What You Don't Know About Your Wedding: Photography

Been having difficulties with Google doc links (Gah), so I thought I’d put the transcript of Wednesday’s talk with Jen in my blog, instead. Enjoy!

What You Don’t Know About Your Wedding: Photography
Wednesday, November 3, 7:00pm
(Transcript edited for pacing, emphasis and clarification)
© Silver Charm Events, 2010

Liz: For those of who stuck around, I’m Liz Coopersmith, here with Jen Berggren (Burr-grin) of
B &G Photography. Welcome to the last tele-class of What You Don’t Know About Your Wedding. And today we’re going to deal with photography. Jen, why don’t you introduce yourself.

Jen: Hello, I’m Jen Berggren of B &G Photography. My husban Nate and I run it, and we’ve being doing it for about seven years and we love it, we shoot weddings and families and kids and all sorts of fun stuff.

Liz: So, what is your customer service philosophy when working with Brides and Grooms?

Jen: I come for a long background of customer service, and I’m in constant contact with my clients. I’m really about always being available. You know, some people get upset about spending too much of their time, but I really like to spend my time with my clients, I want to know who they are. I find that the stronger my relationship is with them, the better pictures I’m going to take of them, so I’m really about always being around, email phone, however, and trying to spend as much time with them as we can.

Liz: Great. So, I figured that we’d start with the standard questions – one of the points of this is to let people know what to expect when they walk into a meeting with a photographer. So, what are the three things that couples ask you when they initially meet with you?

Jen: The three big questions, yeah. The number one question is “how much?” [Laughs] Which, of course, people are planning a wedding, they’re spending thousands of dollars – some people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on these events – and it’s going to be an issue. I totally get it. And I think that what people need to think about is what really goes into photography on a wedding day. And I think that most photographers base their costs and prices on a couple different things. And one is what is the quality of the product that they’re giving you? Are you getting photo-printed, leather bound, heirloom albums, or are you getting off-set printed albums that look more like a book? Another thing is experience, how much experience do they have. Are they just starting out, have they been doing this for a long time? Is it their full-time job? And the other thing is demand – are they getting calls to shoot ten weddings on one day, as opposed to barely getting anything. All three things factor into cost when you’re talking to a photographer, and that’s why prices are all over the place. You’re going to have photographers that are $1500, you’re going to find a photographer for $50,000, and one thing might not necessarily have to do with another. But I think that in a major city, like Los Angeles or New York, the average price for a good photographer – one that’s going to give you a nice package, engagement, 8-10 hours on your wedding day, and a nice album – you’re looking right around the $4-6000 range. And that doesn’t mean that they can’t do something for you for $3,000 or for $10,000, it really is a matter of what’s going into the package and their experience.

Liz: In talking about what is in every package – everyone offers engagement pictures, right?

Jen: Not everyone does that. Some people offer engagement sessions, others don’t. Some create packages,others do everything a la carte. You really need to do a little research with each photographer, and make sure that you’re comparing apples to apples, the same value of stuff in each package. With us, we like to include some kind of album, and most of our packages include engagement sessions.

Liz: So, what are the benefits of doing engagement sessions. I’m working with a couple of brides who just DON’T want to do them.

Jen: I think that the biggest advantage to doing an engagement session is that it helps to build your relationship with your photographer. Your photographer is going to be the one vendor that you’re really going to be spending the most time with on your wedding day, even more than the coordinator in some cases. People usually book us six months, a year out, 18 months out, so all that communication time before the wedding, after the wedding. Building an album can take months. So, we’re spending a lot of time with people.

I call engagement sessions “bonding sessions”, it’s time for us to hang out before the wedding, really get to know each other, have a little fun, and get to know each other. And for most people, this is one of the few times that they’ll get to work with a professional photographer, so why not take advantage of it? Go get some pictures taken of yourself. So, when we show up at your wedding day, we’re not total strangers. You’ve gone through the whole experience of having your picture taken, because it can be a daunting experience for some people,it’s a little scary having this big piece of glass in your face. With an engagement session, it’s not so scary, you’ve had fun, you’re comfortable with this person behind the camera, you just relax more on your wedding day.

