Nontraditional, Offbeat and Alternative Wedding Photographers » Lara Swanson Photographer in VA, MD, and Washington DC

One of my bride’s magazine’s newest issue came out and I thought that a ton of my readers would benefit from checking it out! As M.J. says, “it’s partly serious (conflict diamonds, eco-friendly wedding dress designers) and partly irreverent (why are bridesmaid dresses always so ugly?)”. Click here to check it out!

Laura at Wish Special Events blogged about Laurie and Rod’s wedding, and included tons of shots of details! Thanks, Laura, for showcasing our work!!

Stumbled across this the other day: http://eco-limo.com/. They use alternative-fuel vehicles (there’s a list on the site) and even have a carbon footprint calculator on the site.

Even if you’re not in the DC area they may serve where you live! But if you live around here, you can consider renting these out for your wedding, and offset your carbon footprint. Unfortunately, their contact page for this area is under construction, but they provide some contact information so I wholeheartedly suggest you check them out!

Remember the other day when I posted about disposable cameras and the pros and cons of having them at your wedding for your guests? I then received an email from Andy Drake, CEO and Founder of SeeYouThen!. He explained to me that SeeYouThen is a “wedding photos website and we were created with the very “pros” of the disposable camera without the “cons”.” I was intrigued, and I asked him a couple more questions.

Q. Are you guys “green”? Do you have any green initiatives? In what ways is the product green?

• Digital images are transported and exchanged electronically, no printing required or expected. We’re not a “print service” where the majority if not all digital photosharing services are geared toward you printing images on paper and ink. We don’t capture and hold the high-res files captive so that you’ll have to make digital prints.
• We distribute and exchange high-res photos to “all your guests” electronically and they can purchase DVD’s or USB Sticks. Goes straight from the camera to SeeYouThen! then back to people’s hard drives for prosperity and longevity.
• In contrast, “photo booths” are all about printing (waste a ton of paper)
• A wedding website can be extremely convenient and help support not sending out a multitude of paper products. When you signup the site automatically creates a “Save the Date” Page as the landing page (no need to send them in hard copy).
• Our members have used the site to collect people’s emails and mailing address as well. As they register, each participating guest can enter their email address and mailing address, this can be exported by the member. All information on the “web pages” can be a complete replacement for hard copy invitations, including RSVP

Q. Lots of my clients are nontraditional – how frou-frou, white-wedding is your service?

• Check out our themes: http://members.seeyouthen.com/themes-page/viewall.html Have you seen any wedding websites that you can theme out your website with “Red Hot” or “Iguana”? We struggle with the “fluffy” and “frilly” too so we created themes that can be changed throughout the year
• You might start off with a “Red Hot” Engagement Party Theme. As you get closer, you change the theme to more match your color schemes (more fluffy). One bride had their wedding in Cancun (Beach Theme), Then they had their reception back home and they changed the theme to suit a more traditional wedding, You can change them on the fly (CSS driven, just by selecting a new one and hitting save)

And he said that they’re working on incorporating much more inclusive language into the website. Andy said that his users “average 700 photos extra” from using his site. Impressive. Check out their website to see all of the services they offer: http://www.seeyouthen.com/

I don’t know, if you’re a cool enough couple, this might be a WIN. From The Fail Blog.

Should you give disposable cameras to your wedding guests?

When I first came across one article of this series, it was in a sort of spammy website, so I followed through to figure out where it was originally posted. Unfortunately, I soon realized that the actual website seems to also be a relatively spammy website, so oh well. I still think this is a good topic to discuss. See the articles here.

To me, the cons outweigh the pros of including disposable cameras in your reception for your guests to use. As I see it, the main pro is that the guests have the opportunity to capture lots of things that the photographer will not be able to. Another pro is that there is a better chance all guests will be photographed.

Now, whether or not these things happen remain to be seen. If you had disposable cameras for your guests, and you got them back and were able to develop the film, were special moments captured? Were all your guests photographed (or more than would have been without the disposable cameras)?

I’ve read articles from brides on the cons of disposable cameras – things like how much money it cost to process, how few good shots they got out of it, how many guests went home with the cameras instead of giving the pictures to the couple. Lots of times the cameras don’t even get used because guests don’t realize what they’re supposed to do with them. Other times, kids get ahold of them, and you’re left with some not-so-great shots (although I’ve seen some incredible kid photographers!).

These things, plus the fact that there is a lot of packaging waste that goes into disposable cameras, would outweigh the good that may come of including disposable cameras for me. I’d love to hear from you if you’re a person who included disposable cameras at your wedding and had a good experience!

Wedding rings made out of your family’s old jewelry

In the article “Wedding Rings: ‘Something Old’ Becomes Something New”, “Ecological jeweler greenKarat (http://www.greenKarat.com) is using old family jewelry to make personalized wedding bands.” How cool is this? Essentially couples create a registry to collect their family members’ unwanted jewelry, then new rings are made out of that jewelry. As the greenKarat president said, “Recycling those pieces for a betrothed couple is romantic, eco-friendly, and financially savvy.” I just think the sentiment behind it is wonderful, and you’re doing something good for the earth as well.

First, read this article. It is driving me absolutely bananas.

Is anti-wedding industry equivalent to bouquets of dead leaves? Why can’t anti-industry be separating ourselves from the whole traditional process altogether? Why does the anti-wedding have to be made up of negative associations with traditions, instead of just throwing the traditions out altogether?

One of my favorite papers I ever wrote was in the Latin American thought class I took. It stuck with me through the rest of philosophy classes – that white/male/economically stable/etc. individuals in the center, and everybody else is Other. Most Other define themselves as not-center, or with not-center-attributes (I am not white, I am not Christian, I am not in the Western World, etc.). Those who are marginalized can be diagrammed in concentric circles out from the center – those who are closer to center label themselves with more positive attributes (I am African, I am female) and those who are on the outer edges, the more marginalized, have very few ways to positively attribute themselves (mostly nots).

Anyway, that’s how I feel about this article – that instead of REALLY breaking the rules and just throwing everything out the window, they’re stuck with “nots”. I don’t think you can break the cycle by continuing to include pigeons instead of doves (not-doves), because you’re still not breaking down the reasons behind why we include traditions at all.

I don’t think we can get anywhere with the wedding industry until we demonstrate new kinds of weddings with ONLY positive terms. The government wouldn’t let the couple in this article marry anywhere because it had a certain idea in mind of what a wedding was like – the planners write, “We deny we will have any of it, but no one believes us.” It’s time to redefine weddings by setting examples of what weddings can be like, not set up a bunch of “not”s that just remind us of what a wedding is traditionally defined as.

This is what I love, though, about the couples I work with – that some define themselves as nontraditional even though they’re doing everything traditional except, say, a garter toss. The way to break the wedding industry is not to be anti-wedding, or anti-bride, but to demonstrate that a wedding is just not one way; it can be defined in a multitude of ways. It’s “alternative”, not “anti”.

This planner sums it up: “Clearly, the only difference between 40 people visiting a site for 15 minutes and 40 people visiting a site for a 15-minute wedding is the weight of the word ‘wedding’”. Uh, yeah. So let’s redefine, shall we, instead of being so ridiculous?