Lara Swanson Photo » Nontraditional, Offbeat and Alternative Photographer

Creating a timeline for your wedding can be a tricky thing: rarely are people already familiar with how a wedding day is typically laid out (unless they’ve been married before or have been in multiple bridal parties). I often get questions about the timeline for wedding photos – when do we take the couple portraits? When do we do the bridal party shots, and how about the family? How does “getting ready” work, and when does that begin? How much time should be allocated between the ceremony and reception for formal photos? What if we want to do something alternative or nontraditional?

To put it simply – it’s all pretty flexible. Each couple is unique, and you will have your own ideas for which wedding photos mean the most to you and which you’d like to devote the most time to.

Getting Ready Photos

For couples who are interested in “getting ready” or “preparation” photos, I recommend the photographer arriving about an hour before the ceremony. This gives us a chance to catch a lot of the details (makeup, shoes, ties, dress) before much is assembled, and also gives us an opportunity to catch a lot of the action (putting on the dress, pinning boutonnières, stuffing tissues in bouquets). If you are planning on taking longer to get ready, or putting on your dress earlier, then you may want your photographer to arrive earlier.

Formal photos before the ceremony

Taking formal portraits (your family, your bridal party, and the two of you) before the ceremony is something that works for some couples. These couples typically meet some of the following:

• They don’t mind seeing each other before the wedding (and sometimes still have a “first sighting” to document that special moment)
• Their ceremony starts later in the day, and formal photos afterwards will be tough for natural light
• They know that their families will all be in the same place before the ceremony (instead of trying to find them all afterwards) – this often happens with a Ketubah signing
• They want to get some of the group shots out of the way beforehand so they can spend less time between the ceremony and reception taking photos. For example, some couples will do all the bridal party shots before the ceremony when their flowers will be at their freshest, or all the family shots so the family can go straight to the reception after the ceremony. Either will cut down on time later.

Order of formal photos

How do formal photos go down? I like to do family first, then bridal party photos, then photos of just the couple. This way, after your family is all done they can head right to the reception and start partying. The same with the bridal party, but they’ve been hired to be patient so they can go second! Then when they’ve been sent off, it’s just me and the two of you – nobody to look on and giggle while you exemplify how happy you are to get hitched. (Plus – nobody to feel self-conscious in front of if you don’t like getting your picture taken!)

How long do the portraits take?

If you have a large family and want lots of different group shots, you will definitely need to allocate at least 45 minutes for photos. I’m known as the fastest photographer on the mid-east coast (just kidding) and work very quickly with group shots (especially with my steadfast assistant by my side, corralling guests), but there is not much we can do if family shows up late or doesn’t know where they’re supposed to be. That’s when teamwork comes in handy! If you can put somebody in charge of finding people who need to be there and pulling people when we shout their names off the shotlist, that will greatly expedite the process. Typically this person is somebody that knows a lot of the family already.

If you’re worried about time, one of the easiest things to do is cut down on the number of photos where only you OR your partner are in them. Is it really necessary to do one of you, your brother, your dog, and Aunt Mary and then another of you, your partner, your brother, your dog, and Aunt Mary? Probably not. Consider only including photos on the list that you both are in – after all, the day is about celebrating your union!

As you prepare, make sure that your family knows where to be and when. This is the single most helpful thing to get formals over and done with!

Individuals with special needs

There is a place on the shotlist questionnaire I send you 45 days before the wedding that asks if there are any individuals involved in the formal photos that have special needs – an elderly person who can’t stand for a long period of time, anybody who has trouble with lots of stairs, etc. It is imperative that I be aware of this ahead of time – these things will dictate the location of the photos and the order of them. I will get the photos with this individual all done at the same time so they don’t have to walk back and forth from the group, and I will give location suggestions that are accessible.

In a similar vein, if there are individuals who should NOT be in the same shot, please PLEASE let me know. If there are individuals who you would like to have in the same shot but not standing next to one another, please let me know this as well. We can be totally flexible with each of these scenarios, but you do need to let me know ahead of time so we can plan!

Things change!

