Brandon Malone Photography

Remem­ber that it’s YOUR day.  It’s human nature to share well intended advice.  Most of the inputs you’ll receive are prob­a­bly going to be very help­ful since your aren’t plan­ning a wed­ding on a reg­u­lar basis.  Other inputs will need to be taken with a grain of salt.  If some­thing some­one says (friend, rel­a­tive, or ven­dor) trig­gers a neg­a­tive ques­tion mark in your mind, then you may want to stop and ques­tion what’s being said.  Is it some­thing that some­one wants you to do to make them happy and they want you to want it so they can enjoy it?  This is usu­ally not inten­tional, but does hap­pen.  You might even find that a ven­dor has a pol­icy or a way of work­ing that doesn’t fit your plans.  You can change ven­dors eas­ier than you can elim­i­nate regret.  Bot­tom line, it’s the only time you can make the entire world revolve around you, so don’t let any­one take it from you.  Don’t give in if it means you’re going to regret it later.  It’s your day!

 

Here’s some tips for ensur­ing the best pho­tos for your day:

• If pho­tog­ra­phy is a high pri­or­ity, keep this in mind when you select your loca­tion.  Look at the dif­fer­ent areas of a loca­tion and imag­ine what your pho­tos will look like if wed­ding is pho­tographed there.  If you’re only finan­cially in love with the venue, but find your­self wish­ing the pho­tog­ra­pher luck, then you may want to look at other venues.
• Either plan a time to meet with your pho­tog­ra­pher at the venue to plan your pho­tos, or take pic­tures and email them so you can talk with your pho­tog­ra­pher about photo options and plan for your big day.
• Out­door Wed­ding: Aim for late after­noon or early evening instead of mid-day when pos­si­ble so as to have bet­ter light­ing to com­pli­ment your day.  You pho­tos will be softer and warmer instead of harsh and contrasty.
• Indoor Wed­ding: If you’re cer­e­mony loca­tion has lots of win­dows, then mid-day is not as big of a prob­lem.  If all of your pho­tos are indoors, then lots of win­dow light is a bonus.  If you plan to have out­door pho­tos done, try plan­ning your sched­ule so that these pho­tos can be done later in the day when the sun isn’t so high.
• Don’t for­get to smile!  This goes for the entire wed­ding party, as well as the par­ents.  Occa­sion­ally we’ll find peo­ple that are either very focused or com­pletely exhausted to the point that they for­get they should be smil­ing as they are being photographed.
•  Keep the details together.  If bride and groom get ready in sep­a­rate loca­tions, then the bride is pri­or­ity one, which means the guys may not have get­ting ready pho­tos.  In this case, con­sider hav­ing either a brides­maid or rel­a­tive hold the rings so that the pho­tog­ra­pher has access to them when pho­tograph­ing the other details for the bride.
•  Slow, steady, and happy.  To ensure every­one is seen and cap­tured while walk­ing down the isle, have each per­son walk no closer than twenty to thirty feet apart and at roughly the same pace.  If one brides­maid walks down ten feet behind the other, then she becomes hid­den and may not be pho­tographed.  And most impor­tantly, every­one should be look­ing up and smiling.
• Don’t rush a good thing!  Your cer­e­mony is sacred and the entire rea­son for being there.  I know being in front of every­one sounds scary, but almost every­one for­gets the audi­ence once they’re at the alter.  So don’t rush the most impor­tant part of your day.  And if you do, then real­ized that you risk not hav­ing it prop­erly doc­u­mented.  For suf­fi­cient cov­er­age, try to have a cer­e­mony that will have you at the alter for roughly 15 min­utes.  When you cut it short, you cut the oppor­tu­ni­ties for cher­ished pho­tos that can never be staged or repro­duced.  So fight the stage fright and stay at the alter longer.  And remem­ber that walk­ing up and down the isle doesn’t count as part of your time at the alter.  I’ve seen “ten minute” cer­e­monies that were less than seven min­utes at the alter.
•  Stop and kiss.  When walk­ing down the isle for the first time together, stop mid-point of the crowd and embrace each other one more time.  It makes a great photo.
•  Have’em ready.  You either have or will receive a list of basic group arrange­ments and the order they are pho­tographed.  You can tweak it if you wish.  Share this with those that are to be in cer­tain pho­tos so they can be ready when it’s their time to shine with you.  Hav­ing every­one aware and ready will help reduce the “cat herd­ing” expe­ri­ence and get every­one to the recep­tion faster.  You may also want to con­sider doing all of your pho­tographs pre-ceremony so you and your guests can go straight to the recep­tion.  Every­one that has done this with us has been glad they did.
• Keep’em look­ing’ and smilin’.  Whether walk­ing up or down the isle, or when being announced into the recep­tion, the entire wed­ding party needs to remem­ber to look up and smile when it’s their turn to walk.  Nobody wants the only pic­tures of them­selves to be look­ing at the ground, so a men­tal note can help counter-act this ahead of time.
•  Where is the cake?  When coorindat­ing your recep­tion set-up with your coor­di­na­tor or plan­ner, try to ensure that the cake is not in a loca­tion that the photographer(s) can’t posi­tion them­selves to get the shots they need for you.  Things to avoid would be square tables pushed against a wall or into a cor­ner.  Usu­ally a round table, or a table pulled a cou­ple feet from the wall will make it so the pho­tog­ra­pher can posi­tion them­selves appro­pri­ately and that the guests can observe and enjoy as well.
• Bride: before throw­ing the bou­quet, give one or two fake tosses first.  This gives you more pho­tos, and lets you play with your anx­ious ladies.
• Groom: be slow and sexy as you remove the guarder.  Maybe even make a game out of it.  It’s relly the only time you can climb up your woman’s dress in pub­lic with­out being arrested, so enjoy every inch and sec­ond of it.
•  Don’t for­get the pho­tog­ra­pher.  You paid good money to have your day pho­tographed.  Make sure you don’t jump into some­thing need­ing to be pho­tographed with­out ensur­ing the pho­tog­ra­pher is ready when you are.  Also, if you think of some­thing that you think is a good photo, or a group photo you specif­i­cally want, or just some­thing fun you think of on the spot dur­ing your day, be sure and com­mu­ni­cate that with your pho­tog­ra­pher so you don’t regret any­thing being missed.
• Con­sider hav­ing all of your for­mal­i­ties dur­ing the first two hours of your recep­tion.  After­wards, you’ll be able to focus on danc­ing while guests that need to leave early won’t feel like their miss­ing anything.
•  Push it fur­ther.  Every­one wants a unique day.  Some want it sim­ple while oth­ers want tons of fun things.  I rec­om­mend check­ing out the tons of tra­di­tions that can be found in other coun­tries and cul­tures.  I expe­ri­enced this when pho­tograph­ing my broth­ers recep­tion for his wed­ding in Ger­many.  They incor­po­rated many fun lit­tle games that added amaz­ing pho­tos to their day.  Adding some of these tra­di­tions to your day will make it more fun, mem­o­rable, and unique for both you and your guests.
• Con­sider hav­ing some spe­cial pho­tos taken just before putting on the dress.  These can be put into a small black accor­dion book as a sur­prise for your spe­cial man.
• Have all of your pho­tos taken prior to the cer­e­mony.  This not only saves a ton of time and stress, but gives you more time with your guests that came to cel­e­brate your day with you.

