, having our wedding party not able to partake during the cocktail hour because we all would have been taking photos together. To me, pictures were very important to me as I was paying a lot for them, so the more the better. That was our number one influence to getting us to do a hybrid approach to our first look.

The Happy Medium

The happy medium approach to doing a first look vs walking down the aisle was taking a little bit of both and blending them. Before our ceremony, we had our first look pictures before we got into family and wedding party pictures, before we went into our ceremony. We opted to have our families at our first look – immediate family and spouses only. They stood in a line that created an aisle for me to walk down. With Kevin turned the other way, I got into position, he turned around and his reaction is my favorite to this day. A blend of excitement, happy tears, and an overwhelming sense of gratefulness that lead us to this moment right here.

It was the perfect happy medium of having a first look and walking down the aisle for the first time. We managed to take all of our wedding photos prior to our ceremony so we could have our wedding party eat during the cocktail hour. During the cocktail hour, Kevin and I took our newlywed photos. Plus we ended up with 1,400+ photos of our entire wedding thanks to doing a first look!

You can read more about how I set the tone for our wedding day here. I also did a lot of prep work for getting my skin in great shape for our wedding. You can read more of what I did here. My photographer, Karen, also got some great shots of my beautiful engagement ring which you can read about here.