A Wedding Post...
Since wedding season is approaching I wanted to take a minute to lecture…not just to my brides but any of you out there. I am going to say what every photographer wants to say but doesn’t want to offend anyone, lots of times we wait till wedding season and then think of it, but it’s too late to post because every bride we already shot will think it’s about her & her wedding. This post is about no one specific. It was actually inspired by a post I saw on one of my photography forums where a disappointed bride was wondering why there were not more images. The photographer was upset and asking for advice on how to tell her things like: (They weren’t really into being photographed. It was rainy & cold out, the husband kept making goofy faces, they allowed only minutes for photos until it was pitch dark outside, and my favorite, the bride specifically said “don’t photograph my arms they are fat” but then wore a sleeveless gown. LOL!
So here goes….if you want good wedding photos Make. The. Time. For. Them. At. Your. Wedding. You have to make wedding photos a priority if its important to you.
Also take your venue and surroundings and weather into consideration. I pretty much am going to start refusing weddings in Illinois during bad weather seasons. I know it could still rain in July, but it probably won’t be 60 mph winds, rain, below 50 degree temps and dreary.
Usually I say 20 min. for family shots, 20 min. for wedding party shots & 30 minutes for romantic bride and groom shots. This is sometimes a stretch even.
What photos are most important to YOU? Communicate that to your photographer.
Personally, my favorite are the romantic bride and groom shots and here is why…20 years from now, when you have your own kids and you are looking back on wedding photos with your children or grandchildren, they want to see you & dad…not that bridesmaid or groomsmen that you don’t even talk to anymore, they also don’t want to see a huge group shot of 45 of your family members you never see except for funerals and weddings, where 3 kids are screaming, 1 is picking their nose and great aunt myrtle is staring off into space & uncle john’s face is hidden behind someone you only met once at a family reunion. Those large groups shots take 20 minutes sometimes to get by the time you round everyone up and pose them all. And as I am shooting it I often wonder to myself….are they printing this to hang on the wall, or making a canvas of this? I doubt it. I feel like you should have someone take that photo at your next family reunion with a regular camera instead of paying me $200 an hour to do that at your wedding when we could be capturing the most romantic shot of you and your new husband that you will cherish forever, print big and hang on your wall and look at every day and remember how great your day was.
Many times the bride will give me a Pinterest board with all these gorgeous shots of the couple that they want to recreate, but then they don’t make the time to do it. It’s frustrating for me and I always worry that when they get their drive of images they will wish there were more of those. There are also a lot of weddings where at the reception the bride and groom are nowhere to be found together. It’s really hard to get shots of you and your groom looking like you are enjoying your reception together, smiling, laughing and dancing when you are not doing that.
There are so many times where it’s a whole day of hurry up and wait, wait, wait, wait some more. Then it’s too late. I would say more than half of the weddings I do people are not ready on time, sometimes they aren’t even there when they are supposed to be. So we just have to wing it later, and then later there is 50 more things going on and we are trying to cram the entire day of photos into a 30 minute window after the ceremony and everyone is in a hurry to get to the reception and I end up feeling like I am burdening everyone trying to get the photos that you told me yourself you wanted.
Sometimes the stars align and it all falls together in perfect harmony and I hear baby angels singing in my head…I love it when that happens. But many times I am literally screaming in my head “Oh my Gosh when am I going to get these shots!”
I understand that for many of you, this is your first time, you don’t know how its going to go, you are learning it as we go during the day so here are a few other tips from someone who has been to at least 10 weddings a year for the last 7 years.
1. Feed your guests while they wait. I can’t say this one enough. They won’t mind waiting on you while you get photos done during the good evening lighting if you feed them something. I know its traditional old school, the bride & groom, bridal party, and then immediate family goes thru the line first….well that tradition needs to expire now. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen disgruntled guests dying of starvation while waiting, and NOONE listens to the toasts if you do that first while they are hungry. They are all just counting the seconds until they can eat, except the drunk people, they don’t care. ;) And feed your photographer when you eat. Photographers are people too and need food or they get very grumpy indeed. Standing on our feet for 8 hours, lugging heavy equipment around requires nourishment. Noone wants wedding photos of themselves stuffing their faces, so even though staff is usually fed last, make it work so that the photographers eat when you do and they will be done and ready to photograph speeches, toasts & first dances.
2. That brings me to number 2…Stop talking during wedding toasts guests! You are so rude if you do this. Even if you can’t hear them in the back, you need to pretend you can. This happens a lot. I swear I am going to start shushing rude guests who do this.
3. Put your damn cell phone away and enjoy the moment. Hold your partners hand, listen to the vows, pray with the couple or people watch for all I care. OK you can take some fun selfies at the reception, but I swear to God if you have your arm out in the aisle or up in the air while I am trying to get shots during the ceremony I will break it off. Do you think your cellphone picture is going to be better than the photo I take with my high dollar camera and lens and photoshop and editing software? Do you think the bride and groom who paid me to come do this are going to want your arm sticking out in every photo I take?
