We love wedding toasts!  For one thing, hearing how other folks love the bride and groom makes us—and everybody at a wedding, I think—adore the bride and groom even more.  And the photographs of the bride and groom and the guests reacting to toasts can be so fun (though, in fact, that could go either way if the toasts are deadly-long or if there are too many of them, come to think of it).

Somehow, toasts are more-often-than-not overlooked in the orchestration and choreography of the wedding day—but they’re important because the toasts themselves can be very meaningful and the photos do actually sometimes make it into the finished wedding album. So, naturally, you want the toasting photos to be their best selves.  (And don’t think that this magically won’t happen to you on your wedding day … )

Here are a few easy tips for setting yourself up to have picture perfect toasts:

1. Have the speaker stand somewhere with a nice background and nice light, even if that spot is right at his or her dinner table.  Ample ambient light is the best kind.
2. Please don’t put your toaster in front of an EXIT sign. (This is just an expansion of point #1, I suppose).
3. Make sure your photographer is present. If you have a planner, he or she can help with this.  If you are diy-planning, you’ll need to keep an eye on this yourself.  Although your photographer may stick close by your side the entire rest of the day, during dinner time, she could be off taking photographs in another part of the event, or trying to take a quick dinner break.  If unscheduled or unannounced toasts happen, she can miss them.
4. Toasts REALLY TRULY need to be short and sweet.  Haute wedding planner, Yifat Oren, notes,”it’s a toast, not a roast.  Toasts should be short and sweet and moving and anecdotal. The longest amount of time for any one toast should be seven minutes, but preferably no longer than five.  You can say a lot in seven minutes.”  And, “if you’re planning to have 35 minutes of toasts, don’t do it all at once.”  It’s hard for the guests to sit through a bunch of long toasts (read: boring) and can bring the whole party to a halt. If someone really wants to give a long toast or say something much more expansive to or about you and your beloved, the rehearsal dinner might afford a better and more intimate opportunity for that kind of thing.

Check back tomorrow for an interview with Yifat, full of tips from celebrity weddings that are applicable to weddings on any budget.

photographs: Gia Canali

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Allowing at least 30 minutes for just the “dressing” part of getting ready is really important—even if you’re wearing a really simple dress.  Not only do you not want to be rushed, but you never know when you might need that extra time.  Sometimes a zipper breaks, or you need to be sewn into your dress last-minute, or your straps are too long and need to be altered on the fly, or you’ve forgotten some totally essential part of the getup, or … or … or.  In any case, even if everything goes off without a hitch, you’ll still need time for putting on all your glorious accessories.

photo: Gia Canali

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I’ve been told a couple of times that people wish they’d taken the making of their formal group photo “list” more seriously.  So think about the group photos you and your family will really want to have later on.  The truth is that the family photo list is not only an organizational tool, used for estimating time needed for the photographs you want and for calling people into the shots; when wedding days go how they sometimes go, these are the shots your photographer will fight to get.

photo: Gia Canali

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I come from a family where photographs are prized possessions.  My grandmother was always afraid that someone would break into her house and steal her family photographs. Now there’s certainly a breakdown of reason (people steal things because they are valuable, not because they are valuable to you), but I think the sentiment is priceless. Her photographs of all of us were the one thing she didn’t want taken away from her.  Of course, she didn’t preserve them properly.  Many were in the magnetic photo albums from the 80s, and framed prints were stacked one behind another, ad infinitum, partly out of convenience and partly to hide them from would-be robbers.

My grandmother was right: photographs are great treasures, to us, to our families, to our histories, and to our cultures.  And so, the photographic prints themselves—and their conservation—are essential, but often overlooked, aspects of your investment in wedding photography and in any photography period.

I.  Keep Photographs Out of Direct Bright Light

Sunlight damages prints, even high-quality archival ones.  Don’t hang framed prints where they’ll get direct sunlight (or even really bright indirect light).  You don’t want to look like The Munsters in twenty years.

II. Keep Your Photographs Out of Extreme Conditions (No extreme heat, cold, high humidity, or dryness).

Humidity can cause mold; extreme dryness can make prints brittle.  Heat and cold are just as bad.  And alternating among any of those conditions is even worse.  Keep your prints, if at all possible, in stable room-temp normal humidity conditions.

