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Category: Tips for Clients | View all recent posts |
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Tips for Clients Ideal Wedding Day Timeline |
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| To this date I've photographed over 150 weddings. I'm not an expert on planning a wedding day timeline by any means, but I thought it might be helpful to share, from a photographer's viewpoint, what I've experienced to be an ideal wedding day timeline. This timeline is typical for the weddings I shoot and I've experienced that it runs very smoothly and that the bride and groom seem to enjoy their day and be most stress-free when their timeline is closest to it.
First and foremost, I would HIGHLY recommend hiring a planner to help with your timeline. They ARE the true, time-tested experts. The further you get into the planning process, the more complex it becomes and you quickly realize what a beast planning a wedding can be. If you need further convincing on this matter, definitely read my top 10 reasons to hire a wedding planner. You will be so happy you did. This is intended to be a general starting point. There are SO many factors that make each wedding unique so more than likely, any bride looking at this will have to make some tweaks. Other considerations you will have to make when nailing down your timeline include: sunset time, location/weather, the amount of time your photographer requires for portraits, transportation time (this model assumes one location), the type of reception you want and any cultural traditions or elements that will make your wedding day unique. Each of these elements will cause you to need to tweak the timeline I'm suggesting here. That's why I'm only proposing this as a starting point. My model is built around a sunset time of 6pm. It also assumes that the bride and groom have decided to see each other before the ceremony for portraits. I really believe this route is ideal for a number of reasons. Click here to read more about why I suggest that my clients see each other before the ceremony. With all this said, here is what I would consider an ideal wedding day timeline (based on a sunset time of 6pm): 3:00 - bride & groom's first look/ portraits 3:30 - bridal party portraits 4:00 - family portraits 4:30 - completely done with portraits - bridal party freshens up while guests arrive 5:00 - ceremony (perfect light for an outdoor ceremony is one hour before sunset) 5:30 - cocktail hour (if you do your portraits before the ceremony you can enjoy your cocktail hour with your guests or take a few more portraits - up to you!) 6:30 - dinner reception And here is a good starting point for a reception timeline: 6:45 - grand entrance/ first dance/ blessing 7:00 - dinner (allow guests to eat without interruption for 45 minutes) 7:45 - toasts/ special dances 8:00 - open dancing 8:30/9 - cake cutting/ more open dancing All of my packages include 9 hours of coverage on the wedding day. So for the above timeline, I would suggest that the bride and groom have me shooting either from: 12:00 - 9:00 12:30 - 9:30 or 1:00 - 10:00 ...depending on whether they want more getting ready photos or reception photos. When planning your getting ready schedule, brides, count backwards from when you will see the groom and start portraits (3pm in the above model) to find out when you should start getting ready. Make sure to plan in time for hair, make-up, eating lunch, transportation, getting into your dress (at least a half hour - brides perpetually underestimate this) and hang-out time. It's better to plan in more time than not enough. Oftentimes each element takes longer than you expect and you also need to leave room for the unexpected. So make sure you start early! The key to enjoying your day is having a great plan ahead of time. That way the day will run smoothly, and the only thing you will need to focus on is being the bride and taking in every precious moment. This blog post is a repost of the original from January 24, 2011. |
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Tips for Clients What to expect after the wedding |
| You are thrilled to be engaged. You interview photographers to capture your big day, looking through their portfolios to see if they have captured other wedding days in the way you envision your own being documented. You hire a talented photographer who you completely trust and are comfortable having around on the most important day of your life. The wedding day comes and goes and is all you hoped it would be. You are blissfully married.
