Streaming Video

I am currently experimenting with Streaming Video. Again!

When I first started doing video for Weddings, I had already been a computer tech, experimenting with making web pages, and also doing some video editing. One thing I was very excited about was putting video on web pages. That was back in 1999 or 2000. Back then, I only knew 3 people who were using something faster than a dial up modem. Video on a website was horrible. It was hard to imagine anyone would ever watch it. I had some clips that I had made, and sometimes people would email and say they had watched them.

Fast forward to Now! Streaming video is everywhere. I've been looking at it for the last few months, and just recently found a program I could afford to make the conversions. Well, actually, I found a Free program, so that seemed like something I could at least test with!

You may be familiar with a Documentary I have been working on for the last few months, The Survivors Stories, if not, that's OK, I'll give you a chance to check it out! I have posted a few clips from the Survivors on my website, just follow this link http://www.ncwvideo.com/survivors_stories/clips.php

What would really help me out, if you can just watch one of the clips, or all of them is good too! Then drop me a line at bluestar@televar.com and tell me if they worked, if you thought the quality of the video was worth watching, and if it played well. Right now I'm more interested in the technical side of things, but if you'd like to comment on the content of the clips, that fine as well! While you're there, go ahead and check out the rest of the info about the Survivors Stories, I also have a blog just for that as well. You'll see links for that, etc.

OK, back already? Great! Hope it worked for you!

Now that we're all done with that, here is a question. Would you be interested in seeing demo clips of weddings on my website, and also maybe making a Highlights clip from all weddings? If you check out the Gallery section of my website:
http://www.ncwvideo.com/gallery/
you'll see that the weddings have lots of pictures available. When I started doing that, web video was horrible, and I didn't want people to judge my work based on what they saw online. Maybe now its good enough to include some clips. Let me know how you feel about that OK?

Thanks for your help!
Carlin

Sounding Off - All about Audio at your Wedding

For anyone who has been paying attention, or who knows me, Audio is not something I am really qualified to talk much about! I'm not going to get into specifics about what gear you should have at your wedding, exactly. Also, this will not be a step by step tutorial on how to get great audio on your video. But I will cover some points you may not have been aware of, and maybe it will help your wedding go just a little bit better.

I am a video producer, and weddings is what I do the most of, so I have a little bit of experience with sound. Often, I don't get involved in the planning stage of a wedding until its really too late to be of help. Let me explain what I mean by that!

While I am often booked several months before the wedding, wedding planning is a bit isolated I think. For example, as a video producer, I may have never worked at a specific location before, or with a specific photographer, or a specific DJ before. Sometimes the first time any of us vendors have met is at the event, the day of the wedding. So you'll see sort of a side meeting, where we go over our ground rules. Things like "Please don't stand on my speaker wires" or "Don't stand in front of me when I'm taking pictures", etc. Photo and Video are obviously going to try to get the same shots, so it sometimes is good to know where we're going to be standing and so on.

I'm going off topic here, just a little bit, so hang in there! I'm actually trying to get some of the local vendors I work with sometimes to form some kind of an association. We could offer some price breaks to the customer if they hire several vendors who are working together. It should be a Win Win, right? The customer saves some money, and the vendors work together better because they know each other from other jobs. We all know what to expect, and live is good.

Ok, back to Audio at your wedding. I'm going to try and do this in order, and give some bits of experience as I go.

Rehearsal: One of the reasons you even have a rehearsal is so that everyone knows what to do, where to go, and to work out any kinks. I figured it out really early that it is in my best interest as a photographer or video producer (I do both, but not at the same time!) to be at the rehearsal. Even if we know that the bridesmaids will never hit their marks, at least we know where they should be! I might even be able to point out a problem area that we can change. It gives me a chance to see what locations might work for me to put cameras at. I get an idea of what the lighting will be like at the location, and often rehearsals are at the same time as the wedding. So you might even get to check lighting!

