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Wedding

Takeaway from my wedding photography experience

December 18, 2011 – 3:22 pm

We were looking for something “photojournalistic”.
jigg and I told our photographer that we wanted our wedding photo album to have a “photojournalistic feel” to it – pictures that are unsuspecting and spontaneous, and shots that capture events in mid-action because we felt that those were the type of pictures that told the best stories.

We didn’t care for picture perfect portraits.
Portraits can be very striking and powerful with the proper subject, pose, angle, lighting, etc.  But neither jigg nor I are models – jigg cannot naturally smile in front of a camera and I’m just awkward. We also didn’t have the time to pause and strike a pose during our reception to create this faux picture perfect moment either.  The thought of us standing still with smiles frozen on our faces as guests line up to get a picture with us was also just too dreadful for us to go through with.

Fancy lens effects were not a selling point.
I’m somewhat convinced that the most common ones can be recreated through Photoshop.  Fisheye effect?  Check.  Panoramic effect?  Check.  Bokeh effect?  Check.  [I apologize to my photographer friends who may be aghast by this handling of photography, but honestly, the average person wouldn’t be able tell the difference.]

What cannot be recreated in Photoshop is the raw stuff.  No fancy camera lens or photo editing program can replace a skilled photographer’s eye for awesome pictures.

Of course, these are just our personal preferences.  But there are also a couple of general things anyone can take note from based on our personal experience, advice from our photographer and other married couples, and the knowledge of hindsight.

Even a blind squirrel can find a nut sometimes.
Most photographers can produce a couple of amazing photos in every shoot. For example, if a photographer took a thousand pictures at a wedding, if he’s any way half-decent, at least one would turn out amazing.  And that’s the picture that you’d see in his portfolio.  It’s a numbers game.  But you’re not looking for 0.1% success rate.  So ask to review the complete album from several completed shoots to see if all the pictures consistently meet your expectations.

Your wedding album isn’t really that big of a deal as you think it will be.
Sure, the pictures document a momentous event and help you relive those moments every time you look at them.  But the truth is, you’re not going to look at these pictures again for a long, long, long time.  You may hang a couple of them around the house, but your wedding album will sit mostly unforgotten along with your baby pictures and high school year book until you chance upon it during a spring cleaning many springs later.  Seriously, I don’t know any couple who looks at their wedding album on a regular basis.

Nobody wants to sit there and look at all 1,000 images from your wedding album.
Except maybe your mother.  No body else cares that much.  People do it either because they’re being polite or because they’re flipping through to see if they’re in any of the pictures. So please don’t entertain your guest with a one hour slideshow of your wedding.  I’ve sat through something like this and I will never wish this upon anyone.

So 10-20 of your favorite  images would do.

Photographs by www.JMitchelPhotography.com.

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Doodles Wedding

What’s evil and dominates the freewill of man?

September 21, 2011 – 9:46 pm

What's evil and dominates the freewill of man? Marriage or the One Ring!

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Doodles Wedding

What I learned from one year of marriage

September 5, 2011 – 9:58 pm

He actually reminds of this regularly.

jigg and I just celebrated our one year anniversary this past weekend.  To commemorate this, I drew him a comic! We didn’t really do anything big because we’re throwing ourselves an awesome BBQ this coming Saturday.

I was stressing myself over the little details while planning this reception at the beginning.  But in the past year, jigg taught me an important lesson, which is to put whatever I’m doing into perspective and ask myself: In ten years, will this matter?  If the answer is no, there’s no point in stressing over it.

So I asked myself the following questions: In ten years, will anyone remember what the centerpieces look like?  Still have kept their party favors?  Care if there is one scented tealight candle per table instead of two?  Admire how heavy the paper is for our invitations?  Recognize what font is used?  Know what the cover of the guest book looks like?  My answers are no, no, no, no, no and no.  Most people toss their invitations into the recycling bin and leave their favors at their table anyways.  And no one sees the cover of your guest book because the thing is opened during the entire reception.

One year of marriage has taught me that it’s not about the fancy table decorations, scented candles, invitations printed on 120 lb cover specialty linen paper, or handmade guest books that showcase the couple.  The important things are the couple, company, and booze.

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Doodles Wedding

My DIY Wedding Invitations for $100!

July 1, 2011 – 5:10 pm

I will be stuffing and licking envelopes this July 4th weekend because my wedding invitations finally arrived from the printer! Here’s a sneak peak:

My DIY Polaroid Wedding Invitations

My DIY Wedding Invitation RSVP Postcard

My DIY Wedding Invitation RSVP Postcard

In keeping theme with my save the dates, I also designed my invitations to be a series of Polaroids. Each invitation set is comprised of four pieces: three Polaroids containing various information about the wedding and one RSVP postcard.  My greatest accomplishment in this entire project was that I was able to get 200 invitation sets printed for $100.  That’s right – ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS only.  This is how I did it.

