Outdoor Ceremony Lighting: What Sun Angle Actually Means for Your Ceremony Time and How to Plan Around It

The outdoor ceremony lighting that most directly affects the quality of photography is not the weather. It is the angle of the sun relative to the ceremony orientation. Two couples in the same venue on the same type of clear day will receive completely different photographs if one ceremony faces east and another faces west. The east-facing ceremony in morning light gives the officiant warm direct sun on their face and the couple bright sidelight. The west-facing ceremony in afternoon light gives the couple the sun directly in their eyes. Understanding the relationship between sun angle, ceremony orientation, and the time of day the ceremony is scheduled is the preparation that prevents the most common outdoor lighting problem in wedding photography.

The Sun in Your Couple’s Eyes Problem

When the couple faces the guests for the ceremony, the sun is behind the guests relative to the couple. If the sun is in the west and the ceremony is at 4pm, the couple is looking west into the afternoon sun while the photographer, positioned at the rear of the guests, is shooting into the backlit couple. This produces squinting expressions on the couple and a challenging backlit photography situation for the photographer. Neither of these is what the couple intended when they chose an outdoor afternoon ceremony.

The solution is simple but requires knowing to ask about it: ask the venue coordinator which direction the ceremony faces, and calculate where the sun will be at the ceremony time on the specific date of the wedding. A ceremony facing west in the late afternoon puts the sun in the couple’s eyes. The same ceremony rotated so the couple faces north or northeast faces neither toward nor directly away from the afternoon sun, giving a more flattering sidelighting for the couple and a workable photography angle for the photographer. Most outdoor venues have multiple ceremony orientation options and will accommodate a rotation if asked in advance.

What the Photographer Can and Cannot Do

A photographer can work with backlit subjects using flash fill or by repositioning to the side. A photographer cannot make a squinting couple look comfortable in direct afternoon sun, regardless of technique. The conditions created by the ceremony orientation are the conditions the photography must work within, and the photographer who has not been to the venue before will discover those conditions when they arrive, not when they could have been changed.

Tell the photographer in advance what direction the ceremony faces and what time it is scheduled. A photographer who has been to the venue before will already know the sun angle situation and will have a plan for it. A photographer who has not been there can research the sun angle for the date and time and discuss their approach before the day. Either way, the conversation produces better photography than arriving without it.