III.  Use Archival Presentation and Preservation Materials

This is one area where your photographer probably can help you quite a bit, since many of us work with our clients to create archival presentations of the photographs.  Framed prints should be matted first, so that they don’t stick to the glass.  The matting should be archival quality, with acid free archival adhesives, corners, mat paper, etc.  UV-filtering glass can help framed prints, too.  Albums and other presentations should be completely archival.

IV.  Don’t Handle The Prints With Your Fingers.

If there was one thing Grammy was militant about with her photographs, it was this.  But it’s true: the oil from your fingers damages the print’s emulsion.

♥

Naturally, if we wanted our photographs to last forever and ever, we’d leave them in airtight archival boxes at room temperature and never let them see the light of day.  But that would be absurd, as the joy of a photograph is, of course, taking it in.  So I’m offering some basic guidelines today.   Then we’ll discuss each of these aspects of conservation in more detail in the coming months because the burden and responsibility of conservation of prints ultimately falls on the clients.  In other words, no matter how careful your photographer is to create archival prints for you; if they are handled carelessly later, they’ll still be ruined.  If at any point you aren’t sure about how to preserve your photographs, just ask your photographer!

iPhone photo: Gia Canali

* The photographs in the picture above are from my tiny collection of vintage wedding photographs. I always feel sad that photos like this have been separated from their people …

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The Inspiration For This Post Is You.

I have had drafts of this post floating around my computer for nearly a year and floating around my brain for much longer than that.  One of the driving reasons for starting this blog is that I want to help or coach people into getting the best photography that they can possibly get, from me or from any other photographer.  I want folks to be educated consumers (hmm … let’s say “patrons” or “commissioners”) of photography.  The truth is that everybody wants to get the most out of their wedding photography, and out of their wedding.  And each and every couple deserves an inspired performance from all their wedding vendors, right?  But sometimes—surely unwittingly—brides and grooms can get in their own way of making that happen.  I want to be delicate about this, but also truthful.  Nearly all of my clients are so thoughtful and considerate of us that it hurts my heart (really!) … but small considerations (or—gasp!—mistakes) can really make an impact, whether or not the client is really aware of it in the end.

(Okay, let me back up and be clear on this: the term “vendor” does kind of make me gag.  I’m used to it, after eleven years, but not happy with it.  Meg over at A Practical Wedding has kindly suggested a reconsideration of the terminology, maybe wedding elves.  It’ll do.  It at least describes the work ethic and energy most of my colleagues and I put forth at weddings.  But you could just call us artists. If you want to.)

I. The most important thing is TRUST.  Hire artists you truly trust, and then trust them to do their jobs with excellence.

Hire artists you trust, and then trust them. Nothing is more morale-busting or inspiration-deflating than micromanagement.  You want artists who share your vision, obviously, but keep in mind that they’ll do their jobs how they do their jobs and not how you’d do their jobs.   Listen to your wedding elves; we promise to listen to you.  We want to get you what you want (and then some!)—whether or not you know exactly what that is and whether or not you can articulate it—and we know how to do that.  The adage “expectations are premeditated resentments” fully applies, though.  Allow yourself to be surprised and delighted with our interpretations of your secret hopes and wishes.  We work so hard and consider our efforts a labor of love.  We are soulful about what we do.  I think there are probably folks out there who aren’t, but you don’t need to hire them, right?

II.  Give them what they need to do their jobs with excellence (e.g., time, space, resources).

This is a huge and, unfortunately, very common mistake we see.  For instance, so many weddings run behind because of hair and makeup (despite our often-repeated and LOUDEST advice for folks to pad the hair and makeup schedule).  I’ve previously always held an ill-founded vendetta against stylists themselves, but now that I have produced a short film (since I don’t have enough to do during wedding season), I can see how the makeup artists might feel flustered or set up to fail.  That’s not a good way to go into a job.  I know I can get flustered when folks step in and try to tell me how and how fast to work.

And I can’t tell you how disappointing it is when I have clients claim that portraits are so very important to them, how they’re envisioning all these set ups, lots of variety, and then they schedule fifteen minutes or less for portraits of themselves. Photographs are actually moments in time.  So we need time to make them.  Other artists need other things to do their jobs well.  Producing a wedding and producing a film are probably not all that different in the end.  You might want to think of yourself as a “producer.” On a film set, the producers (who put out all that money) make certain that everybody there—all the artists, all the talent, and all the so-called help—has what they need to do the best work possible.