4. Try to keep your relatives with their personal camera out of the way, I often have to wait for them to get their shot and step aside so I can get mine. The shot that I posed and set up.
5. Have fun and smile, be cuddly, laugh, hug, dance….this is a one shot deal. We cannot recreate this day every again. But at the same time you need to relax and act natural too. Be in the moment and your photos will turn out beautiful! Don’t worry about looking at the camera all the time. Unless the photographer asks you to look at them don’t. She might be trying to get candid journalistic shots.
6. You need your photographer about an hour and a half before your ceremony starts. This gives us a chance to photograph all the details of the bride (dress, shoes, jewelry, bouquet) and also grab some candids of everyone getting ready. Often time goes quicker than people expect and it’s a shame to lose out on these shots.
7. Don’t skip the engagement session. This gives you a chance to work 1 on 1 with your potential wedding photographer and get a feel for how they shoot, pose you and their style. This will ease stress on your big day.
8. Don’t let your groomsmen change out of the wedding clothing until the photographer is gone for the day. No you may not change into a tee shirt and jeans. You have to do this for 1 day, for a few hours. You will survive. Take off your jacket and tie and roll up your sleeves if you’re hot, but don’t lose who you are in the day by blending in with the guests. Same goes for bridesmaids, although I see this less often. And brides, if you cannot wear your dress all day and night, at least get a very cute bridal looking comfortable backup dress in WHITE to change into.
9. Do your research before you book your wedding photographer. Look at the albums of other weddings they have shot and make sure it meets your expectations. Do they shoot better in natural light situations, is your wedding reception venue well-lit or dark? I did purchase some new equipment that helps me with the darker situations, but that kind of shooting is not in my soul. I am never going to be as inspired and excited as I am to shoot outside during natural lighting on a warm spring, summer or fall evening. Café lights are magical and help out poorly lit situations bigtime. They can be purchased for about $12 to $25 a strand and provide lots of warm, flattering lighting. I love them inside as well as outside at receptions. You should def. include room in your budget for as many of these lights as possible. And you can always reuse them so its not a waste of money.
10. If you can’t afford a wedding planner, enlist in a go-to person for the day. Choose someone selfless who is devoted to you and not to drinking or standing outside smoking (huge reception pet peeve). Choose someone who knows you and knows your family and guests and will be good at getting everyone rounded up for photos, fluffing your dress, and making sure you always have a drink, your lipstick and will help you pee. And give that person a gift, like you give your bridesmaids. This person is your lifeline for the day.
11. This one is for the parents of the bride and groom (if they have kids)….the kids are your job that day. Unless the bride has arranged for them to go with a babysitter after the dance part of the reception, which I highly recommend. I have seen many brides unable to enjoy their reception because they were dealing with the kids. I am like “Where is grandma?” “Oh there she is dancing and drinking while the Bride is holding the crying toddler.” What is wrong with this picture? Step it up Grandmas & Grandpas. I know you want pictures of your children during your big day, you are now one big, happily, united family for the rest of your lives, but for the hours of approx. 8pm till the reception is over, you are bride and groom. Enjoy it! Get that babysitter. The kids will most likely be crying and tired and worn out and probably didn’t get a nap because of the ceremony anyway. They wanna go home and watch Mickey Mouse and snuggle.
12. Don’t drink and drive! Plan this out in advance please. Line someone up to drive everyone home.
This is all I can remember right now but I am about certain I will have to add more to this post later. ;)
Please don’t read all this with a passive aggressive tone. I don’t mean for it to sound snippy, just informative. I have great compassion for situations and how things don’t always go as planned and that timelines don’t always work out. I just am trying to help you all out here. I feel if I help with one thing from writing this, that’s one less thing to go wrong on your big day.
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3.24.17
I decided to write another inspirational rant about weddings…I figure if I write it and you agree, you can send it to your people and then I will be the bad guy for you. ;) So here goes…
Today I want to talk about wedding speeches. I have heard some good ones and some bad ones, really bad ones. So here is my little list of Wedding Speech do’s & don’ts.
1. Don’t cuss in your wedding speech. I have heard a few where there were a couple cuss words that didn’t totally ruin the speech, an example would be if you were telling a story and you said “ We ran like hell to get out of there…” or something to that nature. I get it, I cuss, cuss words sometimes colorize a story. Sentence enhancers if you will. But don’t ever use the F word….ever or the B word or the A word or the MF word or the C word or the S word! Yes people do this...more than you think. I am always cringing behind my camera when this happens and Great Grandma is listening or all the little kids who are listening. Its tacky and yes we do understand you had to drink a half a bottle of vodka to get up the nerve to give your speech in the first place, but most of the people in the audience are still sober, so reel it in a bit.
