We're doing the first look, for both practical and sentimental reasons. Practically, I would like to minimize the amount of pictures taken after the ceremony, so the first look lets us get some of the big stuff done before the ceremony.
Sentimentally, I know we're both going to be nervous, and the first look lets us have some time together to connect and breathe before the full insanity begins.
I was way more inclined to do it anyway. FH was more hesitant, but once I found out how the traditional route started and shared, he was fine with doing the first look.
We are choosing to do a first look because of the time of our ceremony (6pm) the sun is supposed to set at 5:15 that day so unless we want all our photos in the dark a first look was the only option. If we had our ceremony before dark I think we would have gone traditional.
We didn't do a first look and i'm glad we didn't. I was set on him seeing me for the first time when my daddy walked me down the aisle. DH cried when he saw me, even though he swore he wouldn't and he isn't a crier.
We are doing a first look as we want to have that intimate moment together before things get going and we are taking the bulk of our BP pictures done too. We want to spend as much time as we can with guests (ceremony at 3p and and reception ends at 7p).
We did a first look and I loved it...Hubby was crying and it was soo sweet! Also we wanted to do 90% of pictures before the ceremony so we could go to cocktail hour...this worked perfectly for us and Hubby still was fighting back tears as I walked down the aisle!