No matter how much we prepare, thing will change on the day of. The most important thing? Don’t stress. It always happens – someone forgets where they’re supposed to be, or the flower girl is in tears, or things run late and you want to slash half the list. That’s why you hire professionals – we know how to handle these situations! If I were to figure out what my defining moment as a professional photographer is, it would definitely include a tricky formal portrait situation. I’ve had terrible lighting, hotel gift shops next to the only good place to take portraits, massive fights between the bride and her mother moments before, florals arriving late (and wrong), bridal parties getting lost and stuck in traffic, unexpected and inconceivable amounts of precipitation, the list goes on. Don’t worry – we will get the shots, and figure it out together.

I’m sorry to say that I found about this website a little too late, as the Green Bag Lady is taking a break from her project of making fabric bags for free for those who want to switch from plastic. You can check out her blog here: http://www.greenbaglady.blogspot.com/

But Teresa was kind enough to answer a few questions, and provide some encouragement to those wanting to make the switch on their own! I know that we have more than a few “green” brides reading this blog, so I wanted to pick Teresa’s brain and share it with you!

Can you describe what you do and what you love about what you do?
Teresa: I love making bags because they are so handy and useful. It’s not something that gets put in a corner to be admired, I love functional art. We use a lot of hand thrown pottery dishes in our house and I love that we eat off of something that someone made.

What are some of the more creative things you’ve seen done with your bags?
Teresa: Bags used as “gift bags” or “wrapping paper.”

Anything you want to share to couples planning their weddings? (Go green!)
Teresa: Think about every think you buy, do you REALLY need it to make the day special. If not, don’t buy it or use it. It will save you money as well as the planet from more stuff!

While she’s taking a break from the bags for right now, you can visit her blog where she’s uploaded a a downloadable pattern and a how-to video! Be sure to also check out her post on why she’s started this project; it’s a really inspiring read.

Part of the joy of wearing many hats is acquiring a broad range of knowledge in different areas. I’ve been doing quite a bit of research on Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. Tweaking your photography website, especially your blog, to make each accessible to search engines and to help them rank really high, will help you get more readers and drive more potential clients to your site. I’ve written up a couple of tips for wedding photographers on how they can improve their blogs to meet both of these goals.

Title of your blog

I read hundreds (yes, hundreds) of photographers’ blogs each day. It’s really sad to see that so many of them are named something like “Journal”. The title of your blog may not seem to have a huge effect on those reading it, but it definitely has effects outside of looking at your physical blog. The title of your blog weighs heavily in how you rank for search engines. Do you want to rank among those searching for “Journal”? Or do you want to rank among those searching for “Seattle wedding photographer”? When somebody stumbles across your page in search results, the first thing that they’ll see is your title – make sure that it describes you and what you’re about. A great example is Washington D.C., Virginia, & Maryland Wedding Photographer – Armin DeFiesta. However, be aware that most search engines will not index past the first 70 characters.

Age of your blog

This one is simple – the longer your site’s been around, the higher it can be ranked. Also, the more time you have to build up links to your site, to build up content on your site, and to build readership. So if you haven’t started yours, start now!

URL of Your Blog and Updating Content

This is weighted less heavily in search engines, but it is something to consider. Check out these Philadelphia Wedding Photographers. If you were a bride searching on the web for wedding photographers in your area, how likely is it that you’d want to click on this link? Very.

Secondly, it is very helpful to your portfolio if you have your blog attached to it. In other words, having your blog’s URL as http://www.yoursite.com/blog will actually help www.yoursite.com, since you have new, updated content continually on that site. New content will be seen by search engines, which is great. This is a reason why it’s important to update your blog often! Not once a week, not once every two weeks – at least three times per week. I update mine every weekday – it retains readers and it gives search engines new content and keywords to index for my site.

Depth of URL

Although Google has said that it doesn’t matter how many slashes are in your URL (for example, yoursite.com/blog/2008/05/01/postname.htm), it is rumored that it negatively affects other search engine results. I also like to keep my URLs as clean as possible for easy linking, so mine look like

/blog/index.php/post-name.htm

If I could, I would also remove the index.php part, to keep it even simpler. I highly recommend inspecting your post URLs to see what they look like and to see if they can be cleaned up.