This is my point. The bride has picked out music for each part of the processional. They want to do the slow walk down the aisle, they have 7 bridesmaids, and 3 flower girls, etc. Here is when you will find out if that song is really long enough. This leads into the next point, which seems very obvious after the fact. Either have the DJ there to actually play the CD for you, so he knows what song to play when, or at the very least bring a portable CD player so you can test the music. Another point here. Have you ever noticed how big the gear is that a DJ has? The speakers are a LOT bigger than what most of us have at home. They have power amps. They have a lot of accessories. Sure, some of it just looks impressive, but it also works very good for what it does. If a DJ could get great sound out of a boom box, I'm thinking he might be tempted to do it. A boom box sounds pretty good in your apartment. It will not be loud enough to hear from across the room in a normal wedding location, and expecially outside. Go try it out, I'll wait. I'm serious! I did a wedding a few years ago, at a park. The groom had a very nice stereo at home, big speakers, etc. He was very proud of it, I'm sure! He brought it to the park for use during the ceremony, and then it was also used at the reception. I was about 100 feet from where they set up the stereo for the ceremony. I could barely hear the music! The biggest reason, because I've asked some DJs about this, is that in a room, you hear the music bouncing around off the walls. Its kind of like a small light bulb in a closet. The light bounces off the walls, and your eyes see the combined effect, almost like 20 lights. You take that same light outside, or that same stereo, and it just goes away from you. Plus you have some wind outside, or some trees and birds and so on.

Beyond the music, is the actual spoken word. At the very least, the audience expects to hear the person who is performing the ceremony. Most weddings now have the preacher / officiant speaking into a microphone, such as a wireless lav or even a regular mic on a stand. Depending on the location, I often will put a wireless lav mic on the groom, so I can hear the vows on the video. If I'm able, I'll talk to the church PA person and get a wire hooked into the sound system, so I can also record from their mic. Or you may have the DJ doing "sound reinforcement" at the ceremony, where they supply the speakers and mic. I always make it a point to make friends with the sound people when possible! It makes my job so much easier!

One of the complaints I hear from guests at a wedding though, is they couldn't hear what was said at the ceremony. Something I've heard said lately, and I believe it to be absolutely true, if you're watching TV, and the picture is not so great, but if you can at least hear the audio, you can figure it out. Pretty soon you get used to it. But try the opposite, get great picture and mute the sound, and its not nearly so interesting. We rely on sound much more than we realize!

Ok, now on to the reception. This is where the DJ really gets to show off, right? They have the dance floor, the speakers, the light show, the dance tracks, a great mic to introduce the new couple when they make the entrance. Maybe even a Master of Ceremonies. Life is good, right?

Here is something to think about. You will have guests who have traveled from far away to be at your wedding. If you are the Bride or Groom, odds are you will not have more than a few minutes to talk to anyone, if at all. Its a long day, you're pretty excited, but already getting tired. You've had pictures. More pictures. Too many pictures! That dress is making it hard to breathe, you can't walk around between chairs with out knocking people over or getting tangled. So at best, you get to say Hi and thanks for coming. That's fine, most guests will understand. So they'll start visiting with other people they've not seen for a while, get caught up and so on. Here's the catch. The DJ, with all the awesome speakers, has the dance track running at about 9.5, and the guests are either screaming at each other, or have given up on converstation. Some of us are used to life at the club, we go dancing, we smile a lot at people who might be talking to us, but we have no idea what they're saying. But others just get a headache and go home!

Maybe just find a balance, have the DJ play his music at 7.5 until people get into the dance mood or something. But at least look around the reception, I'll bet you there are 12 people dancing, and 240 people trying to learn sign language!

Aren't weddings fun?

Thanks for reading!

Drop me a line if you thought this was useful!
Email Me!

Carlin

How To Make A Photo Montage Slide Show

How often do you dig out that shoe box of old photos anymore? Or when was the last time you had friends over to look at slides, or flip through your old photo albums?

Weddings are a good time to look back at how you got to where you are now, but sometimes its just to much of a pain to put something together from the pictures!

Let me start off by saying that one of the services I offer is making a Photo Montage from your photos or slides. Some people call it a Video Scrap book, or a photo to video conversion. What ever you would like to call it is fine with me, right? What I do is start with a stack of photos, and when its all done, you have a video that you can watch on your big screen at home.