III. Keep your artists, vendors, wedding elves performance-ready: well-fed, well-hydrated, and as rested as possible.

These considerations are of course much-expanded with a destination wedding, but the same principles apply to one-day local weddings.  My suspicion is that people can sometimes forget how really human we are.  I have heard this complaint voiced most often by the wedding planners themselves. We need nourishment, water, and a little appreciation (see below).  Keep in mind that you want your planner and photographers and videographers to be working their best all day long and after dinner, too – if you give them a crummy meal, not only does it literally leave a bad taste in their mouths, they’ll be running on empty and their growling tummies will be begrudgingly ticking off time until they can leave and get some real food … if that’s even possible.

1. Maintain a human pace to the day.  Your vendors will have a good sense about what’s realistic.  You want your day to be humane for you, too.  Harried and joyful might actually be mutually exclusive.
2. Keep water and other non-alcoholic beverages accessible throughout the day.  In California, with all our 100+ degree weddings, heat stroke is a real and serious concern.
3. A good vendor meal is nourishing, timely, balanced, and absolutely necessary.  A few years ago, I kept hearing people say, “a vendor meal is a courtesy, not a requirement.” Seriously?  We know catered food is costly and we aren’t saying you have to give us the filet mignon unless you want to (!), but remember that we are human: we can’t run on empty and we can’t go anywhere else.  You don’t want us to. It’s one thing to be a band member  and come at five o’clock (hence the ubiquitous bandwich), but for those of us who have already been running around for eight or ten hours before dinnertime with twenty five pounds of gear swinging around our necks, it’s nonsensical.  On my contract, I say “feed us whenever you eat,¹ and feed us well.  Warm, nourishing food is a good idea. Wedding photography is a lot like marathon running.”  And so it is.  I have to prep for my job with running, hiking, and lots of pull-ups.
4. Respect dietary restrictions.  There are a lot of reasons people eat the way they do, whether out of religious or ethical belief, allergy, or preference, but it is always personal.  I, for one, am allergic to the United States of America.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate sitting down to a meal I can actually digest.  It’s a matter of consideration and respect at the most basic level.
5. Some things don’t count as real meals: pasta with no meat, salad with nothing in it, sandwiches with dried nasty chicken, just to name a few.  Think nourishing, timely, and balanced: protein, grain, and something that would feel good in your tummy.  Our favorite vendor meals are always from the folks at Lucques but we’ve had lots of good same-as-the-guests meals, too.  Lucques gives us a complete meal.  My last one was a beautiful, tasty, and nutrient-packed nicoise salad; my husband had a giant holy pilgrim sandwich with lovely thick slices of roasted turkey; we also both had an apple, a dessert (chocolate-covered honeycomb for me, chocolate chip cookie for him), and homemade sweet potato chips (still dreaming about those and Matt swears he’d give up Doritos if I could offer him a steady supply of them).  I know I’m going on and on about food.  But it’s important.  All of this is to say: be sure you know exactly what your caterer is feeding the vendors, whether it’s the same food as your guests are being served or not; don’t assume the caterer will just get it right.  You may be charged the full meal rate while your vendors are eating terrible cold sandwiches.  Not that good cold sandwiches don’t exist.  Your caterer might be trying to feed ham to folks who keep a kosher diet. Eeps! There are no hard and fast rules here, just a gentle call to attention to detail.  A good meal is a good meal.

IV. In the same way that actors perform better with a little applause, your vendors will perform better with a little appreciation.

I’m not talking about gratuity; I’m talking about gratitude.  We’ll do our jobs either way (with gratitude or without), but we’ll do it better if we know you’re thankful for our efforts and creativity.  We’re human.  We’ll work to our own high standards for anyone, but we can’t help but go that extra mile for the couples who love us.

That’s me! With my Leica! On a (rare) bathroom break!

