How Wedding Photographers Can Use the Apple Watch On a Wedding Day

I have to start this post off by saying that I never wanted an Apple Watch and when I finally bought mine, Jay was so upset that I wasn’t excited to get it! I’ve grown a little more attached to it now and wear it when ever I leave the house because it IS easier to just flip my wrist to see the time instead of pulling my phone out of my pocket and I love that it tracks my steps (-;

I bought it though because I realized it was actually a really valuable tool to me as a wedding photographer and it has helped us SO MUCH at weddings which just sounds a little crazy, but I wanted to share how we personally utilize the Apple watch as wedding photographers.

1 Important text messages

In the times Before Apple Watch (or B.A.W.), I would miss important texts from Jay – “Is the bride hidden?” “No one is in the hotel room you sent me to” “I cant find a parking”. Anywhere from 5-30 minutes would pass by before I would check my phone to see these! I mean, I am in the ZONE working with the brides details and taking candids, I dont even have my phone on me, its stored in my camera bag. But these are important texts. Now I know when Jay texts me or calls me because my Apple watch vibrates. The best part is I can reply right there ON the watch! I can either select Yes or No for simple answers or I can tell Siri what to type and send it as a text or a voice message. Pretty handy!

2 Staying on time

Obviously any normal watch can do this, Im just sayin that I havent worn a watch since middle school so to me this is great. My phone basically stays in my camera bag because I have this horrible habit of buying super cute dresses for work that do not have pockets. Why do so few cute work appropriate dresses have pockets? Its a mystery. The Apple watch comes to my rescue though because Im asked about 100 times on a wedding day “What time is it?” and B.A.W. I would say “Uh hold on” and run to my bag, dig out my phone and announce the time. Now I just flick my wrist and voila.

3 The calendar feature

Quite possibly my FAVORITE thing about using the Apple watch for weddings – the CALENDAR! Oh my lawd, let me tell you. The way I have my watch face set up allows me to see whats next on my Google calendar. So before every wedding I put THE TIMELINE on my Google calendar. Life. Saver. I can see what the next major event is and what time it starts (Bride needs to get dressed by 3, cool. Limo coming at 3:30. Ceremony is at 5) so again, instead of running to my camera bag to pull out my paper timeline (which I do still bring) I can just look at my wrist. I can also go FORWARD in time to see what something in the future is happening (like family pictures or the cake cutting). It helps me make quick decisions if something unexpected pops up because I can see the timeline and decide where to move something to.

4 Sunset time

As a wedding photographer I am obsessed with golden hour light. I love it!! But the sunset time changes every day. Its nice to be able to look at my watch and see that the sunsets at 7:27 and its currently 6:45 so I know we should go out for their golden hour portraits soon before we miss the prime light.

5 Weather app

I have the weather app attached my home screen on the Apple watch so I can see how hot it is, the rain percentage, cloud coverage, etc. Not too much to say on this feature but again…phone in bag! So its helpful to me that its on my wrist and so Im mentioning it (-;

6 Link inspiration photos from your phone

I am the first to admit that sometimes Im at a loss at how to style the invitations or come up with a fun new pose to add variety to the gallery. So enter the Photos App! You can link up ONE photo album from your phone to your Apple Watch. I have an album called Photo Inspo that I put 10-20 photos in that I might want to try to replicate at a wedding…or just flat out remind myself to do things like have the groom look at the camera for once. Sometimes I even put things like double exposures into the album if I have time to do something like that, but its there as a reminder to get creative!

BONUS Step tracker

I like to compete with myself on how many steps I can get in at a wedding. The most so far is over 11,000 steps! Its fun to pull up the step tracker at the end of the night and see how much I’ve killed my feet!

The only downside I can really think of is that constantly looking at our watches makes us feel like we’re being perceived as bored or rude. I always make sure that we tell our couples that we’re not bored, we’re just looking at the timeline on our watches!