Lets talk honestly here, we all know that weddings are one of the biggest expenses, next to your home and raising children that you will face in life.
So it intrigues me when I know that a brides dress is in a certain price range and they are hesitant to look at photography equal or above that price range.
Both things have the power to make you look good on your wedding day!
Your dress however will not help your photographer take better images, or be understanding of lighting, posing and be great with your family and friends. Photographer 1 Dress 0
Your dress will spend max 13 hours with you, your photographer (I can only speak from my experience here) will burn through that 13 hours before the wedding day even arrives. Then you have the day. Then there is the editing and delivery, on average I spend approx 50 hours per wedding if I’m being honest with myself. So again Photographer wins that challenge.
I’ve heard of people framing their dresses, and I’m like what? Why on earth would you do that? I don’t understand that at all! Not even going to pretend that I do! Your photographer gives you hundreds of little pieces of your heart to look at and display (because thats perfectly normal) for the rest of your life, your children’s lives and their children etc etc, you get the picture.
Now the not so fun part about being a photographer, Australia has taxes, a shit tonne of them, like if I earn $3000 Im going to be giving the Australian government around $1000 of that. Don’t get me wrong I’m not disrespecting all the dresses and talented artists who create them I just want to start a conversation about perceived value. The value of wedding photography and a great wedding photographer who like the talented artist creating your dress spend hours keeping their skills updated, always learning. Buying the tools they will need and always updating them.
Research your photographer and if their images speak to you, like you do your dress.
Beau and Danielle were married on the 09.09.19 a date that was special to them. They choose Mount Tamborine for their wedding ceremony and reception and it was certainly a beautiful day, filled with their personal touches right down to the gifts they had given to each other which were adorable!
They are also both super organised people so their timeline was fabulous and we didn’t let a little wind (ok it was a lot of very cold wind) deter us from the last photo location of the day.
Here are just a few moments from their celebration of love.
I get a lot of questions about how my couples choose their locations for an engagement shoot.
It totally depends on the couple and how much time we have.
An engagement shoot you will have a lot of time to plan and get the location just right. Unlike portrait time on your wedding day which will be determined by how much time you have allowed and the locations around the venue.
Dan & Beau knew what they wanted for their engagement shoot, we discussed it and had images for reference. The only problem was that the weather had been so dry , I cant remember the last time it rained properly. So our problem was all of the waterfalls locally were either completely dry or reduced to a very small body of water. Rather than cancel and crush their dreams I decided to split their engagement shoot in half, one now at another location and the second once it has rained after the wedding.
Keeping dreams alive is important to me, because they have their heart set on those images. We chose another fun location that they both liked and even had time for a quick 2nd spot as the sun set.
So we wait for the storm season and the bonus will be its a bit warmer in the water too! For the moment though they are thrilled with this first session and are looking forward to their wedding coming up in 5 days!!
This is one of the most asked questions that I have from brides and I also belong to a few wedding forums where Brides have either asked this (a lot) or have come back to say that they actually hated how they looked on their wedding day, which I think is utterly heartbreaking!
Your wedding day is something you have dreamt about for quite some time. With the amount of “inspiration” on social media though you can get quite caught up in what the internet thinks you should do on your wedding day.
My advice is just don’t overthink things! Do you ever get a spray tan or use tanning products? If the answer is no well then why the heck would you decide to do it for your wedding day?
One girl in one of these forums tried to tan the day before by someone she had never even met, she felt so self conscious ALL day as she had gone wayyy to dark for her complexion, her photos were hard to look at. She looked like she had entered a body building comp she was that dark, and her resulting mood showed in every single photo that she posted. So instead of relaxed and happy she looked anxious and sad.
A few others had commented that her photographer might be able to help her out and “adjust” her colour in the photos. Well listen to a degree we can, if you show me a photo and say I look too brown or orange can you tone back the colour I would say yes I can do that, if you ask me to do a thousand photos I would have a completely different answer for you. It’s not like waving a wand over the image you have to target a specific colour range in one area of an image otherwise you change the colour of everything in that tonal range. The one thing they were all missing was we cannot change your mood in the photos, everything you are feeling on the inside shows visibly on the outside. Thats why you sometimes see stiff posing and couples who look directed to the point where they are just standing there.
There is a real skill to making you feel comfortable on your wedding day, so relax and enjoy the day, stay off social media when planning what you want to look like, just look like the best version of yourself and your images will capture you on one of the happiest days of your lives!
Like Leigh and Justin above, stunning couple who did everything their way on the day and it was FABULOUS !!
Nothing left to say other than yes please! they are all sorts of wonderful and after yesterday I can honestly say I have come to the realisation that they are my favourite type to shoot.
So for now I will just leave this drone preview from Rochelle and Will’s gorgeous Boonah wedding yesterday here with a promise of more sneak peeks to come this week.
Jason and Amanda were married at the Sheraton and we took full advantage of the stunning beach backdrop for their group and couple portraits. More and more I am seeing couples leaving shorter amounts of time for their photo’s on the day as they want to spend more time with their friends and families.
I have had a lot of couples ask when we discuss timelines is it worth allowing 90 minutes after the ceremony to have photos done and my answer is if it is important to you then yes! There are other options you can explore if you only want a shorter amount of time away from your wedding guests. With my full day coverage I am happy to shoot a post wedding session for free so you can have the best of both worlds.
You will get more time with your guests by having a shorter group and couple block factored in to the timeline and after the wedding you get to dress back up and go somewhere special to have photos done. This works so well for couples who love adventure and want to go somewhere for photos that just would not be possible on their wedding day.
If you only want me to shoot a post wedding session I am also happy to help you plan that so that anything you have been dreaming of can become reality. Please see my session pricing for details.