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¹ If you feed us when you eat, all that you’ll “miss out on” are photographs of folks eating.  Which you don’t want anyway.  Feed us later on, and we’ll be missing the real moments.  You might need to make this point to your caterers if they are providing the vendor meals.  Sometimes they won’t feed the vendor-folk until after the dinner service is completely completed.  This seems counter-productive because we’ll be eating when things are getting going again …

photos: Gia Canali

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Lovely skin makes for lovely photographs.  But knowing how to go about getting our skin and our faces camera-ready can be kind of daunting.  So, in the interest of pursuing the picture-perfect wedding, my friend (and esthetician!) Jillian has graciously offered to share some skincare information and beauty tips with all of us.  Above: Jillian on her wedding day!

How To Start: (asap!)

“To get your skin wedding-ready, it’s good to start as soon as possible.  Start getting regular facials with exfoliation and extractions to purge impurities.  Working with a professional esthetician—someone who knows your skin and is sensitive to what your skin can tolerate is very helpful.  Not only will an esthetician be able to evaluate your skin and then provide you with the necessary personalized treatments, she can also direct your at-home skincare routine.”

About One Month Before The Wedding

“Go on a peel series with your esthetician. A peel series is typically once a week for 4 – 5 weeks. It’s good to ask your esthetician what kind of peels she offers.  Try to avoid glycolic acid if possible, as it is the among the most inflammatory of all the Alpha Hydroxy Acids. Stick with a good blended layer peel or lactic acid.

or if you don’t/can’t seek a professional’s help:

Start doing gentle (gentle!) at-home exfoliation.  Try three times a week for the first couple of weeks; then every other day the last week before your wedding.  The reason Pro-Activ works so well is that it gives you daily exfoliations.  The same principle applies here.  You can blend (dilute) a scrub with your cleanser or use a gentle 5% lactic acid.”

“The Key To Glowing Skin Is Hydration—Internally and Externally.”

“Hydrating and moisturizing sound like they mean the same thing, but—at least in the beauty industry—they don’t.  Moisture has to do with putting oil(s) into the skin; hydrating puts water into the skin.  Moisturizing isn’t good for all skin types or climates.

Hydration and exfoliation make for glowing, dewy skin.  So: drink lots of water and avoid dehydrating beverages like coffee and alcohol.  For external hydration, find a hydrating mask.  Your esthetician can prescribe one that’s right for your skin; she’ll also have access to the better ones.  If you are acne-prone, exfoliation and hydration are still good for you, but look for a hydrating mask that is non-comedogenic; it’ll be more jelly-like rather than creamy.

What Else Complements Your Newly-Radiant Skin

1. Well-shaped eyebrows

2. Teeth-whitening

Consider them little helpers.

If You Break Out More Than Five Days Before The Wedding …

“If it’s just one or two spots (not a big breakout): Clean your face then run a washcloth under the hottest tap water you can get, and put it on the affected spots for 5-10 minutes.  The hot compress will help bring it to the surface.  Then you can use two q-tips to extract it, or you can take tissue and wrap it around your fingers and gently try to extract it.  Follow this up with an antibacterial compress like your toner, benzoyl-peroxide, or other acne spot-treatments.

If You Break Out Less Than Five Days Before The Wedding, LEAVE IT ALONE!

“A scab looks worse under makeup than a zit does.”

Additional Tips For Men’s Skincare

“The same basic skincare information applies, but because men shave—and breakouts and rashes from shaving are especially unflattering in person and on-camera—there are some special notes just for guys.

1. Only exfoliate at night, or as far away from shaving as possible.
2. Use a tea tree oil hair conditioner as a shave medium or put a few drops of tea tree oil into a cup of aloe vera for an anti-bacterial (but still soothing!) aftershave.
3. Men shouldn’t overlook their eyebrows either, just don’t overdo it!

♥

Thanks, Jillian!!  Check back in a bit for a do-it-yourself lip scrub recipe.

–

photo: Gia Canali

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Although I don’t wear makeup or even know how to really put it on, I do notice wedding makeup.  Or, perhaps I should say that I bemoan bad wedding makeup.  I don’t think I notice good makeup at all.  My friend and former bride, Mitra, was a certified MAC makeup artist a few years ago and did a number of weddings during that time, both through MAC and on her own.  She agreed to share some tips, and I must say, as a photographer (who knows what’s flattering) and a make-up-phobe (who groans at the thought of doing it), I think these tips are really helpful.  I’m putting in my own two-cents in italics.

