Planning your Baraat day so the portraits are not rushed

Most Baraat portraits are shot in eleven minutes between the stage and the dinner call. They do not have to be.

I have photographed a little over 400 weddings, and the single biggest difference between calm portraits and panicked ones is not the venue or the outfit. It is whether the couple planned forty minutes for photos into a day that otherwise runs on Pakistani time.

Build the day backwards from the light

In Lahore between November and February the sun sets at about 5:15. Good portrait light starts roughly an hour before that. If your Baraat arrives at 8 pm, that light is long gone, so we plan a first look or a pre-Baraat bridal shoot at 3:30 instead, at home or at the venue lawn, and keep the evening for family, rukhsati and candid moments.

Tell your parlour the real time you must be ready, then subtract an hour. Bridal makeup in Lahore runs late almost every time, and the hour you lose comes straight out of your portraits.

Give one cousin the job of gathering people for family photos. Not the mother of the bride, who has a hundred other things to do, and not me, because I do not know which Khala is which. Hand them a written list of twelve groups at most, in order.

Protect the stage time

Stage photos with 300 guests take about ninety seconds per family. Ask the stage manager to send people up in groups instead of letting the queue form on its own, and keep the DJ quiet during that stretch so people can hear us.

Finally, eat something. I have watched brides faint at 11 pm because nobody brought them a plate. Ask your sister to hold a juice box and a sandwich for you. Your photos will look better when you are not running on nothing.