What happens now? It's difficult for most couples who are planning their wedding to think beyond the wedding day itself. Planning a wedding is such a HUGE endeavor that you naturally have tunnel vision, focusing only on how to make that day all that you hope it will be. But from observing my own clients, I can tell you what inevitably happens after the wedding. You wait in eager anticipation to see the photos. They are the one thing that allows you to hold onto that day; to savor the sweet memories and emotions that you experienced. If they are all that you hope they will be, they are the bottle that stores the love you felt for your spouse, the way he looked at you, the emotion on your dad's face as he gave you away. Chances are, you have no idea how important seeing the photos FAST will be to you until you wake up the morning after your wedding. It's not something that many couples think about when hiring their wedding photographer. But it should be. Because at that moment in time, it's all you'll be able to think about. Conversely, photographers who are reading this, it's of utmost importance that we strive to deliver photos in a timely manner as well as to manage our clients' expectation, so they know what to expect from us after the wedding. I've heard too many horror stories from couples about how long they had to wait to see their photos. I've even heard stories about clients never hearing from their photographer or seeing a single photo after the wedding! These kinds of stories make me sick to my stomach, and also make me want to shout from the rooftops to encourage couples who are interviewing photographers to investigate and ask each photographer about their post-production workflow. I recently got an email from a bride who lives across the country and has followed my work for some time. She wrote to ask my advice. She had been married this summer and a full four months after the wedding, the photographer emailed to let her know that she had just started working on the photos, and found that some of them had been destroyed by a virus on her computer and were unrecoverable. Needless to say, I was heartbroken for her. We emailed back and forth a few times and thankfully, they were able to come to a peaceable resolution with their photographer. But I asked if I could share her story and she agreed. Obviously, this is one of the worst things you can imagine happening as either a bride or a photographer. But there are some clear lessons to be learned from it. First of all, for photographers reading this -- you have no business being entrusted with someone's wedding day if you are disorganized and unable to deliver photos in a timely fashion. This photographer had excuses about sickness, which may have been legitimate. But more than likely, she just didn't have her business in order. I know photographers are human and experience difficult life circumstances, just like everyone else. But even so, I can't see any justification for a bride and groom, in this day and age, having to wait 4 months to see their photos. And worst case scenario, if a life tragedy does strike, outsource your post-production. Pay someone else to do it so that your clients aren't left hanging. Second lesson -- back-up your files. The computer virus that destroyed the files did so 2-3 months after the wedding. So if the photographer had processed the images in a timely fashion, those images wouldn't have been lost. They also wouldn't have been lost if the photographer had backed them up. Do it the night of the wedding before you go to sleep. For brides, the lesson is to consider each photographer's post-produciton timeline when interviewing them. It won't seem that important to you at the time, but it will be of utmost importance to you after the wedding, and may be worth paying a little extra for. We live in an age of instant gratification. I know how important it is to my clients to see the photos right away after the wedding, so I've made it a priority to streamline my post-production. This is what my clients can expect from me: At the wedding reception: A slideshow of 30-50 of my favorites 2 days after the wedding: A blog post of some of my favorites with a link to the slideshow 4 days after the wedding: An initial album design One week after the wedding: All proofs online and available for viewing and ordering Two weeks after the wedding: Disk of high res. images (if ordered) in mail This is super-fast turn-around by industry standards. Not every photographer will be able to deliver images this fast. But I don't see any reason why a photographer should take more than one month, at the most, to deliver online proofs. Do your research, so you don't end up as one of the horror stories. Photographers, manage your clients' expectations and be responsible business owners. Brides, prioritize good service when interviewing photographers and find out what you can expect from them after your wedding. In doing so, we will put an end to the horror stories and hopefully, live happily ever after :). ------- If you found this post helpful, please pass it on using the Facebook and Twitter sharing buttons below. I would also love to hear your thoughts in the comments! |
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Tips for Clients Picking wedding colors |
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| Picking colors for your wedding is oftentimes one of the first things you do as a bride when designing your wedding. It's an important decision because it will direct much of the rest of your course for the overall wedding design.
There are a number of ways to go about picking your wedding colors. Oftentimes brides pick from their favorite colors or they go shopping for bridesmaids dresses to find a dress they love and that choice helps determine the palette. There's no one RIGHT way to go about picking your wedding colors but one of the ways that makes the most sense to me is finding out what flowers will be in season around your wedding date and picking your favorite flowers from among them -- letting them determine the course of the rest of the design. Florists can sometimes get any flower you want year round but you will keep costs down if you pick from flowers that are in season. As I mentioned awhile back, I am LOVING pinterest.com and am using it to find inspiration for all manner of things. Pinterest is the perfect tool to use to find inspiration when planning a wedding as you can catalogue all the images you come across online that strike your fancy. I started a wedding inspiration board myself and these images are all of my favorite wedding images of flowers that I personally love. Aren't they breathtaking!? I am by no means a floral expert. I'm working hard to learn the various names of the flowers in these photos and still don't know many of them (feel free to educate me in the comments below). I'm also finding out which flowers are in season during different times of the year and that has helped me to realize that if I ever get married, it needs to be in the spring :). Most of my favorite flowers are in season in the spring. I thought I'd post these beautiful bouquets and arrangements by way of inspiration. As you can see, I LOVE color! (In the top collage from left to right starting with the top row: poppies, roses, ranunculus & hypericum berries - a spring bouquet via Fiore Fresco; anemones via The Sweetest Occasion; a fall bouquet with dahlias & dusty miller via Style Me Pretty; a spring/summer bouquet with billy balls, dusty miller & cabiosapods via JL Designs; a dreamy, fluffy concoction via Style Me Pretty; peonies & allium from spring/summer via Essential England; cherry blossoms from spring via Dreamy Whites; hydrangeas via Tiny White Daisies; spring peonies & roses via Style Me Pretty; scabiosa pods & dusty miller with unknown flowers via Style Me Pretty; billy balls, balsa wood flowers & scabiosa pods via My Sweet and Saucy; textured bouquet of cotton, lace, burlap & coral blossoms via Style Me Pretty.) |
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| Brides sometimes ask me which colors photograph well. The answer is - pretty much everything but white and black. White and black are the most difficult colors photographically. They are the highest contrast in both highlight and shadow so they are the most difficult to capture detail within. But that doesn't mean you can't use them! Just remember that white highlights will draw your eye to them in photographs. That can sometimes be a distraction when you are not wanting whatever is white to be the focal point of the photo (i.e. a white shirt will distract from a face). And black is not the easiest color to capture detail in. So if you have something very detailed, make it a color other than black.