Liz: When we were prepping for this call, we were talking about how most people don’t realize what the process is, what the time line is for photography. They hire you, you do an engagement session for them, they meet with you a couple of times before the wedding to figure out what pictures they want on the day of. Do they ask about when they’re going get their pictures after the wedding?

Jen: Yes! [Laughs] “When am I going to get my pictures?” There’s a whole process after the wedding. We’ve shot for 8,10, 12 hours, and we’ve got thousands of images that we need to now go through. And if we handed couples those raw images, their brains would literally explode!

Liz: [Laughing]: And how images are we talking about?

Jen: On the average, we shoot about 3,000 images. That’s a lot.

Liz: That is a lot.

Jen: And there will be some duplicates in there, too. Like for the family shots, you’ve got to shoot a bunch, because when you’re shooting a lot of people, you have to make sure that everyone’s eyes are open, that kind of stuff. We’re going to go through and make sure we’ve got the best of the best. So, there’s a whole editing process, we’ll go through and make sure the colors are all perfect, that the contrast is perfect. We shoot in digital, which makes it easy to turn some pictures into black and white, we can do that. And just organize everything into a chronology of the day. I may have a second shooter, so I have to amalgamate two shooters worth of files.

Liz: Do you always have two shooters?

Jen: There are very rare occasions where I don’t have two shooters. If it’s a very small wedding – we’ve done weddings with 12 people – two shooters is overkill on that. But in most cases, 98% of the time, we have two shooters. So, it’s back-up, it’s editing, it’s the online gallery, we create proof books for our couples, and all this stuff takes time. So, on average, it takes about 4-6 weeks before we’re able to hand over proofs.

Liz: Color correction. Most people don’t think about that, flaws, zits or whatever.

Jen: Right.

Liz: For those of you who read my newsletter, the picture of me? Jen took that, what was that, in January?

Jen: Something like that, it was a while ago.

Liz: Yeah, Jen could tell you stories, but she’s not going to. [Laughs]

Jen: [Laughing] Liz is a dream to photograph, come on, you’re wonderful to shoot.

Liz: Liz was like a shy five-year old to work with! Anyway, I just remember, I had, seriously, this really big zit. And told your husband, Nate, “ I’ve been putting on make up and I have this huge zit”, and he said, “That’s okay, I have photoshop.”

Jen: Yeah, photoshop is the miracle worker!

Liz: So, what Jen is saying, and I agree, is that you don’t want the raw files. You do want your pictures as soon as you can get them, but you don’t want the raw files, you want something beautiful that you can give your family, that you can put into an album.

Jen: And that’s the difference between an amateur and a professional, really. An amateur will just hand over whatever they put in their camera. A professional wants to work on it until it’s art. I think I gave you this analogy before, and I’m at all comparing myself to Picasso, but you wouldn’t go to Picasso and ask him for a canvass and paint. You would wait for the final portrait.

Liz: Right.

Jen: And that’s what we’re doing, we’re putting our magic on it [Laughs] , and making it look it needs to look.

Liz: Right. So, you’re saying it takes 4-6 weeks to get it up to an online gallery, is that 4-6 weeks to get it on your blog?

Jen: Yeah, some photographers will blog immediately, I like to put a few teaser pics up on Facebook. Here’s a few shots from the wedding, get excited! And then I’ll go through and really spend time on everything. I don’t like blogging right away, because I want to spend time with the images, I don’t like to rush my work. So, we get your online gallery and the blog, and we usually like to surprise people with a little slideshow as well, and that will be about 4-6 weeks later. And when we’re done, we’ll print a proof-book, we have a little 8X10 contact-sheet style book that takes a couple of weeks to get made. So, our clients get all of this within two months.

Liz: So, people can buy shots in the online gallery? Do they have to order it?

Jen: Yes, the online gallery is for sharing and for ordering pictures. You can order pictures, you can order albums. I prefer couples to come in for a private viewing if they want wall pieces or albums, just so we can go through a design session with them, but the online gallery is perfect for buying prints, if you just want to give them to family and friends. And it’s great to share the link with everyone who was at the wedding, as well, if they want to buy pictures of themselves, so the bride and groom don’t have to be responsible for that. You know, if Aunt Flo is like, “get me that picture of you and the cake!” she can just do it herself.