Now, lets say you'd like to have one of these made. The first few steps are the same, regardless of who actually makes the end product, so we'll just kind of go through the steps together, ok?

Step 1. What is the program about? This is really important! The biggest reason that family slide shows are so boring is there is no theme. You just show the whole stack of slides in your collection. Actually that is two reasons its so boring... no theme, and no "editing". So your first step is to define what you want to do with the pictures. Who is your subject. For weddings, I'd recommend that most of the photos are the Bride and Groom, as they grow up. You can put in a few of siblings and parents, since they'll probably be known to most people who will be watching this, but the Bride and Groom are your Stars.

Step 2. Great, you know why you're doing this, and who will be in it. Now you can start going through the shoe boxes, the old albums, the slides, and maybe even the home movies and family videos. At the moment, I don't offer home movie transfer, but I can work with most formats of home video. But you can ask about this, and I may be offering it in the future, or know someone who is.

For any still image, picture, slide, etc, plan on it being on the screen for between 5 and 10 seconds. Anything longer, and in my experience, people will start to get bored. We are in a fast moving society I guess or something, but we have a very short attention span. So we'll try to keep it moving.

Something that we can do to spice things up is to add motion to the photo. For example, if you've seen those documentaries on TV with the old photos, the camera slowly pans across the photo, zooms in to a single person, etc. If there is motion like this, you could have that single picture on the screen quite a long time, and people would keep interest in it.

Depending on how you expect to show this masterpiece, I'd recommend keeping it to less than 150 photos. If you go 8 seconds per photo (on average), 8 x 150 = 1200 seconds, or 20 minutes. People are expecting a commercial break at the 12 - 15 minute mark now, so by 20 minutes you're starting to stretch them a bit. If you have a lot of photos, you may consider making several shorter programs.

A word on editing: Editing is a brutal art. You have to cut until it hurts! People are expecting the very best, and we have become jaded. So you'll start off with way too many pictures, that's ok. Now go through them again, and find the very best ones. Start listening to music as you look at the pics, and you'll get in a rhythm.

All about music... I'm not going to get into the issues about using copywrited music here. Lets just assume that you have a piece of music that you would like to use with your photos. In your early stage editing, you can just listen to the music, and every so many seconds, flip to the next picture. Its a great way to feel the timing, and imagine how it will be on the screen. By adjusting how long each photo is on screen, you can control the tempo of the show. Slow song, slower pictures, fast song, maybe 4 seconds per picture.

Ok, now you have the photos picked out, and some music. Great! That was really the hardest part, so congratulations! What I would recommend is to number the photos in the order you want them to appear. Do this carefully! You could use some post it notes, or lightly pencil the numbers on the back, or something else like that. Post its are handy, they come off easily, and if you want to change the order, you can just pull them off, and put them on again. The problem is that they do come off!
If you have groups of photos that should stay together, put them in zip lock bags. Then label the bag! If music goes with a specific group, you could put the CD in the bag with the pics, for example. If you were going to put titles in, you could draw out what you wanted on paper and include that with the group, etc. The more time you spend at this stage, the easier it goes from here on, so take your time.

How long will this take? Less than a year, more than a day! I am talking about the time it will take to find and sort the photos. It can be a lot more work than you would imagine. But its fun, especially if you have enough time to enjoy it!

Step 3. Yeah, I know, Step 2 was a long one! In Step 3, we have some choices here. This is where you have to decide if you're up to the job of making the video, or if you'd like to hire some help. I'll cover the basic steps, and maybe you'll decide you could do this yourself!

First, are you going to use a computer to make a video, or would you use your video camera instead? Lets see how the video camera idea works out, ok? You could set up a video camera, and just record each photo for a few seconds. Hit Pause, change photos, adjust your shot, hit record for a few seconds, hit pause, change pics and set up, repeat. This used to be the only way to really do this. There are some advantages to this, and also some disadvantages. On the plus side, it can be pretty quick. If you have a decent video camera, the quality is going to be very good, if you have enough light and can avoid reflections on the pictures. One of the limiting factors here is it is very difficult to do a smooth move across the picture or control your zooms, etc. I have seen motion rigs that cost thousands of dollars, made specifically for this. But, its worth a try, and you might just have fun. Tape is cheap, right?

