Take a walk. It is a way of taking {quiet time}, to be sure. And it always renders so nicely on film. Congratulations, Abram & Nicole!
Monthly Archive for August, 2009
I realize that this isn’t artsy or pretty as far as portraits go (and for these reasons, probably, it’s never made a portfolio cut). But I just remembered this five year-old flower girl, all that (glaring!) attitude, hot pink nail polish, a child’s purse, and a halo of stunning orchids. She makes me happy, with all her glamour and grit, so I thought I’d share.
photo: Gia Canali
Your officiant may position you in another way, facing front, for instance. But it’s wonderful if you can face each other at some point during the ceremony—even if only for a few minutes, and particularly when you’re saying your vows.
photos: Gia Canali
We ♥ Tiny Pine Press ever so much. So we are thrilled that Tiny Pine just launched a new line of wedding invitations, Variations. The full collection is available directly through Tiny Pine or at Urbanic Paper in Venice. If you live in LA, it’s definitely worth a stop in at Urbanic, to see the collection for yourself. Urbanic is a papery treasure trove in and of itself and they carry tons of stuff from some of my favorite etsy sellers, too! Anyway, I digress. The Variations invites are printed on recycled or tree-free papers and are offered with digital (flat) printing, but letterpress is also available—of course! This collection is perfect for brides everywhere, or brides elsewhere, I should say, who can’t meet with Jennifer to design custom stationery. To celebrate, there was a sweet party at Urbanic, complete with arts ‘n crafts, a dj, festive treats, and Jennifer herself. I forgot my camera (go figure!), so you’ll have to bear with my phone photos. There are lovely photographs of the whole collection on Jennifer’s blog.
{me, with one of my cameras, though obviously not at a wedding}
There’s (apparently!) a recession on and although I do think things are getting better in the world, we’ve been getting lots of questions behind the scenes from folks who are trying to figure out how to afford wedding photography. So I thought it might be a good time for us to offer some hazardously honest suggestions to all our blog readers. Firstly, I’m interpreting “stretching your photography budget as far as it can possibly go” to mean that you want the most bang for your buck, as they say—the most extraordinary photographs you can have (and lots of them) for the money you can spend. To that end, I am also going to assume that you plan to book your top-choice photographer, someone whose eye you really trust, whose images make your heart go pitter-pat. (That’s bang for your buck!)
I. Optimize Your Location and Itinerary.
The easiest way to get more photography for your money is to do some simple planning of your wedding day early on, perhaps even before you book a photographer. Plan your day cleverly. I’d rather see couples book the photographer of their dreams, and then purposely design a wedding day that can be well-covered with fewer hours of photography if necessary, than to book a photographer they don’t love for ten hours.
If at all possible, plan to have your whole wedding day (getting ready, ceremony, and reception) happen at one location you adore. Not only will the photographs be in your preferred setting (which equals big photographic impact—more on location planning soon!), but you also won’t be wasting valuable shooting time with transportation time. If driving is a must, try to minimize it.
I have seen strategically-planned normal-sized wedding days (at one location) that were well-covered in seven hours. It can be done. Your photographer may have some good ideas of how to do this. And your caterer or coordinator may have more. When my husband and I were married, our caterer suggested heavily weighting the “events” of the reception to the beginning of the evening. Couples who do this could potentially shave quite a bit off the time they need to book a photographer for, and/or fit more of the reception’s must-have events into the time that they can afford to book. (For my part, I just really enjoyed being free to enjoy the party.)
II. Optimize Your Wedding Date, if you can.
Another budget-stretching option is to consider having your wedding at an off-time—like maybe on an off-day. Here in California that means on a Monday through Thursday, and mostly lots of lovely Thursdays. Weekday events tend to be much smaller, since they are attended only by those who love you enough to take the day off from work (and who you love enough that you don’t mind asking them to take time off work!). Most destination weddings require guests to take a few days off from work anyway, so why not wed on a Wednesday?!
I’m not sure if there really is an off-season here in California (maybe that’s a myth?), but keep in mind that holiday dates like Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day weekends, as well as all the fall and winter holidays, or funky dates like 08.08.08, are likely to be less-negotiable than your average sunny summer weekend date. All your vendors (and not just your photographer) will likely have lots of leads on those dates.
