Brandon Malone Photography

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.

 

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.

I finally have my new pro­jec­tion sys­tem set up, and it’s totally awe­some!  I can now give a much bet­ter image pre­sen­ta­tion and review in per­son instead of lazily putting them online.  This is a way bet­ter expe­ri­ence all the way around.  Not only can I show images at actual sizes with frames up to 60 inches wide and have them real­is­tictly look­ing on images of walls (to scale of course), but I can plug my enter­tain­ment sys­tem to it and watch movies on it too.