pursuing the picture perfect wedding
This tablescape by Michael Mantalos of {Louloudi Design} makes me hope somebody hires me to photograph a sparkling winter white wedding … and soon! The sequined linen from {LaTavola Linen} is just right with the glimmering decor.
photos: Gia Canali
Yesterday, I visited Atelier Des Modistes in San Francisco. I wanted to meet Suzanne Hanley, the designer behind two of my favorite brides’s dresses and to see the beautiful shop where she and her crew design and make the gowns. We had fun talking shop and while I sat there, chatting, I wondered yet again why, even though I had my dress made for me, I never went dress shopping when I was engaged. Sigh. Anyway. Suzanne’s shop is certainly the best of both worlds (lots to try on and lots to dream up out of your own imagination). I dearly hope there’s a big return to handmade in 2010. What better than a one-of-a-kind dress designed and sewn just for you?
A girl can’t carry all her gear all the time, so I’m sharing photos from my iPhone.* Below: store front sign, capelet (yes, please!), cards, behind the scenes with the best inspiration wall ever, super sewing machine, lace and ruffles galore, wedding gowns and polaroids (two of my favorite things, you know), and more images of the lovely dress-in-the-window (may some lucky bride swoon over it!).
photos: Gia Canali, via her iPhone.
Your wedding is not the ultimate statement of who you are as a couple. I mean: your wedding should certainly reflect you two more than it reflects just the idea of wedding. Of course. But—and I know this is hard, and that my husband and I didn’t quite manage it ourselves when we wed—don’t let yourselves get out of hand. Weddings are really just a public acknowledgment, an affirmation, marking the beginning of the adventure of your (official) partnership—kind of like a bon voyage. Our parents and grandparents had such different weddings. They walked to the county courthouse, or married at a neighborhood church, with a party in Grandma’s back yard. These weren’t grand affairs, at least not in my family, but I have such romantic ideas about them: my parents and grandparents have beautiful photographs by which I still imagine those weddings.
Weddings are now so much bigger and more splendid and more extraordinary in design and scope than I possibly could have imagined when I was a little girl. When we all were. But. How you live your married life, each and every day, or rather the sum of your days, eventually becomes a much more powerful testimony of who you are as a couple. So, plan the wedding you imagine, great or small, near or far, lavish or serene. I hope it is a wonderful and honest celebration (and that the photographs are fantastic, too!). I’m just saying, I hope your marriage is even more marvelous. Were it up to me, and were my husband and I so extraordinarily lucky, I’d rather let our fiftieth anniversary than our wedding be that ultimate statement of who we are together.*
photo: Gia Canali
p.s. My husband says I should say that perhaps the “tip” here, if there really is one, is to plan your wedding for the couple you want to become.
This is just for fun! Sometimes weddings (and soon-to-be-wed couples) can take themselves a little too seriously. I love when a groom has the panache and playfulness to pull off a polka-dotted tie.
photo: Gia Canali
It turns out that looking great on camera is more sculptural than you’d think; or rather, if you want to look good on camera, think about it like making a good sculpture. Sculptures look good from any angle. And on your wedding day, the camera—and all your guests—will see you from lots of angles, not just the front or back. It’s particularly important that your face not be obscured during the ceremony (unless you’re wearing a veil over your face, of course). And I’m not saying you need to wear your hair up—I love when brides wear their hair down—just be mindful of multiple viewpoints when you do your hair test.
Below: one of my favorite hairdos ever …
photos: Gia Canali
hair: Angelique Stanford, 323-702-5767
Well, I am finally working on a blog post about Julia & Eli’s wedding. I mean it this time! I’m only five months behind on that (and it’s only the second wedding of the season)! But for now, I thought some of you might like to see this lovely flower from their wedding, reimagined by {Krislyn}. I’m not sure what it is—but it looks to me like orchid petals + pussy willow. I wish I could grow a garden of them …
photo: Gia Canali
There’s so much pressure these days to fit it all in—even in the face of the so called non-traditional wedding—folks are going for every possible potentially meaningful moment and kitschy tradition (and diy detail!) they can think of. It is like having an all-you-can-eat-buffet mentality to planning your wedding. I say: let’s take it easy. Do a few things well. Make your wedding one where you can enjoy good food and the company of good friends and family. After all, that’s why you’re having a wedding with people attending.
Congratulations, Tom & Kimberly!
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!)
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.)
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.
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
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.
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!
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 …
