One of my favorite people, Anne Ruthmann, shares some solid tips on how to get your wedding published by a magazine.  [ source ]

To all of the couples out there who are itching to be featured in a magazine… here’s what magazine editors are looking for:

Beautiful, clean photography that’s not overly photoshopped with great lighting, composition, and attention to detail (ie. get a great photographer and your wedding will look fantastic no matter what!)

UNIQUE details! If you’ve seen it before, they’ve probably seen it before a hundred times! For unique florals or decor- let your florist go wild with their imagination! Give them a color palette or just a few words to describe your personal style and let them interpret it as they see fit! Give your vendors creative freedom and they will create beautiful work for you!

Different locations! At this point, the magazines have pretty much published all of the “normal” wedding venues. They’re craving a different spin on the wedding day- so think outside of the “box” like Jessica & Ben did! Choose a place you love, that says something about who you are as a couple. You’d be pretty surprised at the places you can have a wedding these days!

Anika London has a wonderful video montage from a recent wedding. I love the melange of moments that somehow tells me so much about the wedding even though the film is only about 3 minutes long.  [ link ]  I can’t wait until I get to work closely with a film colleague to document a wedding instead of finding the hired video team working against our work at a wedding.  Anika also has some fantastic photo booth images with a moustached bride.  [ link ]

Speaking of photo booths, I love the humor of a crazybooth.

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“Planning a wedding is like coloring when you’re 4: There’s no right or wrong way to do it. And everyone will love it because they love you!”

-Joel Daly
Martha Stewart weddings November 2008

I love that quote! The couples I have photographed who live out that kind of life philosophy have had the most strikingly unique and wonderful weddings I have ever experienced.

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“Our ring bearer, Andy, age three, was nervous about walking down the aisle. After a few steps he turned around, ready to bolt. His mom, standing up front, pulled out a bag of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies and started shaking it. Andy heard the sound, saw the cookies, and sprinted down the aisle.”



-Samantha, 27, Indianapolis
from Brides (July/August 2008)

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Choosing a Wedding Photographer

First of all, let me be overtly obvious with my bias. I have been shooting weddings for more than four years and in that time have been hired to photograph more than seventy-five wedding celebrations. I have watched the industry and myself and I can see in retrospect the risks associated with hiring an inexperienced vendor to assist with the biggest party of your life, enthusiasm nonwithstanding.

While I do NOT claim to be an expert, I have been around long enough to watch the trends. I know where brides go to do research. I’ve interviewed many couples about wedding photography, and have been in email correspondence with literally hundreds of brides.

I am writing this article because I see an ironic trend with the number of people who highly value photography, and do copious amounts of research for the perfect wedding photographer. The disturbing part is that despite some couples’ best intentions, hours of time obsessing over photographers’ blogs, and myriad discussions on wedding message boards, some of you choosy brides want to pay as little as possible while maintaining expectations of the highest results. You want photos that look like the magazines, but don’t want to pay for it.

I write today to call out some wedding photography trends as you search for your perfect photographer. If you looked at work of mine from four years ago I would be guilty of many of the issues I cite here as things that may indicate lack of professionalism on the job. Everyone has to start somewhere. I would ask you to look at a photographer’s overall body of work, and not just the few images dropped in a portfolio or shown on a blog.

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“Truthfully? It’s our own fault. We’re visual people, and Clint’s even a former photo assistant. Somehow, in the planning bustle, instinct lost out to deep-seated Midwestern practicality. We skimped. We reasoned that the photos would mostly gather dust in an album and so chose a sweet, dirt-cheap, aspiring wedding photographer, assuring her that as long as we got a few posed family photos to please the parents, we were good. She gave us exactly what we asked for.

“Flipping through the images of us standing in the courtroom with parents, then Grandma, then the flower girl - immediately, we missed the day’s emotion. We dealt with this by not talking about or ordering photos. Months passed, and the engraved frames we’d given our parents sat empty[...]

“The photos, they just weren’t us. We mourned the classic day-defining shot: the one with the two of us nuzzling close, flush with love and hope.”

Excerpted from “The Wedding Do-Over” by Berit Thorkelson (Modern Bride, Oct/Nov 2008, p. 378)

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“You can’t get to wonderful without passing through all right.”

- Bill Withers [ watch the fantastic short here ]

This is a teaser for Beth and Dave’s UK wedding. Just one small taste of the awesomeness that ensued.

Posted in clients, destination, ethnic wedding, wedding, wisdom 2 Comments »

Love doesn’t make the world go ’round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.  

— Franklin P. Jones

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I was really moved by the animated film Persepolis. I really liked the advice Marji’s grandmother gave her the night before Marji left home to attend school in Vienna to escape the revolution and war-related craziness in Iran.

“You’ll meet a lot of jerks in life. If they hurt you, remember it’s because they’re stupid. Don’t react to their cruelty. There’s nothing worse than bitterness and revenge. Keep your dignity and be true to yourself.”

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We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open. 

— Jawaharlal Nehru

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.

— Maya Angelou

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As many of you know, Indian and Pakistani weddings are known to start according to “Desi Standard Time,” or approximately two hours after the designated time. Since we have been raised according to “American Standard Time,” the program will begin promptly at 6:30 pm. All guests are encouraged to arrive at six pm for hors d’oeuvres and to mingle with each other before the wedding ceremony.

Ok, now that’s funny! I just came across that notice on Aziza and Imad’s wedding website. How great is that?

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