For now, we'll go through the video camera method from start to finish, just to show you it can be done. Lets say you've gone through all the photos, and have them all on the tape now. Rewind it, and hit play. You should see all your photos on your TV. How does it look? You could also hit Play on your CD player and get the music going, and see how it looks with music. If all is well, you could make your video now. All you'd do is hook the video cable from your camera to your VCR, and the sound cable from your CD player to the audio ports on your VCR, hit Play on both and Record on the VCR, and let it roll. If you'd like to adjust the timing, you could pause the camera on some pictures, to make them "longer" on the tape, etc. This is really the simplest way, but it soon becomes obvious it is not very flexible.

You could also use a digital still camera and take pictures of the pictures. I do this sometimes, and again, if you can avoid the reflections, the quality is pretty good. Sometimes even great! Many digital cameras can be hooked to a TV for viewing, if this is the case with yours, you can finish this to tape the same as the video camera above.

My personal favorite way is to use a photo scanner, hooked up to a computer. I scan each photo, in order, so that they are numbered on the computer the same way they were numbered in the begining.

Here is a side note. Many of your photos may be digital already, so you can skip some of the hard parts right? Our goal is to either get the photo onto video tape, or onto the computer, as a digital image.

Here several of the methods sort of merge. If you have digital pics, or have scanned the pics into digital, they're pretty much the same now. An advantage of having them in the "digital world" is that you can edit them easier. Want to crop a picture? Or make it black and white? Or blur the background, or anything else you can imagine? Computers are your friend!

I'm going to make a few wild assumpions here, so hang in there ok? If you have a digital camera, it probably came with some software to let you work with the pictures. Most scanners also come with picture editing software. So far, so good, right?

Now lets say you've gone through all the photos, you've removed red eyes, you've cropped the pictures to help make them more interesting, you've done some black and whites, you maybe even added "picture frames" to some of them. Books could be, and probably have been written on this subject! What is next?

You'll also need software to make the pictures into a movie. If you have a video camera, odds are it came with software that will do this just fine. There are lots of different levels and brands of software, so I'm not going to get into details here. If you have something, and would like to ask me about it, feel free to email me. There is a link on this page somewhere to do that! But let me go through some basic steps that should work with most of the movie softwares. If you have a newer Apple or Windows XP, you probably have a free movie maker program that came with the computer.

First, you would "import" the pictures into the movie making program. Then usually you would put the pictures on a "time line". Then you could add music. At this point, you could probably just hit a Play button and see how it looks. The great part about doing this on a computer, as opposed to doing it with a video camera as above, is you can make changes more easily. Want to change the order of some pictures? Just grab them and move them on the time line. New song? No problem, just put it in, and move or delete theold one. Want to fade pictures into the next one? That is usually called a cross fade transition. Most programs will have help or tutorials that will get you started.

Now we have it just perfect! How do we show it to people? Lets assume that its not practical for you to bring everyone to your house, or to bring your computer with you. You could either make a DVD, a VHS tape, or maybe even a computer file to put on a web page. How cool is that?

If your computer has a DVD or CD recorder, it probably came with software to make movies on disk. Your movie making software that you made the video on may also have features to "burn to disk". I have no idea what your computer came with! Usually, though, you would "Export" the movie to some kind of file. Then you would take that file to the disk burning software, and it would convert the program into a CD or DVD.

If you'd liketo put the movie on the web, you'd convert your file into a web compatible format, and then find a website to put it on. If you have a personal website already, you could probably just use that, or there are websites that let you post your video clips for free sometimes.

You might even be able to just hook your VCR to your computer, and play the movie out to the VCR. Look on your computer, and see if it has a TV Out port that looks like the Red White Yellow jacks on your VCR. Not all computers have this, but if they do, it can be pretty simple.

Well, that is just about it. The secone one is easy!

