Awesome Winter Wedding Photos!

I wanted to share with you a post on the "Ritsy Bee" blog about winter wedding photos.  It really shows how beautiful and unique a winter wedding can be.  It's the perfect opportunity for the bride and groom who like to think "outside the box" and want to do their own thing rather than the same thing everyone else does. 

I'm particularly in love with the bouquet!  Is that not the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen?  Just look at the color palettes it inspires!  Pale, pale platinum satin, or a really soft grey green bridesmaids, even a deep but very subdued forest green would be amazing!  I love the idea of using pinecones in the centerpieces, what an economical way to get a ton of pow for a few bucks!  Some seeded eucalyptus sprigs or dusty miller stems tucked between the pinecones to dress them up a bit.  You could even use platinum Christmas balls in various sizes to add a little shine and sizzle. 
Take a look at the photos from this beautiful wedding!  It might just inspire you to fall in love with winter!  (Keep in mind that we have December 10th and New Year's Eve still available! :)

TIMING IS EVERYTHING!

Reading through my emails this morning, I received Colin Cowie's most recent "Wedding Notes" and I wanted to share it with you because it is so near and dear to my heart.
Colin is so dead on with this article!  Timing is SOOOOO important!  I love what he says about how we have all been to weddings where the ceremony starts 25 minutes late, the cocktail hour drags on and on (usually because the photographer has delayed the couple with pictures) dinner is delayed or takes FOREVER to serve.  We have folks come in on a regular basis, expecting that this is just the "norm" for a wedding.  Not so at Aberdeen.  We work really hard to keep things on track, make sure that everything starts when it is supposed to start and ends when it's supposed to end.  This is what makes for an enjoyable wedding and reception!  The flow of the party is so important, and as Colin says, you don't want your guests to start looking at their watches!  That's the kiss of death for a party, because usually, as soon as they start looking at their watches, their next move is to look for their car keys! 
I'm always surprised by the people that come in 10, 15, even 20 minutes late for a ceremony!  They always seem to look at me with this puzzled expression on their faces that says "Gosh, they started on time?  Amazing!"  I guess that they are so used to ceremonies being late that these folks just add 15 minutes to the time on the invitation automatically!
My feeling on this is that if you say 5 o'clock, you should start at 5 o'clock.  It's not fair to your guests who ARE on time to make them sit and wait.  More important, if your ceremony runs late, it's going to make everything else start to run late because it will short you on time for your pictures etc.  It's a domino effect, and it's really hard to recover, once that first domino--the ceremony time--is tipped!
Good timing is something that Aberdeen Manor has become known for.  You have myself or my daughter Megan, there to make sure that everyone is on track and on schedule.  We keep the party moving, we serve your dinner in a timely manner, and if your photographer is dragging out the photos and delaying you, we aren't afraid to tell the photographer, nicely but firmly, that they need to wrap it up so that we can move along.  Incidentally, this is another reason why using a photographer from our Favorites List is so helpful, to you and us as well.  The photographers on our list KNOW that we keep things on time, and they are great at making everything fit together, getting the photos taken, and keeping everything on time.  One of our photographers, plus Transaudio as your DJ and you have a golden combination that is going to help to keep your special day running smoothly, and your guests happy and excited about your day.
Remember, the day may be about the two of you, but it is also about your guests.  The thoughtful couple wants their guests to have the time of their lives, as well as themselves.  There is nothing better after your wedding, than having one of your guests tell you, even years later, that YOUR wedding was the BEST wedding they ever attended! 
Timing IS everything!
Happy Weddings!

Photos and Video - Not the Same Animal

When it comes to YOUR wedding, don't make the very common mistake of looking at photography and videography as the same thing; as an either/or option. BOTH photos and video have their own special uses and purposes. They are totally different, other than the fact that they both involve images.

I attended a seminar on videography a couple years ago, and they talked about a study that was done where they asked couples what the five most important services for their wedding were. BEFORE the wedding, video was named in only about 25% of the answers. But AFTER the wedding it was named in nearly 80% of the answers! Obviously there was a lot of people that wished they had gotten a video for their wedding!

It flies by in a nanosecond. Just as you wouldn't think of having your wedding without someone to take still photos, a video should be just as high on your priority list. If you can't afford to go with a fully edited, high tech video, at least have a professional take raw video, so that later on you can pay the additional to have it edited into something beautiful. If you don't have the video, you can't do it, ever.

Incidentally, did you know that an average wedding video requires about 40 to 50 hours of editing time? The price you pay for having someone take a video of your wedding is not just for the few hours that they are at your wedding. The largest portion of the cost is those hours and hours of editing time! If a video costs $1500, that works out to about 30 dollars an hour. Looks a lot more reasonable, doesn't it? In addition, professional videographers can easily have 30,000 to 50,000 dollars tied up in their equipment. Professional high definition cameras that are able to take high quality video in low light situations (and who wants a searchlight on constantly during their reception?) are really expensive, and good videographers are constantly having to update and upgrade their equipment. Looks like an even better bargain, doesn't it?

Because of the improvements in equipment, video doesn't have to be any more intrusive than still pictures. Just as with your photographer, people notice them at the very beginning, and then they kind of fade into the woodwork as people get used to them being there. After 5 minutes, they don't notice the photographer OR the videographer.

