WeddingGuest_Blog2

So much planning and money goes into your wedding day, and every couple wants their wedding to be a hit with their family and friends. However sometimes good intentions may not be enough to throw your guests a wedding that will knock their socks off. Not to fear! For this very reason we have put together a list of the top 5 common wedding guests complaints and what you can do to avoid them and have your wedding be as super awesome as possible!

1-Asking your guests to fork out the dough

Every bride needs to stick within a budget and that’s completely understandable. However if possible it’s advised by many wedding professionals and wedding guests that you not ask your guests to pay for drinks at your wedding.

How to avoid this complaint: Yes open bars can be expensive, if you don’t have the budget to do so think about serving a limited selection of beer, wine and champagne. Another idea would also be to have a couple signature drinks at no charge for your guests. View full post »

“In a sea of photographers how do I choose?”

This is something I commonly here from brides. The sheer overwhelming feeling that comes across them when they start on their search for a wedding photographer. All the while throughout their search being met with such terms as “natural light photographer” and statements like “we create modern bohemian images with a flare” or the horror of all horrors; photo tech speak “I shoot on a Canon 5d Markii with a 24-70 2.8 L series lens” And your thinking: “saaaaaay whhhaaaat?
Now it’s no wonder figuring out who you should hire is like some masters crash course in photography you didn’t sign up for. How should you be expected to be a savant on the subject all the sudden?!
To try to ease the pain of comparing apples to apples, apples to oranges and oranges to cantaloupes we have put together a list of four tips to help you select your wedding photographer.

•STYLE•
First let’s go with probably the easiest to judge, the photographer’s style. Does it interest you? Do you like it? Do you LOVE it? Could you not see yourself hiring anyone else because a certain photographer’s style is everything you’ve ever dreamed of for your photos. It’s important that you love the work of who you are hiring- because the style is going to go hand and hand with the photographer. If you end up hiring a super modern/editorial photographer and later ask them to shoot super traditional, it’s not going to work out well for anyone. It will stifle your photographer creatively and more than likely you’ll end up with less than stellar shots. Which sorta leads me into the next item…

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A few weeks back I walked into the staging area for our shoot at Francis Parker and was overcome by the amount of amazing San Diego vendors who had come together to make this recent styled shoot a huge success. There must have been 10-15 people in the large space, where Francis Parker plans to hold wedding receptions, all working together to create beautiful hair and makeup, gorgeous bridal style, and an amazing dessert table. We all came together to create what was the first bridal styled shoot at San Diego’s newest wedding venue. Francis Parker exudes beautiful modern design with gorgeous open landscapes- which sorta make it a no brainer to host weddings.

I’m a big fan of doing these types of shoots, I think they are a great way to connect with and network with other vendors. I’ve met some amazing people this way and I know we’ll all be working together again in the future. If your interested in some tips on putting together a styled shoot check out a post I did with tips on how to do just that: How to set up a styled shoot
I was lucky enough to work with these great vendors who brought our modern gothic theme to life:

Design by: Savvy Soiree
Floral: Blooms by Breesa Lee
Signage: Take Note! Creations
Hair Pieces: what a Betty
Hair and Makeup: The Doll Service
Furniture: Rickety Swank
Macarons: La Reine Des Macarons
Cake: Hey There, Cupcake!
Cupcakes: Frost Me Gourmet
Gowns: The Dress Theory
Tux: Friar Tux
Chargers: Classic Party Rentals
Linens: Concepts Event Design
Venue: Francis Parker

FrancisParkerView full post »

Making sure you and your photographer have set your big day up for success is hugely important to getting all those images you’ve envisioned. They way to do this is: communication. Communicating all the details, and what you both expect is super important to how you feel about your wedding images in the end. Expecting something to go one way when it wasn’t communicated to your photographer can lead to upset feelings and trust me no photographer wants to disappoint their clients. I have found there are many important things to communicate with your photographer leading up to your wedding but here are the top 3 things I think are most important to flesh out in oder to get all the photos you are looking for.

• Your timeline- more importantly padding your timeline
Being on the same page about when things are starting, or important moments are happening are the most important reason to be very clear on your timeline. However there is something else that’s important to add to that timeline-padding. I don’t think I’ve ever shot a wedding that was 100% on time, I’ve even had weddings where there ended up only being 10 minutes for bride and groom photos instead of the planned 30 minutes because it was running that far behind. Not padding in enough extra time to the timeline can lead to a lot of stress for you, and your photographer and also lead to not getting all the shots you wanted. I suggest adding at least 30-45 minutes more than you think you need to the getting ready part of the timeline. This is usually where things start to fall behind. Tell your hair and makeup team they need to be done at 10:30 even if photos aren’t till 11:00-this way if they go over there’s still some time; and if they do finish on time this will allow you to hang out with your friends and family rather then stress about how late your running. As photographers we can only work with the time we are given, we want to make sure you get the best photos possible so padding that timeline will help everyone in the end!
Weddingtips
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It’s that time when our calendars switch over to the next year and we think about what our New Years resolutions will be. I find this prospect to be just as much pressure as trying to figure out what wild, fun and super exciting thing I’m going to do on New Years Eve. It’s that pressure that seems to set myself up for disappoint, crazy high expectations that can’t possibly be met. This year I’m not making a resolution so much as just trying to take things in smaller chunks so as not to get overwhelmed. I think this approach will help break down those large goals I have for myself and make them seem manageable. Like everyone I want to better myself, improve my skills, grow as a person and in my business. However I feel like those abstract ideas can become overwhelming- similar to the feeling I get trying to pick out my New Year’s Eve outfit from 15 different sparking dresses. For me I’m going to work on breaking down those goals, limit the endless amount of options out there, make a choice, trust in it, and go with the flow.

We want to thank everyone of our clients that made it possible for us to keep doing what we love in 2014. Seriously without you guys none…NONE of this would be possible. We appreciate everyone of you, and here’s to looking forward to 2015! Below are some of our favorite images from 2014, it was hard to narrow it down to just a few, but we did our best!

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