Lets say this all sounds great, but you just don't want to do it yourself. I offer this as a service, if you send me the photos and the music, I can make the DVD and mail it back to you. My rates start at $1 per picture and $5 per song, and videos are $17.95 each. So, for example, you have 3 songs, 75 pictures, and want 2 copies.
3 x $5 (song) = $15
$75 for the pictures,
2 x 17.95 = $35.90,
and the total would be $125.90.
Considering that might take you a day or two to do yourself, and its not so bad! I looked into this a few years ago, and I saw websites that were charging $5 per photo. I also know a few people who have done it all themselves the first time, they are now bringing the projects to me!

There you have it! If you're interested in doing something like this, please email me at
mailto:bluestar@televar.com?subject=Lens Tales Blog Response

Thanks for reading!
Carlin

Be Informed!

If there were one piece of advice I could give a Bride, especially if it is a few months before the wedding, it would be to "Be Informed". The Internet is a wonderful resource for people planning a wedding. I'd even say you should find a good computer before you choose the groom, but that might be stretching it a little bit!

One idea I've seen a few times already is to set up a free email address specifically for the wedding. You go to a wedding fair, use that email address to register. You could even print out cheap business cards or mail labels with your information on it. Keep a few with you at all times, and just hand them to the vendors you come in contact with. One of those self-inking stamps is a slick idea too. Get one made with your name, email address, wedding date, etc. Then when someone wants you to fill out a form, just stamp away. Best $12 you'll ever spend. I'll bet you wear it out before the wedding!

Another idea, that I am using myself, is to have a Blog page for your wedding. Blogs are free, easy to post to, and you’ll look oh so trendy just saying that you have a Blog! Julie, my ever patient and long suffering Bride to be is doing most of the posting on ours. I'd recommend you go on over and read some of what she has learned so far. http://greenbliss.blogspot.com/ Oh, and about the name, Green Bliss, our wedding is 17 March (St. Patrick’s Day)... So we do have some green theme items, mostly ok, but stay away from the Green Apple candies! It took me a few seconds to grab the camera when she was taste testing, and she still had that look! I'm thinking I'll eat a few during the ceremony :) A great reason for the blog page is to have an easy place to post all the information people will be asking you. Directions to the wedding? It’s on the blog. A map? Just post a link to http://maps.google.com and you're all set. Here's an example of how that looks http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=17+S+Cleveland+Ave,+wenatchee,+wa That is a link to where my office is. No excuse why you got lost, right? As you set up timelines for where you want people to be, etc, they just check it out on the blog.

Anyway, there are a few reasons I think you should be Blogging your wedding planning. It will be a great resource for other Brides to read. You'll learn a lot, and then not ever need to know it again. What a waste! Share what you've learned. And then later, a few years from the wedding, you can go back and read it all over again. Sure, you could just write it in a journal, but that's pretty hard to share. Plus you could sell some Google Adwords space and buy a cup of coffee eventually. I'm still waiting for that first big check to come in...

You could also make a list of phone numbers of your whole wedding party and key people, then give copies to all the people involved. The day of the wedding is not the time to realize you don’t have someone’s cell phone number! On that note, I should say I seriously wonder how people even managed to get through a wedding event before cell phones.

Back to my theme here today about Be Informed. Most vendors you will be talking to or hiring will have websites. Take the time to actually read what they have said. Ask for information from them, product demos, check out their samples, and ask them lots of questions. This is a wonderful use of email, by the way. Email gives you automatic written notes. You just drag all the messages into your wedding folder, or print them out for your binder if you'd like. Even if you don't end up hiring that vendor, you may have learned some good information or some great ideas that you could use.

Ask around! I'll bet you know several people who have gotten married in the last 3 or 4 years. They probably learned a lot of lessons. Why not pick their brains? Might be worth buying a good bottle of wine, spending an evening together, and take lots of notes! They may have found a great location you'd not have thought of, or know someone who could do catering that may not advertise in the wedding shows, etc.

