Avoid the Wedding Craziness: Tips to help create a stress free wedding day

So many people tell me weddings are so crazy.  I respond with "not the ones I photograph." One thing I have noticed over the years of shooting is organization/communication is key.  

One major craziness adding factor is when no one knows the schedule, portrait list or key details except for the bride.  You can be a bride with everything super organized but if your the only one that knows the information than things can and will get crazy.  No one really wants to be the person who messes up a wedding so many times your key people will constantly ask you for times, details or key information about the day.  Below are a few key things I have my clients do to make their day super stress free!

• Have a well drawn out timeline for everyone.  Everyone usually knows the photographer and DJ needs a timeline because we are professionals and we ask for or create them. But how about the timeline for your bridal party.  The timeline I create and share with my clients includes everything so it is something they can copy/print and share with their key people of their special day.

• Family portrait lists (formal portraits)- just the word family can start to stress people out. This is one place we strive to ROCK! We have our bride/grooms create their lists not with generic names like grandpa, mom and dad. Lets face it you may know those people but we don't.  We have clients create lists with actual names which sounds so simple and it is but many people don't understand why that is so important.  Having a real name allows us to use the list and just read from it. That means you don't have to think about it! Anytime we can get you to not think on your wedding day, that is one less thing for you not stress about.  Also creating this list early gives you time to pass it along to mom and dad.  They can "approve" it so you don't have to hear the phrase "You forgot the picture of you and Uncle Steve"  Having your parents look over it days before puts some onus on them as well.  CLICK HERE FOR INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO MAKE A KILLER FAMILY PORTRAIT LIST!

Annapolis Family Portraits || Cropper

I had the pleasure of working with the Cropper family from the suburbs of Annapolis, Severna Park.  We had a great time working with them and ordering their products.  They ended up purchasing one of our large canvas clusters for their living room!  I hope to work with them in the future.

View fullsize

New Wedding Photography Album

We have been exploring looking for a new wedding album company and we have finally found one that meets our quality we demand!  This is a huge weight lifted off of our shoulders because we can truly offer beautiful wedding albums.  We are so proud of what we deliver to our customers. 

This is our new 10x10 Capri Series Album, we are providing this fully customized with 30 pages.  This is our lower end album but it really has some great features that set it apart from our competitions lower end albums.

• New "skinny" page design (thicker pages than coffee table book pages)
• Lay-flat seamless panoramic construction
• Three distinct options for dressing up your material covers with images: cut-outs, indentations or a full photo cover (no cheap dust cover here)
• All of our non-leather materials

Photowrap Covers

Panoramic Construction

New "skinny" Page

Beautiful Custom Layouts

Quality Binding Construction

Annapolis Family Portrait Session - Downs Park, Pasadena, MD

I was checking Facebook one night and saw a post by Beth Meadows, a fellow teacher from work, she had posted request for recommendations for a local photographer.  I went to post and to my pleasant surprise another fellow teacher has told her to look me up! Thanks Kevin! Later that week she contacted me about a family portrait session.  We spoke on the phone a few times and found a great place that her son Ayden could place and have some fun.  I met up with Beth, Shad and Ayden at Downs Park in Pasadena, MD.  I like to allow the family to just have fun and I just set up some shots as they unfold. This makes for a more laid back session which produces more relaxed images. We had a blast, Ayden could not have been better! He was locked onto the camera with amazing expressions.  Many times I would say, "Ayden smile for me."  Before I could get his name out he was working the camera.  What a great time we had and hope to make some more images with their beautiful family.

Thanks Again!