Are you still deciding whether you want to do an indoor or outdoor wedding? Which one is better? Let’s look at it from photography point of view!

LIGHT, LIGHT, LIGHT!!!

First, lets compare lighting situation and see which one of them will give you the photos you will squeak about:

INDOORS: most of the time there is not enough “sunlight”.

OUTDOORS: obviously, plenty of sunlight.

So, the conclusion is actually pretty simple:

If you are going for lighter, aka “fresh and natural” look for your images, OUTDOOR WEDDING VENUE is your to go.

If you are into dramatic flash photography, you like artificial lighting look or if you’re into “dark and moody” photography style – INDOOR WEDDING VENUE could be a good option for you.

Are there exclusions to those rules? Of course! I will be talking about it in more details in my other articles, so subscribe or bookmark the page and you can keep an eye on my other cool tips.

WHAT ABOUT THE REST?

Now. Lets compare side to side other things that should be taken into consideration.

	INDOOR VENUE	OUTDOOR VENUE
Climate control
Space availability
Time availability
Kid’s friendly
Backup location

Climate Control: if you are or one of your guests is a person that need a climate control, then choice is obvious! Nothing beats the Indoor wedding venue on the comfort! INDOORS is a win here!

Space availability: usually outdoor venue are much better on space usability, when indoor venues often restrict how, how many and where the things are going to be. Especially during the ceremony. And, most of times, it will give your photographer a hard time moving around. Consequently, limiting the picture variety.

Time availability: most of the indoor venues will limit the time for you to be there. And that would include time to set up, ceremony, time to break down, and, most importantly, after you used up all of that time – you might end up not having enough time for your pictures! At outdoor venues the only limitation you have is a sunlight! And sunset time is pretty easy to calculate!

Kids friendly: if you have a big family with lots of kids and you’re expecting them all at your wedding, then it’ll be a great bonus toward an outdoor venue. Especially, an outdoor ceremony. Kids behave so much better outside! 🙂

Backup location: Final check: Murphy’s law. I ALWAYS check any decision on what if? And recommend it to you too!

There is less probability that something will happen to your indoor location. So, that’s a plus!

It is much more likely that you will have some sore of inclement weather outside that could disturb your wedding. So, make sure your backup location at least as half beautiful as outdoor one. No backup location or bad looking one is a no go. Unless it’s free. Ahm… Maybe…

Here is my personal opinion.

Photographing outdoors is easier: better lighting, more space to move around and more time to get the shots you need. So, outdoor wedding venue is a better option from photography point of view.

Also, consider this: if you give your camera to your relative, friend or a beginner photographer – you still have a chance to have pretty good pics at the end if shooting outdoors. You give the same camera to the same person to shoot indoors and your chances of getting good images are going down exponentially.

It takes a better photographer with better equipment to shoot indoors to get at least the same quality image as a rookie shooting with his/her cellphone camera outside.

Now you know all pros and cons of how to choose your wedding venue from the photography insider point of view, and it’s up to you to decide if a good light and good wedding pictures of outdoors worth sacrificing the comfort and safety of the air-conditioned indoors 😄