 

 

 

There are more resources than you can shake a stick at when it comes to prepar­ing for your wed­ding.  Most of us dig like crazy to find and use a good amount of that infor­ma­tion because our wed­ding day is one of the biggest and most impor­tant days in our lives and requires enor­mous amounts of logis­ti­cal plan­ning.  Plus it’s some­thing that we don’t do reg­u­larly, so it’s unfa­mil­iar to us.  In plan­ning your wed­ding, you prob­a­bly have or will invest hun­dreds of hours try­ing to make sure every­thing is per­fect.  Yet it’s only for one day.

In the midst of all the plan­ning, how much invest­ing have you done in the mar­riage you’re about to have that will last much longer than your one mag­i­cal day?  For those of you like me that are already mar­ried, how much invest­ing in your mar­riage have you done since your wed­ding day?  Some peo­ple really do invest in their mar­riage, but not every thinks to do so.  Regard­less, I want to pass a piece of advice that I received at one point: read one good mar­riage book a year.  Yes, this applies to both of you.

Amanda and I got mar­ried on June 28, 2003.  Nei­ther of us expected an ounce of the bat­tles we later had to face.  We learned a lot of lessons over the years, and it still requires con­stant atten­tion.  Oth­er­wise the work­ing parts of our mar­riage will become weak, rusty, and in dan­ger of failing.

Most peo­ple never go into mar­riage expect­ing it to crash and burn.  Do you remem­ber my com­ment of unfa­mil­iar­ity?  That applies to mar­riage also.  Dat­ing is one thing, but liv­ing together as a mar­ried cou­ple is a com­pletely dif­fer­ent story.  It takes work, com­mit­ment, and self-sacrifice from both parties.

Over the years, Amanda and I have ben­e­fited from read­ing books, lis­ten­ing to pro­grams and ser­mons on mar­riage, and learn­ing to lis­ten to each other openly.  You are either already mar­ried or on your way, so I really wanted to pass along the advice that has ben­e­fited us so much.  So make the com­mit­ment to invest in your mar­riage and read one mar­riage book a year.  I’ll even give you my recommendations.

The first book I’d rec­om­mend is called The Most Impor­tant Year in a Woman’s Life/ The Most Impor­tant Year in a Man’s Life.  The cool thing about this book is that it’s two-sided, being one for the man and one for the woman.  But it’s fun to read both sides and get even greater per­spec­tive.  I really con­sider this a must-have mar­riage book and strongly encour­age you to buy it now and start read­ing it.

The next book I’d rec­om­mend is His Needs Her Needs.  This was actu­ally the first book that Amanda and I went through together, and it helped us out immensely.  What we both remem­ber the most is the Love Bank.  It is an anal­ogy that bet­ter helped us think about what we do and say for each other and how it either hurts or helps our mar­riage.  It’s a great book and also a must-have.

The last one I’ll rec­om­mend is His Brain Her Brain.  No, it’s not the same author, but it’s a great book, espe­cially for us guys.  This one exposes the lit­eral design dif­fer­ences between men and women that some­times make it dif­fi­cult to under­stand each other.  I loved this book, but Amanda wasn’t able to fin­ish it.  Under­stand­ing the dif­fer­ences helped me to bet­ter under­stand Amanda.  My favorite exam­ple was that women are equipped to hear more audi­ble tones than men are, so when a woman com­plains about using tones that men don’t under­stand (“don’t use that tone with me”) it’s because women hear what men don’t, literally.

 

 

I hope that these resources are a help­ful start for you.  Even if you are already invest­ing in your mar­riage, these are great addi­tions.  Some­times you’ll find what you’re doing right, or you might find how you can do things dif­fer­ently.  If you have other books that you’d like to share, please com­ment on this post so oth­ers can see.  You might help me find my next book as well.

 

Thanks and best wishes on your mar­riage adventure!

When plan­ning a wed­ding, most peo­ple don’t make it past the many essen­tials (venue, flow­ers, pho­tog­ra­pher, etc).  Part of what gives a wed­ding extra char­ac­ter can some­times be those lit­tle extra touches here and there.  A fun way to do this is by look­ing at the var­i­ous wed­ding tra­di­tions from around the world, as well as some fun activ­ity ideas.  To get you started, I’ve put together a great starter list of web­sites.  There are tons of great ideas out there.  Which ones will you add to your wed­ding day?

 

 

 

Tra­di­tions and Superstitions

The Knot has a list of 50 tra­di­tions and super­sti­tions.  Some of these most peo­ple will know, but oth­ers will be new.  It can be fun to see what peo­ple come up with.  Here’s some of my favorites:

The groom car­ries the bride across the thresh­old to bravely pro­tect her from evil spir­its lurk­ing below.

The Eng­lish believe a spi­der found in a wed­ding dress means good luck. Yikes!

In Hol­land, a pine tree is planted out­side the new­ly­weds’ home as a sym­bol of fer­til­ity and luck.

Engage­ment and wed­ding rings are worn on the fourth fin­ger of the left hand because it was once thought that a vein in that fin­ger led directly to the heart.

Ancient Greeks and Romans thought the veil pro­tected the bride from evil spir­its. Brides have worn veils ever since.

Brides carry or wear “some­thing old” on their wed­ding day to sym­bol­ize con­ti­nu­ity with the past.

The “some­thing blue” in a bridal ensem­ble sym­bol­izes purity, fidelity, and love.

In Den­mark, brides and grooms tra­di­tion­ally cross-dressed to con­fuse evil spirits!

