Winter Wedding Videography: Short Days, Cold Hands and a December to February Timing Guide

Winter weddings film beautifully. Candlelight, dark wood, coats over gowns, snow on the steps, a room full of people who came out in the cold for you. They also ask more of the plan than a June wedding does, because the light runs out early and the cold affects people and equipment in ways that are easy to forget until the day. Here is how we plan a December, January or February wedding so the film holds up from the first look to the last dance.

The light is the whole plan

In most of the country the sun sets somewhere between about 4:15 and 5:45 PM in midwinter. In Chicago, for example, we compute a 4:20 PM sunset for December 15, 2027, 4:44 PM for January 15 and 5:23 PM for February 15. Farther south and west it is later, farther north and east it is earlier, but the pattern is the same everywhere: by the time a typical summer ceremony would be starting, it is dark.

Two details catch couples out.

• The earliest sunsets come in early to mid December, not on the solstice. The shortest day is around December 21, but the sunset has already started creeping later by then. Mornings keep getting darker into early January.
• Light fades faster than the sunset time suggests. In a city, buildings block the low sun well before it actually sets. In winter the sun sits low all afternoon, so a venue with trees or hills to the west can lose direct light an hour early.

For your exact date, look up the sunset for that day and city, not the month in general. Our city timeline posts, like the Chicago ceremony time by month, do this for the 15th of every month.

A December to February timing guide

The rule we use across our city timelines is to start the ceremony about two hours and forty-five minutes before sunset if you want the portraits in daylight after it. That leaves a half-hour ceremony, around forty minutes of family and wedding party photos, a short cocktail hour, and a portrait walk in the last good light. In winter that pushes the ceremony into the early afternoon, so most winter couples choose one of three shapes for the day.

By month, as a rough guide for the middle of the country:

• December: the shortest light of the year. If you want any outdoor portraits, plan a first look and have them finished by about 3:30 PM. After a ceremony that starts later than about 3:30 PM, portraits will be indoors or after dark.
• January: a little more evening light than December, but darker mornings. Late-morning getting ready coverage happens in low window light, so lamps and a room with a big window help.
• February: sunset is noticeably later, often past 5:00 PM by mid-month in much of the country. A 2:30 PM ceremony with portraits afterward becomes realistic again.

Daylight saving time does not start again until the second Sunday in March, so the whole December to February window runs on standard time.

None of these plans is better than the others. What does not work is a 4:00 PM December ceremony with outdoor portraits planned for afterward. By then the light has gone, and the photographer, the videographer and the two of you end up standing in the dark deciding what to do.

Cold: hands, batteries and breath

People. Fifteen minutes outside in January is plenty, and the best winter portraits are usually short. Keep a coat, a scarf and hand warmers just out of frame, and have someone holding them. Hands go red and stiff quickly, which shows on film during a ring shot or a close-up of fingers laced together. Warm them inside before the portraits rather than after.

Breath. Visible breath is one of the best things about winter footage. It makes a quiet exchange outside look like what it was. It also fogs glasses and can soften a close-up if someone is standing right next to the lens, so we give it a little room.

Batteries. Lithium batteries lose capacity in the cold, sometimes quickly, and a battery that showed half full indoors can die ten minutes into an outdoor portrait. Spares kept warm in an inside pocket and swapped early are the fix. We carry backup cameras, lenses and essential gear to every event in any season; in winter the spares simply get used more.

Condensation. A cold camera carried into a warm, humid reception room fogs up inside and out, and it can take a while to clear. We plan the walk back in so the camera has time to warm up before the entrances and toasts, rather than coming in from the snow and going straight to the first dance.

Candlelight and indoor footage

Most of a winter wedding happens inside, and that is not a compromise. Candlelight, fireplaces, string lights and warm tungsten lamps are some of the most flattering light there is on film. A few things help it look the way it feels:

• Lots of small light sources beat one bright one. Candles on every table, along the aisle and on windowsills give the room depth. One overhead light makes everything flat.
• Ask the venue about dimmers. Being able to bring the room down a little for the ceremony and first dance, and up for the toasts, helps more than any extra light we could bring.
• Keep the ceremony space lit enough to see faces. A candle-only ceremony is lovely in person, but faces need some light to read on camera. A few warm lamps or uplights near the altar solve this without changing the mood.

Snow

Falling snow is one of the best things that can happen to a wedding film, and you cannot plan for it. What you can plan for is snow on the ground and snow on the forecast.

• Have a ten-minute outdoor window ready either way. If it snows, we go out. If it does not, the window becomes a few more minutes inside.
• Drones are a fair-weather extra. Drone footage of the venue is included from The Reverie upward, but we only fly when weather, FAA regulations and timing permit, and never during the ceremony. Wind, falling snow and early darkness ground a drone more often in winter than in summer.

How many hours a winter day needs

Winter days are often more compact, because there is no long golden-hour gap between dinner and dancing. A daylight ceremony followed by an indoor reception can sit comfortably inside six hours, which is The Verse at $1,400. A first look in late morning with dancing until 9:00 PM is closer to eight hours (The Reverie, $1,500, our most popular collection) or ten (The Sonnet, $2,000). For a short, small day, The Aubade covers four hours for $1,200. Every film collection includes raw footage, and an additional hour is $125.

How we would plan it

For a mid-January wedding with sunset around 4:45 PM: getting ready from 11:00 AM, first look at 12:30, wedding party and family portraits until 1:45, back inside to warm up, ceremony at 2:30, a ten-minute portrait outside at 3:45 if the light and weather allow, then cocktails, entrances, toasts and the first dance by candlelight. That is about eight hours with a 7:00 PM finish.

If you would rather do an evening ceremony, we would plan a 5:30 PM ceremony with no outdoor portraits, light the ceremony space well, and spend the coverage on the room, the toasts and the dancing.

You can compare every collection on our packages page, and when your date is settled, reserve it with a $500 deposit that is applied to your total. There are no travel fees, because we keep dedicated teams in the areas we cover.