III. It’s Okay to Respectfully Negotiate.
Even if your photographer’s prices are firm, their package inclusions may be flexible. Or they may offer a la carte pricing or have other ways of helping their clients afford the photography they want them to have. Particularly if the photographer has a good feeling that the client really “gets” their work and would be good to work with. (What I’m really saying here, and I mean to say it as nicely as possible, is that it’s really, truly, and totally essential to be perfectly lovely—and not insulting, presumptuous, obnoxious, or otherwise patronizing or mean). Just remember: people help people they like.¹
IV. If Possible, Worry About The Wedding Album and Other Big Ticket Tangible Items Later.
If you are right on the bubble of being able to afford your favorite photographer and haven’t yet booked, you may want to see if it’s possible to purchase your album and other big ticket tangible items later. We consider the wedding album the culmination of our clients’ investment (you definitely want one!) and accordingly we don’t ever let our clients walk away empty-handed. And of course, photographers all run their studios very differently, but some kind of negotiation may be possible. There may be a trade-off, such as not getting your negatives until after your album is complete, but it might be totally worth it just to get the images. I always tell people that once they have the images, they can worry about what to do with them later.² Conversely, if someone else is paying and/or if the client can afford an album from the get-go, it is almost always worth budgeting for it from the beginning.
V. See If Your Wedding Photographer Can Set Up A Gift Registry For You.
The advent of online proofing and ordering seems to have made photography gift registry possibilities much more accessible for couples and guests alike. We made a gift registry for some clients this summer and their guests gifted them over $1600, which they used toward vintage processes and album add-ons. I was wowed!
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In the end, do what you need to do. You have to anyway. Ask for help if you need it. Ask for reality checks from your friends, family, planner, and photographer if you need it. I think photography is one of those things that you won’t ever regret investing in. The photographs become memento, become official record, and ultimately become family heirloom. I know I’m a photographer saying that! But I think most of us wedding photographers have a really good idea of the wedding photography we want to give our clients.³ And we are perfectly happy to help people figure out how to get the most, best photography they can get. That’s our job!
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¹ Yep, I know: folks reading advice rarely need it themselves.
² As long as it’s not, as it is in my case, six years later, with no intention of working on the images any time soon!
³ Sigh. In a perfect world, you’d all have buckets of money for wedding photography, no figuring required …
I’m off cooking up some new vintage photo stuff for the next couple days, so I thought I’d share an iPhone photo, and wish you all a happy weekend! This little iPhone technology trick doesn’t make me feel any better at all about Polaroid’s demise, but it does make me love my iPhone just a little bit more … (And makes me secretly hope for some good-fake-digital-Polaroidical future).
These are the dog days (and nights!) of summer and I find myself wanting to paint everything in the hottest colors I can imagine. I want even my blues to be hot. Tammy and Mickey’s wedding has been on my mind lots these past days and mostly because of their hot, hot colors. The pairing of pinks, purples, oranges, yellows, and electric blues with their venues and the very sensuous mood of their wedding worked especially well for them. And although we use lots of these images elsewhere in our blog and site, I thought it would be good to get an idea of how everything worked together to create what was really a breathtaking event. As in any good color design, the color should work with the color scheme and season and general mood of your location, rather than against it. Throughout the images, you might notice bits of blue and turquoise. I think … little accents of cool color bring out the heat in all the other colors. I also got the distinct impression that their wedding became warmer and hotter as day became night.
Genius florals by Michael Mantalos, {Louloudi Design}.
{click any image to enlarge}
Tammy’s accessories included a barrette she made by hand at work (she’s a fashion designer!) …
Mickey getting ready, and showing off his Canali suit. Love it!
A few photographs from their sweet ceremony. When you wed at a church as ornate as this one, no adornment is necessary.
And here’s where it goes from warm to hot—the warmth of candles, the heat of red dahlias and yellow orchids, and the opulence of a gilded cake combine perfectly. Cake by Margaret Braun.
A belly dancer entertained the guests during dinner.
I am a fan of any excuse to get everybody very happily dancing. It is one of the best opportunities to photograph bride and groom with their wedding guests. After the first dances, Greek dancing began.
The evening ended with some of our favorite nighttime portraits. (Yep, I posted some of these earlier this week. That’s what put Tammy and Mickey’s wedding fresh in my mind).
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Revisiting their wedding these many months later, I am wondering how so few of these images made it through to our portfolio. Of course, I’m always a little discouraged by how little of our work we can really show—but that’s a major reason we started this blog. I think Tammy and Mickey’s wedding is a fantastic example of a wedding that was opulent without being extravagant. There were little handmade touches. We love that. Hope it inspires.
photos: Gia Canali