1. Hire a make-up artist, or at the very least, have a make-up artist show you how to do your make-up, take her product suggestions, and practice several times before the wedding. Hiring a make-up artist is easier. Brides have enough to worry about on the wedding day!
2. A trial run of wedding-day make-up is absolutely necessary. Take a picture of your make-up in several lighting scenarios (natural light, dark w/flash, etc.). And wear the make-up 8-10 hours. See how well it holds. All make-up will need touch-ups (powder, lips, etc.), but the bulk of wedding day make-up should wear that long.  (Gia here: Makeup that looks good and makeup that looks good on-camera aren’t necessarily the same thing. Your little test shots will tell you a lot!!)
3. Everyone looks better with false eye lashes. There are so many ways to do them that look natural and gorgeous, and I think they should be attempted at the trial run before a bride rules them out.
4. If fake lashes are out of the question, Diorshow Blackout (waterproof) and Make Up For Ever Smoky Lash (waterproof) are both available at Sephora, and dramatically enhance eyes to get the benefit of fake lashes.
5. When cultivating ideas for the wedding day look, chose a celebrity or two who you resemble in face-shape and coloring, and google red carpets looks for those celebs to get ideas. Bring these pics to your trial run with the make-up artist.
6. If the make-up artist isn’t staying for the whole event, make sure that you have the lipstick/liner/gloss she used, and powder and a little foundation for touch-ups. Make a bridesmaid responsible for keeping track of these items for you, and put her in charge of checking on your make-up every so often.
7. Skin is really important to wedding day beauty. A make-up artist can even out skin tone, but there’s not much they can do for texture. Start thinking about this months in advance, and adjust your skin care regimen accordingly. If you’re paranoid about a huge zit cropping up days before the wedding, make an appointment with a derm the day before the wedding, if possible. Should a monstrous zit arrive, they can give you a cortisone injection that will get rid of it by the next day.  (Gia here: we’ll have more on good skin for your wedding soon-ish).

Thanks, Mitra! Any makeup tips from anyone else?  Former brides, feel free to chime in!

photo: Gia Canali

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WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) is something we photographers talk about all the time when we’re printing our photographs.  We want our prints to precisely match what we see on our computer screens.  Obviously.  We want to get what we expect.  And with wedding photography, so do you.

So how does that work exactly, when you hire a photographer—or, now that I think about it, when you hire any vendor or artist?  Well … we do what we do: what you see is what you get.  So when you’re thinking about hiring someone, see enough of her work that you have a really good feel for what she does—a representative sample.  This could include images on a website or blog, some albums, and perhaps a client gallery or run of proofs.  By that point, you should feel like you “get” the scope and style of her work.  If you like what you see in that photographer’s portfolio, chances are that you’ll like what she can do for you.  But if you don’t, or if you yearn for something altogether different, no amount of direction, coaching, or unrealistic expectation is going to change how that photographer works or sees.  You aren’t going to get something different.

♥

Two stories to highlight this point:

Once I was at a meeting with a potential client.  She kept pulling photographs out of my portfolio, dropping them on the coffee table, and pounding her forefinger on the photos,¹ asking over and over again, “Can you do this? Can you take photos like this?”  I was boggled.  What a query!  I had, of course, taken all the photographs in question, and there were dozens of them.  She had a whole, ever-growing pile of photographs she wondered if I could take.  What she was really asking, of course, was whether I not I could take photos like that for her. But still.  It’s ridiculous.

In another meeting, a potential client asked me, no less than twice, if I could take photographs like the ones taken by another well-known local photography studio.  Um … why not just hire them? (I hope they did!  Otherwise, they were surely and sorely disappointed.)

Neither one of these potential clients understood the principle of WYSIWYG. And I’m sure it’ll be no surprise to know that neither one of them hired me.  Nor will it be much of a revelation to know that I’m relieved they didn’t.

♥

So … hire a photographer whose work makes your heart go pitter-pat.  Someone whose eye you trust.  And then let her do her thing.  (Why in the world would you want to interfere with what you trust is going to be marvelous?)

photo: Gia Canali

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¹ Yes, yes, she was smudging them to death.

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