Word of mouth is the absolute best source of information. Good, Bad, or Ugly! Every wedding has at least one scary story. Trust me! The guest just never hears most of them! Besides talking to Brides, talk to the Mother of the Bride, and especially the Maid of Honor. She'll know things that the Bride never remembers. My honest opinion is that Maid of Honor should come with a Medal; the good ones can make all the difference.

Wedding coordinators are another unsung hero of weddings. A lot of Brides don't think they need one until its too late. A wedding is a huge event, even if you don't want it to be. A year of planning comes down to a few hours, with a lot of people and smaller events all combining into a whirlwind of chaos. This is no time for amateurs! Things will go wrong. The iron will savagely burn holes in the flower girls dress, the day of the wedding. The cake topper will get dropped. Buttons will pop off. Flowers will be wrong. Vendors will be lost. You will probably have a moment. But it’s all going to be ok! We're here for you! Weddings are fun, right? Don't you feel better now that you know all that?

Drop me a line!

Carlin

bluestar@televar.com

Being More Like A Child

I read yesterday in an email where we should be more like a little child, and it got me thinking about how weddings sometimes get to be kind of stressful. If you're into reading articles about how to improve yourself, I'd recommend reading the one I linked, by Jim Rohn. I'd even say its worth your time to actually get subscribed to his newsletter. If you'd like to read the article, click the line above "Being More Like A Child".

Anyway, think about little kids, how they can get all excited about something. The little details don't get in the way, right? You mention a pony, or a swimming pool, and they're fired up! Who cares if you live in an apartment, they will find a way to get that pony under the bed!

So, what's this got to do with wedding planning and a hiring a photographer?

I see this happen a lot lately. Weddings are very detail demanding events. The Bride wants everything to be just perfect. The Groom, well, he's just hoping it will be over soon! The Photographer is doing his best to make everyone look their best in the pictures, because who wants to show off pictures that make them look really stressed out?

Here's my idea. First, give yourself extra time for the pictures. I've said it before, I'll probably say it a lot more in this blog space. Lack of time will cause you a lot of stress on your wedding day. Just before you start taking pictures, maybe play this little movie in your head. Brides, picture yourself as the Princess, just like you did when you were a little girl. Its your wedding day, the Prince has just rode up on that big white horse. Nothing else matters. This is your fairy tale, and its coming true. Keep playing that movie in your head while we are taking pictures, and that twinkle shows!

Grooms... well, just try to play along, ok? Its her day :) Just try not to step on the dress, and we'll be fine. Practice being excited. Stand just a little bit taller, be proud to be here, too! She thinks you're a Prince! Even if she might suspect otherwise.

Oh, and another hint for grooms. Your Bride has spent a lot of time and energy getting ready for this day. As a photographer, I sometimes follow the bride while she's getting ready. Some of it doesn't look like a lot of fun. But she is doing this all for you. Even if you're not the kind of person to get excited about things... Dude! Practice saying things like "WOW"! in the mirror the last week before the wedding. You might even ask for help. It might save your life :) And while you're at it, practice smiling, and not looking like you're in pain!

Weddings are a Celebration. Lets put some fun back in them, ok?
Spread the word!
Thanks for reading!
Carlin

PS If you'd like to be reminded when I've posted here, sign up to my newsletter reminder. I have a link to the right. Stay Tooned!

How to avoid horrible wedding photos!

I might be a little over simplifying here, ok?

I've been doing wedding video for a few years now, and also wedding photography for most of that time, so I've seen a few things worth knowing.

One issue that comes up now and then is the Bride and Groom show up at the wedding with no idea about what they expect for the pictures. Sometimes they have no idea what to expect for the whole wedding, for that matter!

I've also been at some weddings where the Bride knows exactly what she wants. Some people would consider her to be very bossy or demanding, but I actually prefer an Assertive Bride. Why? Well, its usually pretty easy to figure out what she really wants! Nothing worse, in my opinion than getting a call 3 or 4 weeks after the wedding, and having the bride upset because we didn't get a specific shot.

This brings me to what I feel is the most important factor in getting great wedding photos. Take some time a week or month before the wedding, and make a Shot List! Put on your thinking cap, and be very detailed. Write down exactly every shot. Not "family pictures", but rather "Bride with Grandfather", "Groom with Uncle Tom", etc.