In many cul­tures around the world — includ­ing Celtic, Hindu and Egypt­ian wed­dings — the hands of a bride and groom are lit­er­ally tied together to demon­strate the couple’s com­mit­ment to each other and their new bond as a mar­ried cou­ple (giv­ing us the pop­u­lar phrase “tying the knot”).

 

 

Recep­tion Games and Activities

 

A web­site called Wed­dings And Romance have put together a list of Wed­ding Recep­tion Games and Wed­ding Activ­i­ties.  This is a great list of fun ideas to make your spe­cial day even more unique and mem­o­rable.  Here’s some of my favorites:

Guess the Truth

The bride and groom are asked a num­ber of per­sonal ques­tions before the recep­tion. The MC or some­one in the wed­ding party makes up mul­ti­ple choice answers for each ques­tion includ­ing the cor­rect answer. Guests are asked the ques­tions and by a show of hands we get the pop­u­lar answers and com­pare them to the actual answers.

Guess the Bride

The groom is blind­folded and expected to guess the bride from feel­ing just the feet of 5 per­sons. First blind­fold the groom. The MC/DJ points to 5 per­sons and seat them on chairs in front of all the guests – you can choose any­one but the bride. This is espe­cially hilar­i­ous if the 5 per­sons are men with their pants leg rolled up and socks removed.

Guess the Groom

The bride is blind­folded and expected to guess the groom from feel­ing 5 men’s faces. First blind­fold the groom. Point to 5 per­sons and seat them on chairs in front of all the guests – you can choose any­one but the groom.

 

 

Wed­ding Recep­tion Games

 

WeddingsApproved.com also has a list of some fun ideas.  Here’s one for you:

3. Bal­loonatic

The par­tic­i­pants of this game are the guests who are still sin­gle.
There are 16 con­tes­tants, 8 girls and 8 boys. The par­tic­i­pants must be
divided into two teams. Each team must have 4 ladies and 4 gen­tle­men. They
must be posi­tioned in an alter­nate man­ner. There is a sausage bal­loon
given for each team which must be placed in between legs. The sausage
bal­loon will be passed from one player to another. Note: the bal­loon must
not be touched with hands nor be popped or else they will have to
repeat the relay all over again. In case the bal­loon burst out, it will be
replaced with a new one.

 

Ger­man Traditions

This one is more per­son after attend­ing my brother’s wed­ding in Berlin.  His wife is Ger­man, so they had the wed­ding where her fam­ily and friends could par­take.  That was still the most wild and fun wed­ding I’ve ever been to.  They are the ones that gave me the idea for this post because they use many games and activ­i­ties in their wed­ding recep­tions where Amer­i­cans do not.  Here’s some good­ies for you:

Add Ger­man humor to the fes­tiv­i­ties when­ever appro­pri­ate. Dur­ing the vows, while the cou­ple is on their knees, the groom could kneel on his bride’s dress to show who will be “wear­ing the pants”. When the two stand, the bride might step on the groom’s foot to show her disagreement.

Dec­o­rate exit door­ways with gar­lands of flow­ers, green­ery and rib­bons. After the cer­e­mony, the groom must “ran­som” the cou­ple out of the facil­ity by promis­ing every­one money or a party.

 

Some of the things not listed on this site that I wit­nessed included log saw­ing, cut­ting a giant heart shape out of a bed sheet that’s been signed by every­one and then car­ry­ing the bride through the cut-out into the recep­tion, a game where the bride and groom sit back-to-back and have to answer ques­tions, a poem where a pack­age is pasted around the recep­tion before finally end­ing with the bride, and more.

SouthernBrideAndGroom.com has a story about a cou­ple that incor­po­rated the log saw­ing into their wed­ding.  Here’s the arti­cle: http://www.southernbrideandgroom.com/?s=log+cutting

 

 

Latin Amer­i­can Traditions

Again, the Knot has some great lists of ideas on their web­site.  Here’s another one that has some fun ideas.  Here’s your sampling:

Baile­mos (Let’s Dance)

There is an end­less vari­ety of Latin music to choose from: salsa, merengue, mambo, fla­menco, and samba, to name just a few. For a really dra­matic first dance, take some tango lessons before your big day, and sur­prise your guests with a per­for­mance. Hire a Mex­i­can mari­achi group or Cuban big band to get every­one danc­ing. Before the danc­ing really begins at Mex­i­can wed­dings, guests gather around the cou­ple in a heart-shaped ring. Cuban wed­dings often include a money dance, in which each man who dances with the bride attaches money to her gown.

Donde Estan? (Where Are They?)

Can’t wait for the hon­ey­moon to begin? Well, in Venezuela, it isn’t uncom­mon for a cou­ple to sneak away from their own recep­tion. But no one gets upset once they dis­cover the new­ly­weds are miss­ing — it’s actu­ally con­sid­ered good luck.

Rega­los (Gifts)

In Puerto Rico, small favors, called capias, are pre­sented to the guests in a receiv­ing line. They are made of feath­ers tied with rib­bon and printed with the couple’s names and wed­ding date. For your wed­ding, you can give guests lit­tle Mex­i­can wed­ding cook­ies wrapped in tulle, Span­ish fans, a vol­ume of Pablo Neruda’s love poems, or note cards with paint­ings by Frida Kahlo or Diego Rivera tied with rib­bon. If you’re up for it, the lit­tle bride and groom skele­tons used dur­ing the Mex­i­can hol­i­day Dia de los Muer­tos (Day of the Dead, which is really a cel­e­bra­tion of life) would be per­fect favors.

 

 

Around the World Customs

TraditionsCustoms.com has an exten­sive list of cus­tom­ary things each coun­try does for their wed­dings.  It’s fun to see what every­one else does to see if any of it can be added to our own wed­dings.  Here’s a few for you to enjoy:

In Peru they put charms (attached with rib­bons) between the lay­ers of the wed­ding cake. Just before the cake is cut and served there is a lit­tle tra­di­tion orga­nized. Each sin­gle woman present at the recep­tion pulls a string. Peru­vians believe that the one who pulls out the rib­bon with the ring is going to marry within a year.

Kore­ans believe that if the groom is smil­ing a lot at the wed­ding his first child is going to be a daugh­ter. After the wed­ding groom’s par­ents throw some nuts and plums to the bride. If the bride takes some nuts she’ll get many sons.