(Above flowers from left to right: colorful spring poppies via Decor 8; roses, hydrangea & hypericum berries via Melissa Jill Photography & Petal Pusher Florist; ranunculus, garden roses, anemones, hypericum berries & dusty miller via Flickr) |
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| Once you pick your flowers, remember that you aren't tied to only using the colors within your bouquet and flower arrangements. These days in weddings, everything isn't so matchy-matchy. By way of example, check out the above images that include bridesmaid dresses in them. Note that the color of the bridesmaid dresses is not always present in the bouquets. It can even be an advantage to use a different color for your bridesmaid dresses because then the bouquets will pop when they are held in front of them.
(Above flowers from left to right starting with the top row: not sure what these white poufs are but I love them! via Sunday in Bed; poppies, roses & dusty miller via The Bride's Cafe; cool boutonniere via Wedding Wire; billy balls & various unknown flowers in tea tins via Martha Stewart Weddings; are these tiny pink roses? Love the shade of pink! -via Tiny White Daisies; beautiful arrangement via 100 Layer Cake; spring peonies via The Wedding Chicks; hydrangea bouquet via Jessica Claire; dahlias via Tiny White Daisies.) The sky is the limit when choosing colors for your wedding! I hope you feel inspired! |
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Tips for Clients Feeding your Photographers |
| I often get questions from clients regarding the etiquette behind feeding vendors and specifically photographers on a wedding day. I understand where these clients are coming from - if they didn't hire a planner, the only guidance they will typically get regarding this issue comes from the catering manager at their venue. In this post, I am going to share my thoughts and a few tips regarding feeding your photographers.
1. # of photographers? Each photography team varies, so it's good to ask your photographer how many people will be on the team for your wedding. I always have a team of 3 people at each wedding - me, a 2nd photographer and a non-shooting assistant. 2. Coverage time/ Which meals? It's important to factor in the amount of time the photography team will be shooting and determine which meals this time will span. For a typical wedding, we start before or around lunch time and shoot for 9 hours until well after dinner. If your photographer doesn't state in the contract their expectations regarding meals, it is a good idea to just ask in advance. We always provide lunch ourselves - usually we pick up Subway on the way to the wedding or I will send my assistant out to grab our team lunch while the second shooter and I continue shooting. We do ask the client to provide our team of three with dinner during the reception however. 3. Guest or vendor meal The client generally has a choice between providing hot meals identical to what the guests are eating or providing us with vendor meals. Vendor meals are a less expensive option and can range from a boxed meal consisting of a lunchmeat sandwich, apple and chips to something warm but more basic than what the guests are being served. This choice is up to the client. One thing to keep in mind when deciding what to feed your photographers is that your photography team has typically been working for 6 hours straight without eating when the reception rolls around. We are thankful for ANY food at this point, but a hot meal really hits the spot. Sometimes I wish I didn't have to eat on a wedding day - that way I could just focus and stay in the zone - but unfortunately, I'm human. Food will help your photography team get a much needed boost in energy so they can finish the night strong. 4. Special diets When you ask your photographer how many people will be working with them at your wedding, another great question to throw in is if any of them have any food allergies or sensitivities. I happen to be lactose intolerant. Usually it's not an issue - there is typically something dairy-free on the plate that I can eat - but there have been a few weddings where the food is extremely dairy-centric. It's not a life-or-death issue. But it's something that's easy to ask and make note of for your caterers. 