Linking to other sites

Although linking to other sites does not necessarily help you with your ranking in search engines, having others link to you helps you BIG TIME. So why not start a blogroll and link to other vendors, maybe even other photographer friends, and see if they return the favor? If you ask someone to link to you, also ask them to link the keywords you would like to rank high for. For example, I love it when someone links to me as a nontraditional wedding photographer. :) You can also ask them to include a “title=” element to the link tag with your name, the keywords, etc. which helps with your search ranking as well.

Within posts

“alt=” element in image tags: If your code for images looks like this:

<img src=”image.jpg” height=”900″ width=”600″>

then you are missing a golden opportunity for SEO. Adding alt=”keyword” in this tag will help immensely. For example, if I want to rank high for a search on a venue like the Watergate, and my image is of a bride dancing with her father at this location, my tag might read:

<img src=”bride.jpg” alt=”Wedding at the Watergate in DC” height=”900″ width=”600″ />

As photographers, this can be our biggest opportunity for search engine optimization. I also recommend bolding keywords like venue names, other vendors, etc. Search engines note this as well.

Headings: <h1>, <h2>, and <h3> tags will help you rank very high in search engine results for the words you put between them. For example, I have put <h3> tags around each of the subtitles in this post – “Title of your blog”, “Age of your blog”, etc. I highly recommend subtitling articles you write, or breaking up long posts this way.

Install Web Tracking Code

I use Google Analytics to track pages on my site. I can see how many visitors I had, how long they stayed on the site, what they saw, where they came from and what pages they exited on. I highly recommend installing tracking so you can follow the same things and then tweak your site to lower exit rates, increase pages per visit and time spent on your site, and the number of visitors you get from search engines. I know exactly what keywords are being used to get to my site, and I work on improving them and adding to them every day.

If you need help

If you need help doing any of these things or need more information on what I’ve described, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I am very interested in educating photographers on how they can improve their search rankings and drive more traffic to their site, since this can be a huge source of potential client inquiries. It’s worked for me, and I’d be happy to help you figure out how it can work for you!

Also check out SEO for Photographers Part II!

Many brides and grooms enter into wedding planning without any experience planning a major event. One of the most important aspects of planning is your budget – but how are you going to go about planning without knowing the basics of how much things generally cost, how much to allocate, and how to handle your overall budget? Thankfully, two Washington DC metro area wedding planners are here to the rescue.

Breakdown of Budgets

Laura Auer of Soiree Special Events was kind enough to break down general budget guidelines for couples planning their weddings. She writes, “Typically we build custom budgets for our clients. However, you can figure yours out fairly easily. Take the total dollar amount that you’re willing to spend on the wedding and allocate…

• 2% for the ceremony (includes church fee, officiant, marriage license, and ceremony accessories like a unity candle)
• 50% for the reception (includes venue fees, food, beverages, service, and rentals)
• 2% for the wedding cake
• 4% for attire (wedding dress, tuxedo, lingerie, shoes)
• .5% for beauty (hair, makeup, manicure)
• 2% for stationery (save-the-dates, invitations, programs, menus, thank-you notes, postage)
• 8% for flowers & decor (bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages, centerpieces, etc)
• 1.5% ceremony musicians
• 3% reception deejay or band
• 8% photography (including prints and albums)
• 3% videography (including DVDs)
• 3% rings
• 2% transportation (limos, guest shuttles, parking, etc)
• .5% hotel room for wedding night
• 3% gifts (parent & bridal party gifts, favors, guest welcome bags)
• 3% tips/etc (extra stash for tips, taxes, overages, emergencies)”

Tipping

Holly Blackett of Zuriana’s Elegant Occasions writes, “Tipping is a way of acknowledging a vendor that provides exemplary service or service that is above and beyond. Be sure to check your contracts to see if a tip has been included as part of the contract. Some vendors, for example a transportation company or a caterer may include their tip as part of your bill.”

Laura says, “Please remember that tips should be based on service….if the vendor went above and beyond then you should figure that into your calculations. Here are some general guidelines we recommend to our brides.