Peo­ple in Scot­land orga­nize “Black­en­ing the bride”. Couple’s friends and fam­ily mem­bers kid­nap the bride-to-be and then pour some rather smelly sub­stance on her.

In Arme­nia, t is a tra­di­tion that groom must ask the bride’s fam­ily for the bride’s hand. Armen­ian do it by hold­ing a meet­ing of mem­bers of both bride’s and groom’s fam­ily. More for­mal and more com­mon tra­di­tional meet­ing of that nature is called “Khosk-Kap”. Less for­mal meet­ing called “Khosk-Arnel” is some­times orga­nized too.

“Break­ing a plate” or “vort” (“word”) is well known Jew­ish engage­ment party tra­di­tion. It is done by moth­ers of the bride and groom. They stand together and break a plate. This act has a sym­bolic mean­ing. Once bro­ken plate can never be com­pletely repaired. It is the same with human relationship.

 

 

To see more tra­di­tion ideas from the Knot, check out this page.

 

 

There are tons of great ideas out there.  I know you are over­whelmed in your planned, but I chal­lenge you to add those one or two extra things to your wed­ding that’ll give you a life­time of mem­o­ries to enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So how do you pre­pare for all of those group pho­tos on your wed­ding day?  Well, to start, I have included a basic list below that should help you get the main pho­tos cov­ered, and in an orga­nized man­ner.  Of course you can mod­ify it accord­ing to your own needs.  Just hav­ing a list is impor­tant since it’ll help you know who and how to pre­pare so it can all be exe­cuted in a timely fash­ion.  Remem­ber that the more elab­o­rate you make your list, the more time it’ll take, and the more likely chaos and con­fu­sion will still hap­pen.  Besides, only a select few will actu­ally make it from dig­i­tal to print as it is anyways.

 

Basic Shot List:

• All in one (every­one in one big photo)
• All fam­ily & wed­ding party members
• All fam­ily members
• Both sets of grand­par­ents & parents
• Both sets of grandparents
• Grooms grand­par­ents only
• Brides grand­par­ents only

* Grand­par­ents are com­pleted and may move on to the reception

• Both sets of parents
• Grooms par­ents
• Grooms par­ents & siblings
• Brides par­ents
• Brides par­ents & siblings
• Sib­lings only and other remain­ing fam­ily photos

* Fam­ily mem­bers are com­pleted and may move on to the reception

• Entire wed­ding party
• Groom with bride’s maids
• Bride with bride’s maids
• Bride and each bride’s maid individually
• Bride with groom’s men
• Groom with groom’s men
• Groom with each groom’s man individually
• Bride & groom only

* For­mal group pho­tos are com­pleted. Addi­tional fun pho­tos may be done at this point.

Pos­si­ble Pre-Ceremony Shots:

• Bride with bride’s maids
• Bride and each bride’s maid individually
• Groom with groom’s men
• Groom with each groom’s man individually
• Bride with fam­ily members
• Groom with fam­ily members
• Bride only
• Groom only

 

Once you have your list, let every­one on the list know.  You can even share that list with every­one so that they can know their part and when they need to be ready, and when they are done so they can move on to the recep­tion.  Ide­ally you want to take care of the grand­par­ents first so that they can be off their feet as quick as pos­si­ble.  Next you want to get any­thing involv­ing fam­ily knocked so that you can then be left with your wed­ding party only.

In my list, you’ll notice the first item is a large group photo that includes every­one.  Some of my wed­ding cou­ples really wanted to cap­ture their entire wed­ding atten­dance in one big photo.  If you desire the same for your day, first con­sider if the venue you’ve select will have a place to facil­i­tate the size of your guest list.  If so, then you’ll need to coor­di­nate with both your pho­tog­ra­pher and your coor­di­na­tor.  Plus, you’ll need to make sure all of your guests are aware of when and where they are to be for the photo, oth­er­wise you’ll have peo­ple scram­bling to orga­nize a dis­as­ter.  So you’ll have to decide when and how to let every­one know.

The next thing you need to decide is when you want to have your pho­tos taken.  I talk more about this in my post titled Pic­tures Before Or After The Cer­e­mony, so I’ll just lightly talk about it here.  Many peo­ple hold to the tra­di­tion of not see­ing each other till after the cer­e­mony.  Oth­ers bypass the tra­di­tion by doing all of their pho­tos prior to the cer­e­mony so they can spend more time with their guests at the party they paid for.  It really is a very per­son deci­sion, so you’ll want to make a deci­sion you won’t regret.

More than any­thing else, have your plan, and let every­one know their part.  Hav­ing every­one on the same page will help avoid, or reduce, the cat-herding expe­ri­ence on your wed­ding day.  Make sure that every­one knows when and where they’re sup­posed to be, and that they really are there.  But remem­ber that you don’t have to do this your­self.  Feel free to assign one or two peo­ple from your wed­ding party to take care of this for you.  Just get­ting the group photo part of your day planned and ready can take a huge amount of stress off of you, mak­ing you bet­ter able to enjoy one of the best days of your life.

 

Tra­di­tion­ally, a cou­ple will not see each other on the day of their wed­ding till the groom sees his beau­ti­ful bride walk­ing down the aisle in all of her radi­ant glory.   See­ing each other before the wed­ding is bad luck sup­pos­edly.  So this tra­di­tion is also a bit of super­sti­tion.  Many cou­ples now days are start­ing to let the tra­di­tion go for the sake of other wed­ding day bonuses.

In my blog post called Wed­ding Group Pho­tos, I talk about some tra­di­tions.  One of the sites I ref­er­ence if the knot.com.  They have a list of tra­di­tions and their ori­gins.  Here’s what the site says about the his­tory of not see­ing each other pre-ceremony:

In the early days of arranged mar­riages, the bride and groom often never saw each other at all before the wed­ding. Even when cou­ples were acquainted before they mar­ried, it was still con­sid­ered bad luck for the groom to glimpse the bride pre-ceremony, as she would not be pure and new. Nei­ther was the bride sup­posed to see her­self — it was believed that if she saw her reflec­tion she would leave some of her­self behind in the mir­ror.

Accord­ing to this, if a bride wants to be true to the super­sti­tion, then she should avoid see­ing her­self in the mir­ror as well.  I don’t see that happening.

The alter­na­tive to this tra­di­tion is what is often referred to as First Glance, or some­thing along those lines.  In this sce­nario, the cou­ple not only sees each other pre-ceremony, but also does all of their group pho­tos pre-ceremony.  This really is a great way to go for many rea­sons, but it’s at the cost of a long cher­ished tra­di­tion.  So which way is right for you?