My first step didn’t start with the design or verbiage…it began with the envelope.  I had a box of 5.75″ by 4.5″ white envelopes leftover from a previous project, so those dimensions were my starting point.  I’d always look into the envelopes first because you don’t want to create the invitation design and realize they don’t fit in standard envelopes.  In this situation, you’re stuck either ordering custom-made envelopes or redoing your design.  The size of your envelopes will also determine your postage cost – expect to pay more for larger, irregular sized, or square envelopes.

My envelopes were actually perfect because they fit the standard Polaroids and my RSVP postcard.  I thought making my RSVP a postcard was ingenious because I saved on postage and envelopes while the return address label allowed for easy guest tracking when we get the RSVPs back in the mail.  No manual numbering or special markers and black lights!

I wasn’t picky about the paper stock so I opted for a 100 lb gloss cover printed on digital press.  I didn’t think it was necessary to buy specialty stock (ie, hand woven, textured, linen, etc.) because most people don’t pay close attention to this stuff anyways.  What they really care about is the who, what, where and when on the invitations.  As jigg mentioned, many wedding invitations end up in the recycling bin.

The original printing quote was $200, but because I had a relationship with the printer, she gave me a 50% discount – so my entire printing cost came up to only $100! My total postage cost was $132 (go $.29 postcard stamps!).  My entire project, along with other miscellaneous expenses came up to $275.

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Wedding

I finally got my dress!

March 22, 2011 – 10:48 pm

I don’t know why other women kept telling me otherwise, but shopping for my wedding dress was one stressful experience.  In the past couple of months, I must have looked at least a couple hundred dresses online and tried on 40 or so in stores, but each time I think I’ve found the “perfect” dress, something makes me change my mind.

I think the most difficult thing about this process was staying firm to what I wanted because there were so many influences that led me astray.

Salespeople:
Salespeople are awesome at manipulating you with compliments, promises, and classic sales tactics.  I initially started out looking for a short, sun dress with my wedding being a BBQ and all.  But during my first visit to a wedding dress boutique, the saleslady almost convinced me to go for a full out ball gown!  Logistically speaking, she knew that a long dress wouldn’t work, but she had an answer for every objection.  ”Oh, you can hook the train up so it wouldn’t drag.” “The cleaners can take care of a little grass stain.”  ”You want to stand out on your wedding!” “Don’t hesitate! It takes 6 months to order the dress.”  Once she got me in the fitting room, she brought out dress after dress.  Her assistant was tightening my corset, holding my train, walking me to a pedestal in front of a mirror, etc.  They really made me feel like a princess!

I started to notice a pattern with how these salespeople work.  The first couple of dresses they bring out often are to get a feel of what you want.  They also will not say anything negative about a dress until you say it first and they will agree with how great something looks on you if you think it looks good on you.  Then once you find one that you sort of like, they will bring out similar dresses that are nicer and slightly more expensive until they’ve got you hooked on the dress.  To close the session, they will bring out some horrible, expensive dress for comparative purposes so your thought would always go back to how great that other dress looked.

Dress Cut & Fabric
There were many instances of when I found a dress in a catalog that I thought was gorgeous until I tried it on.  This is when I learned that certain dresses, even though it fits in size, will make you look stumpy, flat, or figure-less if the cut isn’t flattering on your body shape.  You can’t tell by looking at a picture because the dresses look great on all the models.  I tried researching for more information online, but different websites gave conflicting advice.  So in the end, the best way to find out was just to go and tried the dresses on.  So yeah, buying a dress you’ve never tried online is a pretty bad idea.

Buying From China
My aunt recently bought her wedding dress online from a Chinese company – she just emailed her measurements and the company sent her the dresses without a problem, $100 for a wedding gown and $50 per bridesmaid dress!  The price caught my attention so I decided to give the company a try.  But when I emailed the company for a quote, it came back with a price of $180 to $250 for a bridesmaid dress…  I understand that it’s customary for Chinese companies to jack up the prices because 1)  they know Americans are willing to pay and 2) bargaining is acceptable.  But the initial correspondence was such a turn off that I cross this option out.

Too Many Choices
Every time I came close to making a decision, I always think there are more choices out there that I haven’t considered and more dresses I haven’t tried.  I always felt the need to keep my options open.  I’m sure if I continued looking, I would eventually find something better, but at some point, I just had to stop and make a decision.

On Sunday, I found the dress I was looking at for the past two months while shopping at Bloomingdales for jigg’s birthday present.  Surprisingly, Bloomies carried it in my size.  I tried it on about five more times in the fitting room and I ended up buying it!

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