Odds are, the photographer does not know who Uncle Tom is, so here is the second secret ingrediant to having an awesome portrait experience at your wedding. Every family has at least one aunt who likes to boss people around. Lets put her to work for us! Give her the shot list, with a pen and a clip board. As we take each shot, she can check it off. Plus she probably has a voice of authority, and at least half the people are used to her giving orders! She can be lining up the people who will be next, finding the missing flower girl, etc.

It never fails, after 200 or 300 pictures, the Bride or someone who is "helping" will ask, did we get this or that shot. By this time, we have taken every possible variation, we think, but its hard to remember if we really did get the bride with a specific person. Sure, with digital cameras we could probably go look, but that slows things down.

I personally really do try to make photos go as quickly as humanly possible. I'm pretty sure that if most people had an option of having their picture taken, or hitting the buffet table, we would just skip pictures completely!

You also should look at some magazines, or your friends wedding photos, and find some poses you like. This is Your wedding. Your photos should have some of your personality in them. Otherwise, your photographer will end up just posing you how he feels like it! You could also spend some time before hand checking out the location, maybe you'll find something that is off the beaten path.

So, when you are making the Shot List, after you have the first version wrote out, go back and put them in order. For example, that big Wedding Dress isn't so easy to walk around in, so lets try to keep all the shots with the Bride in together, as much as possible. If Grandma has trouble standing, we'll get all the pictures with her at the same time, so she can sit down.

Here is a hint I learned a while back, feel free to use it:
Bride and Groom first. Schedule this at least half an hour before every one else shows up, if possible. In fact, everyone should know what time pictures start. So you have, for example, Bride and Groom at 10 am, then Wedding Party at 10:30, then Parents at 11:00. Grandparents and extended family can be last, so they don't have to sit around too long waiting. When people wait around too long, they start to get bored or tired. It shows in the pictures. Plus they start talking or wander off, and its then hard to find them, or its noisy and distracting to the people who are still getting their picture taken.

Here is another point I feel I should make. I understand the tradition of the Bride and Groom not seeing each other until the actual ceremony. I think its very sentimentle and sweet.

I also think it causes some big problems, so here is something to think about. By not seeing each other until the actual ceremony, we can't take photos before the ceremony. Now I realize we can take some photos before, but that just means that everyone has to do almost the exact same shots twice, or even three times! Once with the Groom, Once with the Bride, and Once with the Bride and Groom, After the ceremony.

This also means that you have at least an hour between the Ceremony and the Reception, where the guests have to wait, while you are getting the pictures done. I've seen a lot of times where guests get bored and leave quite early into the reception, because the whole event seems to have dragged on to that point. By doing pictures before the Ceremony, we can go directly from the Ceremony into the Reception, and kind of keep the flow.

Or think of it from another point of view, you have maybe 20 people who have to show up an hour earlier to the church or wherever you have the photos at, vs. 300 people waiting at the reception, watching the ice sculpture melting!

Oh, wow, I'm on a roll now, I just thought of something else! Ask anyone who has been married in the last few years, who will remember the day more clearly. Every thing takes longer than you think it will. Getting hair and make up done takes longer. Someone will get lost. Things will not be ready when you need them. There will be at least one good cry in there somewhere. Weddings cause time to just fly by, if you're the Bride... I think an honest Groom will say weddings kind of drag on for ever, but that's a different issue!

So, when you're making your schedule for the day, put in an extra hour before the ceremony. More if you can! I've made this suggestion to some of the Brides I've worked with lately, and its really worked out well. Get done the photos early, and you can sit down and take a break before the Ceremony. If things run a bit late, no big deal, you are just going into that cushion you scheduled in. It sure is nice to have a few minutes to just sit and relax before the wedding starts! Plus that is a great time for the photographer to swap out batteries before the Ceremony starts! I sometimes even bring the laptop along and we can look at the photos we just took while we're eating a snack.

Life is good!
Stay Tooned, I'll write more soon :)
Carlin

PS Drop me an email, and let me know what you think of this, ok?