 

Let me high­light the advan­tages that I’ve expe­ri­enced per­son­ally with my cou­ples that have let go of tradition:

• They can go right to their cock­tail hour or recep­tion after the cer­e­mony instead of miss­ing it
• They spend more time with their friends and family
• They spend more time enjoy­ing the party they paid for
• They aren’t hun­gry or stressed throughout
• The group pho­tos expe­ri­ence is calm instead of chaotic
• There is less of a cat-herding experience
• The group pho­tos wrap up more quickly
• Every­one is present and ready instead of dis­tracted and scattered
• The expe­ri­ence is less rushed
• Every­one is focused on instead of reliv­ing the cer­e­mony and anx­ious for the reception
• More options on where to do the group photos

 

When we do this for a cou­ple, we actu­ally han­dle it very del­i­cately.  So far, we’ve never had a cou­ple feel robbed of an expe­ri­ence on their wed­ding day or live to regret the deci­sion.  No one has ever said that they felt any less excited at the altar.  Every­one that has done this, has loved it, raved about it, and rec­om­mended it.

Basi­cally what we do is pho­to­graph the groom with his men and his fam­ily while the bride puts on her fin­ish­ing touches.  Then we hide the groom, putting his men in charge of keep­ing him in hid­ing, and we bring in the bride and pho­to­graph her with her ladies and fam­ily.  After fin­ish this sequence, we hide the bride, bring out the groom, have him look away, and then bring in his beau­ti­ful bride to sur­prise him for the first time.  We then give the two a few min­utes to enjoy each other’s com­pany, cap­tur­ing a few can­dids.  At this point, we pose them for a few pho­tos of just the two of them together, and then start work­ing in all of the other arrangements.

Since every­one that needs to be there gen­er­ally already is there, it goes fairly quickly.  I’ve had enough time left over before that we just started cap­tur­ing fam­ily moments as every­one casu­ally inter­acted while they waited to move on to the cer­e­mony.  One of our cou­ple that did this ended up arrang­ing a sin­gle photo with all of their guests at the recep­tion site, which was the only group photo they did after the ceremony.

There really are tons of ben­e­fits to doing all of the pho­tos pre-ceremony.  But the trade off is hav­ing to let go of tra­di­tion.  And depend­ing on the cir­cum­stances, you might sac­ri­fice being able to have your pho­tos taken at the altar.  That’s some­thing that would have to be looked in for each indi­vid­ual case.  In the end, it’s a deci­sion that is only up to the cou­ple to make.  Even with the many advan­tages, they are all a waste if one of the most impor­tant parts of the day is that one moment dur­ing the cer­e­mony when the bride is seen by her groom for the first time.

 

Through­out each year I receive emails and phone calls from aspir­ing pho­tog­ra­phers, or the par­ent of a young future pho­tog­ra­pher, look­ing to me for help or oppor­tu­ni­ties.  Of course I’m not able to take on assis­tances or pro­vide con­sis­tent educ­tion.  I wish I was able to, but I can’t.  What I can do, though, is pro­vide some very valu­able resources and some lessons learned.  Each of these resources are extremely valu­able in their own way, and I strongly sug­gest every pho­tog­ra­pher look­ing to learn and grow at least looks at each of the resources I’ve listed.  I’ll talk about some of my lessons learned in a future post.

 

Pho­to­Vi­sion is a source of video educ­tion cov­er­ing just about every­thing for a pho­tog­ra­pher.  They visit with tons of other pho­tog­ra­phers where you get to see actual shoots, post-production, learn about sales and mar­ket­ing, and more.  They have a library of dif­fer­ent col­lec­tions of videos, plus they have their annual sub­scrip­tion, which is only $49 for PPA mem­bers.  I’ve had a sub­scrip­tion with them for years.  I learned about them from another pho­tog­ra­pher, and I con­tinue to rec­om­mend it as one of the best edu­ca­tional invest­ments avail­able.  Even at reg­u­lar price for non-PPA mem­bers, what you get for your money is unreal.  You’ll never get that amount of vari­ety and edu­ca­tion for that price any­where else.

PPA (Pro­fes­sional Pho­tog­ra­phers of Amer­ica) is the world’s largest non­profit asso­ci­a­tion for pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­phers.  Their mem­bers enjoy the best ben­e­fits and pro­tec­tion avail­able.  As the lead­ing cer­ti­fy­ing agency for imag­ing pro­fes­sion­als, PPA’s Pro­fes­sional Pho­to­graphic Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram is rec­og­nized through­out the industry.Those who have earned the Pro­fes­sional Pho­to­graphic Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion have passed a com­pre­hen­sive writ­ten exam mea­sur­ing their tech­ni­cal exper­tise, and have suc­cess­fully sub­mit­ted their work to a panel of judges for review and approval.  This is the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion that I carry and have to main­tain through con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion and a improv­ing port­fo­lio of work.  PPA also has Imag­ing USA, a week long con­ven­tion packed with tons of classes and hun­dreds of vendors.

WPPI (Wed­ding & Por­trait Pho­tog­ra­phers Inter­na­tional) is another amaz­ing orga­ni­za­tion pro­vid­ing indus­try lead­ing edu­ca­tion and resources to pho­tog­ra­phers around the globe.  I receive my Rangerfinder Mag­a­zine from them.  They also have their WPPI Con­ven­tion every March in Las Vegas and is sup­posed to be the biggest in the indus­try I believe.

Joy of Mar­ket­ing was cre­ated cre­ated by Sara Petty of Sarah Petty Pho­tog­ra­phy.  Sarah come to pho­tog­ra­phy from a strong mar­ket­ing back­ground after work­ing with Coca­Cola.  Thank­fully she has seen a need in our indus­try where her pas­sion for busi­ness is greatly needed since most of us pho­tog­ra­phers started because of our love of pho­tog­ra­phy, not busi­ness.  Of course, we have to be stronger at busi­ness than we do our pho­tog­ra­phy if we want to suc­ceed as a busi­ness.  Using The Joy of Mar­ket­ing, she makes avail­able the largest amount of pho­tog­ra­phy busi­ness educ­tion I’ve seen to date.  I’ve even par­tic­i­pated in one of her spe­cial groups called the Pho­tog­ra­phy Mar­ket­ing For­mula where she drowned me for months with more infor­ma­tion than I can recount.  Because of Sarah, I have made tons of changes to my busi­ness so as to make it more sus­tain­able and prof­itable over the years.  Oth­er­wise I was at risk of being one of the many that fails due to unsus­tain­abil­ity result­ing from not charg­ing enough for my time and prod­ucts.  I also learned bet­ter sales, mar­ket­ing, net­work­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and more.  Def­i­nitely a must for pho­tog­ra­phers that aren’t strong in the busi­ness arena.