• Caterer: $20-30 per staff person on-site on the wedding day
• Rentals: $10-20 per delivery person
• Cake: $20 for the delivery person
• Flowers: $20 per delivery person (typically there are two)
• Photographer & videographer: $50 per person
• Planner/coordinator: $50
• Deejay: $40-50
• Band: $20-40 per member
• Hairstylist/makeup artist: 10-15% of the total cost
• Limo drivers: $20 per driver
• Ceremony musician: $20 per musician”

Holly also notes, “If the florist and cake baker were really great you can send the tip with a thank you note after the event.”

Wedding Budget Surprises

I asked each of the planners, what are some surprises that wedding couples encounter while budgeting?

Laura writes, “Many brides choose not to have a videographer, choose not to budget for it, then change their minds at the last minute. If you’re undecided on whether or not you’ll need a videographer, budget it for it anyway! It’s better to end up with extra money at the end than run short before the big day! Another similar vendor is lighting. If your space needs lighting and you like idea, set aside some money and consider it as part of the venue cost. Lighting can make a big difference in the aesthetic appeal of your space but too often it’s cut for budget reasons.”

Holly adds, “Honeymoons are one area a couple should not leave as an after thought. You want the honeymoon to be as special as the wedding. Be sure to set aside a budget and plan on booking your honeymoon roughly 9 months to a year in advance. Advance honeymoon planning will allow couples to take advantage of special savings as well as ensuring that the couple gets the experience a couple desires e.g. an available resort, particular category room, etc.”

Cutting corners in your budget without cutting quality

Laura also had some really great ideas to add for brides looking to balance their budgets. “We have several budget-cutting ideas to help our brides. First, chiavari chairs are overpriced and nobody will notice them. By switching your rentals to folding chairs, you’ve just cut the cost in half. My favorites are the walnut-colored folding chairs from Party Rental, Ltd.

“Another idea is to use plain cotton linens for everything and only upgrade your guest tables to a nice high-quality linen. Your buffet and deejay tables don’t need a fancy shimmer pintuck. Similarly, reuse tables as often as you can. Having a candy buffet for your favors? Display it on the escort card table during dinner when the cards have been taken.

“Finally, brides never realize that hors d’oeuvres add up. There is a lot of expensive labor that goes into each individual piece. By simply changing your passed spanikopita into a stationary crudite display, you can save a bundle. Don’t forget to reuse that table and linen to set up coffee and tea service after dinner!”

My two cents

No matter how you budget your wedding, the most important thing is to work with your partner and follow the guidelines that you two set out before you started planning. Wedding planners can help you stay within budget (and can even save you money), and may be a good way to involve a knowledgeable third party in such a tricky and unusual planning situation.

Our friends over at Creative Montage have published one of our articles that we posted last year, on getting comfortable in front of the camera. The main tips, which you can read in full here or there, are:

• Know your photographer.
• Find a photo that you like of yourself and show it to your photographer.
• Wear clothes that you’re comfortable in, that you KNOW you look good in.
• Remember that your photographer is taking a lot of photos – you’ll have a lot of choices!
• Bring your own ideas!
• Find out about retouching.

As a geek at heart, I reached out to the local web women’s listserve to see what kinds of techie things people incorporated into their weddings. I can’t get over what GREAT ideas people had!

iPod at the reception

Yesterday’s post was a lead-in :) We used an iPod at our reception, as did this bride:

“My husband’s cousin got married last fall and instead of hiring a band or a DJ, they simply loaded all their favorite music onto an iPod and rented a basic sound system for the reception. They even solicited song suggestions from friends and family on their wedding website. I thought that was such a great idea that we stole it for my high school reunion. Instead of hiring a DJ, we just loaded a bunch of 80′s music onto an iPod. It was great, and WE got to pick the songs that were most evocative of our high school days.”

Click here to see our how-to on using the iPod at your reception.

Tricked out wedding website

This is something we’ve posted about before! The wedding website can be a really cool opportunity to demonstrate your crazy Joomla skillz. One woman suggested putting up a “live feed” on your website so that any out-of-town guests or ill relatives who can’t attend can still enjoy it as it’s happening!

