Our Wedding: Photos with our Cats
If you’re new around here, you may not know, but I love my cats. I am, admittedly, a crazy cat lady, and Jon, by extension, is a crazy cat man. We incorporated our fur babies into many aspects of our engagement and wedding, so I had to include them in our wedding photos as well.
As part of our day of timeline, we built in time to go back to our house (about 10 minutes from the wedding venue), for a quick session with Opal & Jasper.
Jasper is our orange tabby cat, who at the time of our wedding, was almost a year old. Opal is our mostly white calico cat who was four years old. Jasper is very much “my cat” as he is loud, outgoing, sassy, and loves the camera. Opal is definitely “Jon’s cat” as she’s quiet and tolerates photos. We love how these photos capture their personalities as much as ours!
You might be thinking, how did you get your cats to put up with this?! While they are used to being in front of the camera, this time it was different since it wasn’t just Jon and I photographing them. It’s imperative to have a plan when photographing with pets. Here are our tips for a successful photoshoot with cats:
- Limit the number of people. There were only four of us at the house during the photoshoot, Jon and I, plus our two photographers. The two photographers were unfamiliar to our cats,which made them nervous, Opal in particular. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get video of this moment, but it was the right decision for our pets.
- Choose a comfortable space for the animals. In the planning stages, we had discussed bringing the cats to the venue, but decided that there would be too many people and too much noise, so we came to the cats.
- Limit noise. We knew that Opal is more skittish and jumpy at loud noises, so we prepped our photographers to do their best to stay quiet with them as much as possible… No loud shrieks of delight, which believe me, was hard… Look at these adorable photos!
- Listen to your pets. Since you’ll essentially be forcing your pets into a certain position, making noise to get them to look at the camera, and putting them in an environment with either new people and/or a new space, you have to listen to them. When they want a break, they’ll let you know, and it’s important to give them their space!