Can­non Learn­ing Cen­ter is a cre­ate site that Can­non has put together.  It has also made many improve­ments and changes over the years.  I’m not a Can­non user, but they do make great equip­ment.  Most peo­ple either for­get or don’t real­ize that Can­non is pri­mar­ily a research and devel­op­ment com­pany, not a cam­era com­pany.  So they are able to do amaz­ing things.  But I still say Nikon blows Can­non away in low light sit­u­a­tions (yes I tested my the­ory).  But all of that aside, they are amaz­ing, and this web­site is full of videos and tuto­ri­als for all kinds of how-to edu­ca­tion for pho­tog­ra­phers and video­g­ra­phers.  Since I’m work­ing on learn­ing how to make use of the video abil­i­ties of the newer cam­eras, this site has be very helpful.

ProS­e­lect  is my sell­ing soft­ware.  I use it to project view­ing and sales ses­sions for my clients.  With it, I can show slideshow which include my logo and a song of choos­ing.  I can then eas­ily review images on my 64″ pro­jec­tion screen, show­ing images at actual size from 60″ down to 4x6” with frames.  There is also a fea­ture that allows me to put these images (with or with­out frames) on room views, which can either be stock images or images of a clients actual room in their home.  With room views, my clients can see exactly how an image will look on a wall to the exact scaled size.  There’s really tons of things this soft­ware can do.  Some of my other favorite things includes lay­outs, album design­ing (which dra­mat­i­cally improved my work­flow by cut­ting design time by 75%), and detailed invoic­ing.  It really is the indus­try stan­dard, and no online image gallery will ever com­pare to this.

Lynda.com is an online library of how-to videos for just about every ver­sion of every soft­ware avail­able to the com­mon pop­u­la­tion.  There’s some free clips here and there that you can find so you can get a taste for the site first.  Even these free clips can be help­ful.  If you enjoy the site, you can either sub­scribe on a monthly basis, or for the entire year.  Of course you can also pur­chase DVD’s of some of the courses.  One of my favorites has been Pho­to­shop train­ing from Chris Orwig who is a pho­tog­ra­pher and an instruc­tor for Brooks Insti­tute, which is the best pho­tog­ra­pher in the coun­try.  But as I said, they have just about every­thing.  Any ver­sion of Pho­to­shop, and tons of top­ics for each ver­sion.  If you’re want­ing to know more about any soft­ware you have, then you really should check this site out.

Quan­tum Instru­ments Light­ing Equip­ment is what I used for my pri­mary light­ing source for event pho­tog­ra­phy.  So when peo­ple see that huge round light above my cam­era, it’s the Quan­tum Trio.  Quan­tum makes some of the best portable light­ing equip­ment, and they cus­tomer ser­vice and tech­ni­cal sup­port are the best I’ve ever expe­ri­enced.  I love the light­weight, ver­sa­til­ity, reli­a­bil­ity, and amaz­ing qual­ity of light I receive from my Trio.  If I could afford three more units, I’d buy them and use them for loca­tion portrait/fashion work where more than one light is needed.  For those look­ing for a small nugget or two of light­ing edu­ca­tion, they do have that as well on their site.  I doubt I’ll ever buy another speed light again since they’re less reli­able, less con­sis­tent, more restric­tive, not as good a qual­ity of light, and don’t last near as long as Quan­tum lights do.

Collages.net is who I use for my online image host­ing for my events.  No, my por­traits do not get posted online for sales.  You’ll never make any real sales to make a liv­ing with by try­ing to sale por­traits online.  Events are dif­fer­ent since the main profit is made before the event, com­pared to after as with por­traits.  Col­lages offers an amaz­ing site for host­ing my event images with, mak­ing them flashy and easy for my clients and their guests to view, order, and share.  Col­lages has always offered great prod­ucts and ser­vice over the years that I’ve been with them.  Some pho­tog­ra­phers almost exclu­sively use them for prod­ucts as well since they offer all kinds of print­ing ser­vices.  I only use them for my event can­did prints.  I use other ven­dors for my other prod­ucts, but there’s noth­ing wrong with using Col­lages.  As I said, they are a great com­pany.  They really go out of their way to work with pho­tog­ra­phers and bring them new prod­ucts and improved ser­vice all the time.  There are other com­pa­nies that do sim­i­lar things as well, but Col­lages has remained my pref­er­ence over the years because of their qual­ity of ser­vice and prod­ucts, and of course price as well.  You really can’t beat them.

As far as my prod­ucts go, that’s entirely dif­fer­ent ket­tle.  Prod­ucts are like equip­ment.  They can change at any moment I deem it nec­es­sary to sat­isfy the job.  If I don’t do my job right in the first place, no mat­ter of equip­ment or prod­ucts are going to fix it for me.  So in the end, get the edu­ca­tion and prac­tice till you’re at the point you can start work­ing and charg­ing as a pro­fes­sional.  When some­one that isn’t an edu­cated and proven pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­pher enters the mar­ket and starts com­pet­ing with those that are, it ends up caus­ing dam­age to the mar­ket.  Peo­ple start look­ing for “good enough” instead of qual­ity if it means they can save some money.  But those that charge next to noth­ing won’t be able to sus­tain them­selves over the years and will likely be a short lived name in the mar­ket, leav­ing their clients aban­doned.  So it’s really a dis­ser­vice to both the indus­try and the clients that hired them.  If you want to learn and grow to become a pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­pher, start with the resources I’ve pro­vided, or oth­ers you may find.  And then when you’re ready, start work­ing pro­fes­sion­ally.  Of course, I know money needs still needs to be made.  Just be hon­est with peo­ple and let them know where you are and charge appro­pri­ately, if any­thing at all.  But don’t give your work away either.  Fare work deserves fare pay.  Just be hon­est about your skills and abilities.

 

I hope all of this infor­ma­tion is a help to you.  Please let me know if there’s any­thing else I can talk about that can help you.  Best wishes in your adventure!