Another woman wrote, “My husband and I got married this past October and I set up a web site for our guests to see information regarding the wedding, it allowed them to RSVP, and it let them sign up for the potluck we had. It’s not a fancy design (he did the cool mashup US Weekly cover), but the functionality worked really well. I used AJAX for the front end and Perl for the back end. Afterwards, we posted the vows and the “best of” pictures. You can see it at http://www.rachaelschoenbaum.com/wedding!”

Check out that potluck page! Can you believe it? That’s really one of the best ideas – coming back to how great it is to involve guests in the celebration of your union!

Another woman wrote about how great it was to have her groom involved in the wedding website setup. “My husband Jeff actually did all the work to set that up, including photos, drafting the text etc. It’s a great way to involve your husband-to-be in the wedding planning process!”

Twitter

A soon-to-be-bride mentioned using Twitter to update her wedding website, which also includes video posts! The woman who writes Brooklyn Bride, a wedding website you may already be familiar with, Twittered her entire wedding day! This could be a great (and not annoying!) way to keep those who are interested updated in your ongoing plans, even on the day of.

Slideshow during the reception

A woman who had a slideshow wrote that “it was mainly of past adventures with our family and friends who would be at the wedding – it was definitely one of the highlights, especially for some of the extended family who we haven’t seen in a long time! They all wanted to here the stories behind the pictures.”

The bride who is incorporating video elements to her wedding website will also be showing a video of how we they met “as the opener to the ceremony”. And get this – she says she’s “also making enhanced CDs as wedding favors which will include the video presentation in addition to songs we like on the audio portion.” What a great idea – and talk about multi-media!

Wedding contributions and registries

I think this is the coolest idea of all. One woman wrote, “We’ve just opened an account with Smarty Pig (https://www.smartypig.com/about), it’s a goal-oriented (or spending-oriented) online bank account that allows you to share your saving goals, see your progress, and contribute to it. We are using it for our wedding. Already someone has offered to pay for our wedding rings. :-)”

Another bride said she “used www.IDoFoundation.org to register with merchants and charities for gifts and donations. We requested our guests to make donations in lieu of gifts, or make any purchases through this website.” Her husband set up the website and they agreed on which charities, online stoors, and gifts to register for. They “raised over $1200 for a combination of ACCION International, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America, Global AIDS Alliance and National Wildlife Federation while getting great gifts from places like REI, Gaiam, Target and Cooking.com.” How cool!

Special thanks to Naina Mistry, Jennifer Walton, Maria Mejia, Barbara Halpern, Rachael Schoenbaum, Jenn Bopp, Leslie Anders, and Leslye Penelope!

Brad and I decided that, instead of having a DJ at our wedding, we would set up an iPod with a pre-made playlist to shuffle through at our reception. The whole thing cost about $100 (excluding the iPod). Brad was kind enough to write up the shopping list (as well as renting/borrowing list) and a set of instructions for how to make it happen! Just so you know, you can also interchange the iPod with a laptop and follow the same set of instructions. This actually allowed us more freedom for when we needed to pick a specific song for us to dance to!

Purchased (from radio shack or similar): About $50

• one stereo 1/8″ male to dual RCA male cable
• two RCA female to 1/4″ TS adapters
• one female XLR to 1/4″ TRS cable (about 25′ in length) or female XLR to 1/4″ adaptor
• a 50′-100′ good quality grounded extension cord

Rented or borrowed:

• one Roland KC-150 or KC-550 (or similar) Keyboard Amplifier (make sure to get they include the power cable! if not, they use the same power cable included with most desktop computers and monitors)
• one SM58 (or similar) dynamic microphone (with a switch if available!) and a 25′ cable

Setup

Attach the RCA to 1/4″ adapters to the RCA ends of the 1/8″ to RCA cable and plug them into two of the 1/4″ inputs on the keyboard amplifier. Set the output level of your IPOD at about 50%, then use the gain control on your amplifier or powered speaker to adjust the volume to your desired loudness.

Plug the microphone into the keyboard amplifier (using the XLR to 1/4″ adapter if the amplifier doesn’t have it’s own XLR input). Set the gain knob to a desired loudness and encourage users to speak in a full voice, but not directly into the microphone; sort of angle the microphone to one side of the mouth. Also try and set up the amplifier so that the speaker is never directly behind the microphone to prevent feedback!