2. Don’t make your speech too long. People get bored and they are hungry, they really cannot hear you well in the audience anyway, especially at the back of the room, so you start to sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown. Noone wants to hear all your drunken stories, they aren’t nearly as funny to other people as they are to you. Introduce yourself. Thank everyone for coming to celebrate this special day. Tell how you know the bride & groom. Share a short funny or heartfelt story about something that pertains to your relationship with them. Wish them happiness. Then Toast. The End.
3. If you are a Mom or Dad and you paid for the wedding, you can talk as long as you want. ;)
4. Don’t try to embarrass the couple. Don’t ever say things like “We never thought she/he would find a partner because…..blah blah blah… People do this… I swear, I have heard it, more than once. I think sometimes people get nervous and ramble. But be mindful of what old things from the past you are bringing up, something you think is funny, might really offend the bride or groom and taint the evening. I’m guilty of nervous rambling so I understand and that takes me to #5.
5. Prepare a speech, write it down, and keep it in your pocket. Don’t show up with nothing and look like a jerk. And don’t say “Uhhmmm” a whole bunch, its horrible and makes us all want to crawl under the table. If you are just absolutely not a speech giver, at least give a short, sweet one. Wish them the best and thank them and tell everyone to raise their glass. It’s that easy.
Example: “Good evening everyone! [Bride] & [Groom], tonight we celebrate you. We all wish you a lifetime of happiness, love, health, success and laughter. May you continue to find humor in the bad and appreciation for the good. May your friendship continue to grow throughout all the years to come. Cheers!”
Let’s lift our glasses and toast to the newlyweds!
6. For the guests: Do not talk amongst yourself during the speeches. This is very rude. If you can’t hear, pretend you can anyway. Many places the sounds from the back of the room just echo thru the venue….so even though you think you may be chatting quietly in the back, it sounds like 100 people back there trumpeting thru the room. I think it’s so embarrassing. I get it you might have been talking to someone you haven’t seen in a while, pause and tell them, ”We better finish this conversation after the speeches.” Set a good example. Also if your child is crying or being rude, you should take them out of the room.
7. Do not ever mention the bachelor party or ex-girlfriends. Period.
8. Don’t talk negative about getting married. You speech should focus on what a wonderful step this is for the Bride & Groom.
9. https://www.topweddingsites.com/wedding-blog/wedding-planning/the-best-man-speech-examples-one-liners-jokes-more#short This link has some really great information on it. It also has many speech examples, which you can use to help you create a nice, funny, or heartfelt speech.
After all the weddings I have done over the years, I cannot really remember who said what except for one persons….Jake Brown gave the best speech I have ever listened to at a wedding. He broke a lot of the rules I mentioned but he is an exception to the rule….when his speech was over, I wished it wasn’t. I ugly cried.
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WHAT IS A LIFESTYLE SESSION?
A: A Lifestyle Session is more relaxed, less posed. Nothing is forced….we just visit and play. There can be so many different ways for a session like this to go…but basically I just want to capture you & your partner and your children being natural, just being yourselves. Doing what you normally do or we can mix it up a little bit and plan a simple craft or task, such as roasting & eating s’mores, painting with watercolors, playing with blocks, snuggling in bed, baking cupcakes in the kitchen….the possibilities are endless.
Q: Where do most Lifestyle Sessions take place?
A: Usually in your home or yard. Please do not think you have to have a lavish home and perfectly manicured yard for this. You don’t…you know how us photographers have a way of focusing on the appealing parts of things and kind of reducing the less appealing things. Domestic magic! Besides you want it to be real. You want to be able to look back at these photos with your children when they are grown and have it bring back memories of their childhood home. Little things like the pattern on the wallpaper, the mailbox, or the front porch are memories I wish I had more photographs of from my childhood. Incorporating these small details in to your portrait session makes it so much more personal.
Hint #1 Early morning and late afternoon/ early evening are the best time for a session. Especially, if you have some windows that catch some nice lighting. Photographs taken during these magical times of the day will be glowy, dreamy, soft, warm…my favorite. =)
Hint #2 Wear clothing that makes you feel good. You don’t have to match, but compliment. It’s ok if your toddler wants to wear his underoo’s and cowboy boots or her sundress and her rain boots...remember we want to keep it real. Bare feet are always a plus in my book for any ages.
Hint#3 Your own nursery will make the most beautiful setting for a newborn session, let me come to you to make things so much easier on you. I know from experience how hectic that first week or so can be and sometimes getting to the photographers house can be such an ordeal it gets passed by and then weeks/months later you are cursing yourself for not capturing those early days when things were so brand new. Those moments don’t last near long enough. <3
If you have another other questions, please ask! Thank you!
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