 

 

It’s fun meet­ing cou­ples and see­ing how they com­pli­ment each other.   Zachary and Renee are one of the many cou­ples that found us while attend­ing another wed­ding that we pho­tographed.   So it was a plea­sure to meet them to dis­cuss their own wed­ding, as well as make plans for an engage­ment ses­sion for them.

 

Zachary is a care­ful guy who is open to lis­ten­ing, pro­cess­ing what is said, makes a log­i­cal deci­sion, and then holds me account­able to the let­ter.  I can relate since I’m kind of the same way in that I want to make sure I have as much info as pos­si­ble so I can have con­fi­dence that I’m mak­ing both a wise and log­i­cal deci­sion.  Then there is Renee, the bal­ance to our man Zach.  She makes him light up with her eager-to-have-fun way of liv­ing.  There’s no way he can not enjoy life as long as he has her by his side.  That’s why it was so fun doing their engage­ment pho­tos.  Sim­ply put the two into a scene with a lit­tle guid­ance, then let them take it from there and they reveal the best of their two worlds combined.

 

For their engage­ments, we headed over to Jef­fer­son Pat­ter­son Park where there was plenty of vari­ety to choose from in one place.  I remem­bered them men­tioned in plan­ning the ses­sion that they really wanted water in some of the pic­tures, so we started with the lit­tle beach spot there in the park.  It’s not much, but it’s plenty for what we needed.  Just a few walk­ing in the sand shots, some sit­ting in the tall grass, and so on.

The park also has the old colo­nial wood post fenc­ing where some of the posts lean across it mak­ing a large “x” shape.  I’m sure there’s a proper name, but I have no idea what it is.  I just know they make cool pho­tos some­times.  So we used the fence for a few pho­tos.  Appar­ently a spi­der had mades its home strung up between a cou­ple of those posts, which was just over where we were about to put Zachary and Renee.  Don’t worry, Zach pro­tected his woman, the spi­der lived, and every­one went home happy.  Plus we got our pic­tures too.

 

After this we made use of some trees, a road, and then called it a day.  We cap­tured tons of great pho­tos full of col­or­ful scenes and a happy cou­ple.  The only thing left was to design a guest book album for them for their wed­ding day.  Of course I’d be more than happy to help dec­o­rate their walls as well with some of the pho­tos if they’re interested.

 

When they’re wed­ding day comes next sum­mer, I know Zachary is going to be the strong and hand­some man, while Renee will be the radi­ant bride.  I’m not sure who’s going to cry though.  I guess we’ll find out when the time comes.

 

Here comes another fire fighter wed­ding.  I always love a fire fighter wed­ding.  There always seems to be a dif­fer­ent level of fun with them.  Mike was actu­ally be best man at another fire fighter wed­ding I did last March.  So when I showed up at his house to meet him, I was try­ing to fig­ure out why he seemed so famil­iar.  I didn’t rec­og­nize him out of a tux right away.  But I did quickly remem­ber him.  I antic­i­pate another mem­o­rable wed­ding com­ing our way.

 

Mike and Michelle, like many cou­ples, fall in love with so many of the things we offer.  One of which is our Guest Book Album, which means engage­ment pho­tos of course.  So we made our plans, decid­ing on the time and loca­tion.  It ended up being an extremely windy day, but only for part of the time, and we all survived.

The engage­ment ses­sion ended up being at Sot­ter­ley Plan­ta­tion in South­ern Mary­land.  I always love every chance I can get at shoot­ing at Sot­terly.  The loca­tion is beau­ti­ful with lots of vari­ety, and Linda (who I coor­di­nate with there) is a plea­sure to work with.

 

When we arrived, my wife and I noticed some large trees on the ground with the trunks cut into sec­tions.  Appar­ently they had close to a hun­dred trees come down with the hur­ri­cane that hit a few months back.  We actu­ally used one of the cut sec­tions, which had to be about as thick as I am tall.  Obvi­ously I deter­mined this by the fact that it was lay­ing on the ground and I was stand­ing next to it.  So I stood on top of one sec­tion, and they stood on top of another sec­tion across from me.  I fig­ured it’s not a nor­mal prop that I can use all the time at Sot­terly, so I’d bet­ter use it then.

From there, we headed over to a gar­den area that is very scenic.  It’s actu­ally one of the places they use for wed­ding cer­e­monies some­times, so it made a great spot for us as well.  That’s also where I had Mike show his mus­cles off for us.  After the gar­den, they changed into their (team) jer­seys and we headed to the back hill area where I found my tree and fence.

 

I love using tress with cou­ples.  It’s one of the sim­plest and most ver­sa­tile props I can have nat­u­rally.  They can sit, stand, lean, embrace, hide, and lov­ingly stare at each other.  We cap­tured some of their favorite images sit­ting by that tree.  Their other favorites were on the fence where Michelle grabbed Mike’s shirt, pulling him in close as she demanded his sub­mis­sion to her, or death may occur.  Ok, so maybe I actu­ally told her told.  I’m just look­ing out for Mike, giv­ing him the oppor­tu­nity to prove he’s the man that stole her heart.

 

Now we have tons of cool, fun pic­tures of Mike and Michelle, and a lay­out that’s about to be turned into a Guest Book Album for their wed­ding day.  As with almost all of our cou­ples, they are an absolute plea­sure to work with. Then they go fur­ther by mak­ing us feel like we’re now part of their fam­ily.  I know they have a fun and beau­ti­ful wed­ding ahead of them.

I still remem­ber our first meet­ing Nicci at the Panera’s Bread in Wal­dorf.  Most of our meet­ings are done in house, but this was a pub­lic meet­ing instead.  She had a few ques­tions of impor­tance, which I encour­age, and then lots of look­ing at and enjoy­ing my sam­ples.  We didn’t get to meet Keenan yet though, but I had a feel­ing we would.  I could tell she liked us and our work, and that she was inter­ested in an engage­ment ses­sion and a guest book album.

 

Sure enough, she noti­fied me of their deci­sion to book my ser­vices for their wed­ding day.  I was excited!  Of course I usu­ally am.  I love work­ing with peo­ple, espe­cially when they love my work.  We just had to wait a few months in order to do the engage­ments.  We wanted a fall feel, and scorch­ing sum­mer heat was not a substitute.