We have some awesome videographers on our Faves List. I hope you will really give video serious consideration when it comes to planning your wedding!

First Look Revisited-Photos Before the Ceremony

Ok, how many weddings have I attended---maybe over 1000? I rarely get teary at weddings any more, for one thing I am normally too busy trying to get everyone down the aisle! Once in a great while something will get to me though. Well, today I happened to be in the ballroom just as the photographers went out to the garden with Audrey to do some pictures. I snuck over and peeked out the windows. Oh my gosh, she looked absolutely radiant. Her gown, her veil (modeled after Audrey Hepburn's in "Funny Girl" she told me later--stunning!) she just looked amazing!

So I'm in the ballroom getting some photos of their centerpieces and their cake and all, and kind of keeping my eye on what was going on in the garden.

The breeze was gently tickling her veil and the ruffles on her train. It was really a beautiful afternoon to be in the garden. I happened, (just by chance of course, ahem) to be over by the windows as Ethan came into the garden. What an electric moment!!! He nearly broke into a run! It was evident that he could hardly wait to get to where she was standing! The smile on his face went from ear to ear, and obviously the emotionality of the moment was affecting him too.

I wish I could find the words to tell you how poignant, how tender, how sweet this was. The tears were streaming down my face! I couldn't help it, it was such a beautiful scene.

I had nearly recovered myself, (silently thankful that I had used my Blink mascara so at least I knew I didn't have raccoon eyes!!) when they both pulled out the tissues and dabbed at each others' tears. I lost it all over again. SO sweet.

(This is also a great photo to check out the veil! Is that incredible or what?!)

It was just so, SO special! I am hoping that Ethan and/or Audrey will post a comment on this post about how it was from each of their perspectives. I think it would be very helpful to those couples who are considering doing a "First Look" moment before their ceremony, and might be on the fence about it.

If you are dead set against it, that's fine, we can work with that. It's possible to get those photos done during the cocktail hour and still move things along. However if you are one of those couples who are considering it, well, it never hurts to hear what someone who has been there has to say about it, right?

Did YOU take your photos before the ceremony? Tell me about it, you can always comment anonymously if you're shy. I have friends who did this 30-35 years ago and still get choked up about it. We need to hear from you ALL!

Let me know what you think. Tell me about your experience. Keep your eyes on this post and hopefully, when the dust settles, these two will tell us about how it was from THEIR perspectives!

Thoughts about Photos and Photographers

This is me with one of my favorite photographers, Ed. He has done lots of weddings at Aberdeen. We always have fun when Ed is around. He was showing me how to take a picture of yourself. I had tried it, and ended up with a photo of the top of my head! He says the key is to have a bigger lens. Isn't that just typical! So now I am shopping for lenses for my NikonD70. I do need something that goes to a lower f-stop, so that I can get more depth of field in my photos where the light is less than bright.

I take lots of photos, particularly of our weddings, and consequently I ask a lot of questions when we have a good photographer around. I've learned a lot that way, just asking questions. It's actually getting to the point where I almost understand what I am doing! I actually comprehend the relationship between aperture and shutter speed, f-stops, and film speed. But it's still pretty much dumb luck that anything I take turns out well. :) There's a whole shelf full of pictures I have taken in the shop, some of them are really nice, cool lighting, great expressions, cute kids, etc.

Which brings me to my point. When you interview a photographer, you want to see a couple of individual weddings from beginning to end. If you came in and looked at my shelf full of pictures, you would say, wow, she's really a great photographer! But there are maybe 25 pictures up there, and I have probably taken, literally, over 20,000 pictures! That means that 1 in a thousand of my photos are brag shelf quality! If you looked at one wedding from beginning to end, you would probably see that some of my photos are way too dark, some are overexposed, and I use a lot of cropping in Photoshop to fix things. There are three things that are important when you look for a photographer, that he shoots consistently high quality images, (they don't have to all be fabulous, but the majority should be focused, well lit, etc.) he/she should be someone that you like, that you won't mind having in your immediate presence for 12 plus hours, and the price should fit your budgeted amount for photography.

Another factor that couples sometimes don't consider is the amount of time devoted to the pictures. Do you really want to spend your whole day smiling for a camera? When you look at those sample weddings, try to determine which shots were actually candid and which were posed or more importantly posed to look candid? Keep in mind that you can probably figure 3 to 5 minutes for each of those posed or posed to look candid shots. How much of your day do you want to devote to those shots?

My personal belief is that 12 posed shots can cover every possibility you will ever care to have, and the rest should be candid shots that you aren't even aware that the photographer is taking them. The shot of the two of you smiling at the camera while you are dancing your first dance doesn't mean nearly as much in the long run as the shot of the two of you smiling at each other during your first dance. Emotion and feeling are what most people want in their photos. They want a picture to transport them back to that moment. That's what candid photos do.

Trying to compare packages and pricing among photographers is a mindbending experience. They all offer different packages, different components, different prices. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to compare them to each other. Find one who fits the above criteria and go for it. You'll save yourself a lot of needless confusion.

So that's my 2 cents on photographers. Sometime soon we'll talk about videographers! I have lots of opinions about that too! (Just a hint, I LOVE videos!)