5. When & where? Near the beginning of the reception, my assistant typically checks in with the catering manager regarding when and where our team will be eating. The answer we usually get is "after the guests are served & in a room down the way." While this answer makes sense at first glance, it is problematic logistically. The catering manager has things set up this way because the guests are more important than the photographers. And I completely agree. The issue is, if we start eating after the guests are done being served, we don't have time to eat. We need to be up and shooting the continuing events of the reception. The other issue is, if we eat down the hall in another room, we will likely miss events that we need to be shooting. We need to be in the same vicinity as the reception while we're eating in case we need to jump up and shoot a toast or a dance. In my experience, catering and venue managers just don't understand this. It's frustrating. We do our best to work with their rules, but logistically these rules make it difficult to do our job AND eat food. Given the choice between one or the other, I do my job. So there have been times where I ended up shooting entire receptions without eating. I survive. But I'm not able to perform at the height of my ability. One thing you could do to ensure that your photographers won't miss any events at your reception, is to ask the catering or venue manager to serve them at the beginning of the meal in a location in or right outside the doors of the ballroom. I know it sounds weird, but one of my favorite places to be is in a corner of the ballroom on the floor. We're definitely out of the way, but we are able to jump up at a moments notice when the DJ or emcee announces the next event. Those are all my tips on feeding your photographers! Definitely let me know if you have anything to add in the comments! |
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Tips for Clients Ideal Wedding Day Timeline |
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| To this date I've photographed over 150 weddings. I'm not an expert on planning a wedding day timeline by any means, but I thought it might be helpful to share, from a photographer's viewpoint, what I've experienced to be an ideal wedding day timeline. This timeline is typical for the weddings I shoot and I've experienced that it runs very smoothly and that the bride and groom seem to enjoy their day and be most stress-free when their timeline is closest to it.
First and foremost, I would HIGHLY recommend hiring a planner to help with your timeline. They ARE the true, time-tested experts. The further you get into the planning process, the more complex it becomes and you quickly realize what a beast planning a wedding can be. If you need further convincing on this matter, definitely read my top 10 reasons to hire a wedding planner. You will be so happy you did. This is intended to be a general starting point. There are SO many factors that make each wedding unique so more than likely, any bride looking at this will have to make some tweaks. Other considerations you will have to make when nailing down your timeline include: sunset time, location/weather, the amount of time your photographer requires for portraits, transportation time (this model assumes one location), the type of reception you want and any cultural traditions or elements that will make your wedding day unique. Each of these elements will cause you to need to tweak the timeline I'm suggesting here. That's why I'm only proposing this as a starting point. My model is built around a sunset time of 6pm. It also assumes that the bride and groom have decided to see each other before the ceremony for portraits. I really believe this route is ideal for a number of reasons. Click here to read more about why I suggest that my clients see each other before the ceremony. With all this said, here is what I would consider an ideal wedding day timeline (based on a sunset time of 6pm): 3:00 - bride & groom's first look/ portraits 3:30 - bridal party portraits 4:00 - family portraits 4:30 - completely done with portraits - bridal party freshens up while guests arrive 5:00 - ceremony (perfect light for an outdoor ceremony is one hour before sunset) 5:30 - cocktail hour (if you do your portraits before the ceremony you can enjoy your cocktail hour with your guests or take a few more portraits - up to you!) 6:30 - dinner reception And here is a good starting point for a reception timeline: 6:45 - grand entrance/ first dance/ blessing 7:00 - dinner (allow guests to eat without interruption for 45 minutes) 7:45 - toasts/ special dances 8:00 - open dancing 8:30/9 - cake cutting/ more open dancing All of my packages include 9 hours of coverage on the wedding day. So for the above timeline, I would suggest that the bride and groom have me shooting either from: 12:00 - 9:00 12:30 - 9:30 or 1:00 - 10:00 depending on whether they want more getting ready photos or reception photos. When planning your getting ready schedule, brides, count backwards from when you will see the groom and start portraits (3pm in the above model) to find out when you should start getting ready. Make sure to plan in time for hair, make-up, eating lunch, transportation, getting into your dress (at least a half hour - brides perpetually underestimate this) and hang-out time. It's better to plan in more time than not enough. Oftentimes each element takes longer than you expect and you also need to leave room for the unexpected. So make sure you start early! The key to enjoying your day is having a great plan ahead of time. That way the day will run smoothly, and the only thing you will need to focus on is being the bride and taking in every precious moment. |
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