 

As we got closer to time, we set­tled on our arrange­ments for when and where and how to pre­pare.  I gen­er­ally ask a cou­ple if they have a place in mind, and then work from there.  Then I’ll rec­om­mend they bring one semi-formal out­fit, one relaxed out­fit (such as jeans and a tee-shirt), and then some­thing they think is fun and unique to them.  I also love props if they have any to bring.  For Nicci and Keenan, it was their Patri­ots jer­seys and their beloved dog Laila.  They also decided to use Gilbert Run Park as their location.

 

It was my first time to Gilbert Run Park.  I’ve actu­ally never heard of it prior to them men­tion­ing it.  But it’s a nice lit­tle park.  Because we had to start so late, we didn’t have much sun to work with.  If fact, I was try­ing to start as quickly as pos­si­ble so I can have the sun for some of my pho­tos before it dropped below the trees.  I think I had less than five min­utes and it was gone.  After that, it was bal­anc­ing avail­able light with my flash off cam­era.  Of course my flash was act­ing a bit funny, so I switch to just avail­able light only, which worked out just fine.

We did get some beau­ti­ful pic­tures of them with the water behind them, and the trees on the oppo­site side still light up by the sun that was then evad­ing us.  We also made use of a bridge, fol­lowed by a wet sand vol­ley­ball court.  Of course I had to have them lay in the sand.  A shoot is always more fun (at least more mem­o­rable) when you get dirty.

 

To date, there’s has been the fastest engage­ment ses­sion I have ever pho­tographed.  Not because we were try­ing to hurry, but because it just went quickly.  Most ses­sions aver­age about an hour to hour and a half.  Theirs was maybe forty-five min­utes.  It was start­ing to get a bit chilly, and really dark, by the time we fin­ished.  The pic­tures we took back with us really cap­tured the two of them.  At least that’s what Nicci’s mom told me when we pro­jected their pic­tures for them.

 

As most of our cou­ple that do an engage­ment ses­sion with us, Nicci and Keenan have pur­chased a Guest Book Album to show­case their engage­ment pic­tures with.  So we’ve designed a lay­out that they loved, and it’ll bring them tons of com­pli­ments on their wed­ding day.  Guest Book Albums are a great thing to have for your wed­ding since they are an amaz­ing means of col­lect­ing mem­o­ries from guests on the wed­ding day.  I can’t wait to put it in their hands for the first time.  And then to see it show­cased at the Run­ning Hare Vine­yard where they are get­ting mar­ried next year.

 

Peo­ple LOVE our Photo Booth.  This has been one of our favorite ways to give our wed­ding cou­ples the oppor­tu­nity to raise the fun fac­tor on their wed­ding day.  Of course there are dif­fer­ent var­i­ous of Photo Booths among us wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers.  Some use the tra­di­tional box with a cur­tain that spits out prints.  Oth­ers have remote based sys­tems.  I have my portable stu­dio setup.

My most recent cou­ple that used the Photo Booth for their wed­ding at Run­ning Hare Vine­yard hit a new record for the amount of time and pho­tos taken in the Photo Booth.  Every time I thought it was wrap­ping up again so I could get back into the recep­tion, I had another group pulling me back out again.  I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty pos­i­tive that I spent more time in the Photo Booth than in the recep­tion itself.  If it wasn’t for the tra­di­tional func­tions of cake cut­ting, toasts, and so on, I would have hardly seen the recep­tion.  Think­ing about it, I just remem­bered that I still need to restring one of my cocoanut bras after that wed­ding.  That and I need to inven­tory my bag of props after one of the older women kept try­ing to hijack one of my red boas.

Some of our other wed­dings have had some pretty wild times in the Photo Booth as well.  When we were at the Navy Acad­emy for a wed­ding over the sum­mer, it was lays, beach hats, sun glasses, and (of course) the coconut bras that were taken over.  It was also the last time used our white paper back­ground before finally pur­chas­ing a white wrin­kle free fab­ric to replace it with.  To most peo­ple, it was pretty obvi­ous that the back­drop was just that as it set a few feet in front of some shaded win­dows, and the paper curled on itself as it slightly hov­ered just off the floor.  Yet just as I’m wait­ing for a group to get them­selves together for a photo, an older gen­tle­man in the back of the group sud­denly fell down, almost tak­ing my back­ground with him.  When I helped him and made sure he was ok (thank­fully he was ok), he apol­o­gized and told me he mis­tak­en­ingly thought the back­drop was a solid wall.

Usu­ally the biggest influ­ence on the pho­tos taken in the Photo Booth is the drinks often still in hand when they arrive, such as one of my fire fighter wed­dings at the IC Hall in Mechan­icsville, MD.  I love fire fighter wed­dings by the way.  Though not often, I do on occa­sion end up hav­ing to take a photo quickly that I know will have to be deleted later on due to the drunken obscen­ity of the photo they want taken.  I don’t recall if I had any­thing that extreme at this wed­ding, but we did have some­thing that came close.  One of the guests (yes a fire fighter) stood in front of the back­drop as I was instructed to wait a moment.  Sud­denly a large group of con­spir­a­tors arrived to form a human shield around the Photo Booth, and I was instructed to say noth­ing and be fast.  As I was prepar­ing for what unknown thing was about to hap­pen, our sub­ject stripped off his top so as to expose his over weight and exces­sively hairy body.  I cap­tured a few pho­tos as he gave a few “man” poses, and then I just tried to rec­ol­lect myself after that kind of visual trauma.

So what is my Photo Booth exactly.  My Photo Booth con­sist of a back­drop and a sin­gle strobe light with a really huge soft­box, and me as the pho­tog­ra­pher.  I do give peo­ple the option to choose either one of my avail­able back­drops (white, or one of two tex­tured options), or to upgrade their Photo Booth and choose a new back­drop that I’ll buy specif­i­cally for that wedding.

Because the Photo Booth requires the extra man hours for setup, break­down, and run­ning it, the basic cost of the Photo Booth includes a sec­ond pho­tog­ra­pher for three hours of time.  Basi­cally to help cover the recep­tion for me.  I have also decide to add a Photo Booth Plus to my list of pack­age cov­er­age options.  This option includes the upgraded back­drop, extra hours for the sec­ond pho­tog­ra­pher, and a can­did gift print of major­ity of the images cap­tured in your Photo Booth for either a per­sonal keep­sake or as a gift to send with Thank You cards.

I really do enjoy run­ning the Photo Booth, and I know the guests love it, and the cou­ples laugh for years at the pho­tos they receive from it.  Though the props don’t change too often, each wed­ding is a new and unique expe­ri­ence because of the peo­ple I capture.