Liz: And I’m sure that parents go crazy with that, too.

Jen: Absolutely! There’s always a few grandparents that we have to help out over the phone, but for the most part people can go straight to the online gallery. It’s really easy to use.

Liz: Now the albums. Those take more time, and most couples don’t understand why. Take us through the process, and why it would take more, when it would take less time. You told me that that the soonest you’ve been able to get an album out is in what, three months?

Jen: Oh, the soonest, the soonest. And the part that takes the longest time is the couples’ picking which images they want. So, the earliest you can go through what we give you and pick your images, then we can start turning things around. So, as soon as we get the list from our clients, then I can get an initial design to them within 2-3 weeks. I put everything online, which make it really easy to go through, as quickly or slowly as you want, or they can come in and meet with us in person, that’s fine, too. We include a couple rounds of changes, but every photographer is different, so you should ask what your photographer’s process is. So, after the review, clients will submit changes, they might choose a different picture than what they’d wanted initially, change the design around usually a couple of minor things, we’ll fix it for them, repost it online. And then, once it’s approved, it takes about two months to get done. It takes that long for us, because we use a company that does everything by hand. We get actual photographic prints made for the album, we don’t use off-set printing, and the company hand-binds everything. It is like going back to the 1800s, these guys cobble away on their leather. But it takes time, art takes time. So, from approval, it takes about two months. Now, if people are quicker about picking their images, then the whole thing can take around three months.

Liz: So how soon after the wedding do you contact them to start putting together their album?

Jen: We let them know that the online gallery is up, and that they’ll get their proof book a couple of weeks after that, and that’s when they should be going through and picking out what they want for the album.

Liz: And do you also eventually give them the raw files, or a dvd as well?

Jen: Well, no, I would not do the raw files, because they’re unfinished, but we do include jpgs of all the finished images, in our deliver-ables, and I give them to you when I deliver your album, or in six months, whichever comes first. And that’s a good thing to ask your photographer, it’s another thing that everyone does a little bit different. Some photographers will do a shoot and burn, where they’ll burn eveything to a CD or DVD without editing, but you get your pictures quickly. Not what we do. But most photographers will give you your jpgs, either way, it’s just a matter of when. Some people will do it in six months, some people in a year, it depends.

Liz: Why does it take six months to get the cd, is it because of the online gallery, because of the album, why six months?

Jen: The perfectly honest answer is that we’re hoping to make some print sales! [Laughs]But it is also going to be a lot easier for you and your family and friends if everyone can just get the prints they want online, rather than you having to send them or print them out yourself. That won’t happen if we hand over the disc, and if you get them printed at someplace like Costco, God help me. I’m joking about that, you’re going to get your files, and of course you can get them printed anywhere you want. I do, however, put a little note with the cd about where to go to get prints, because there really is a difference, we’ve done tests at Walgreens, at different “professional” labs, and there really is a difference, so that’s my bit of photo snobbery there.

Liz: Well, you are a professional photographer, it would be a little weird if you weren’t a little snobby about your work, if you were just like, “eh, whatever.”[Laughs]

Jen: And first of all, what are you going to do with your images right after your wedding? Why I say it’s totally worth it to wait, is that anything that’s ordered from when we open the gallery to when you get your files is re-touched. So, when we give you your proof stuff, everything looks great. But, anything that’s ordered from the online gallery gets another go-over, I’m going to make sure that the colors are perfect, that everyone’s skin looks fabulous, give it a little extra flavor.

Liz: Now, if you’re online right now, and you want to take a look at what Jen’s talking about, you can go to www.bandgphotography.com/blog. And if you have any questions for Jen or for me then you can text me directly at 310-801-3602, or email me at liz@silvercharmevents.com, I’ve got my computer and my cell phone in front of me.

Jen: You said that number too quickly, do it one more time!

Liz: 310-801-3602 or email me at liz@silvercharmevents.com, people have been texting me all day, trust me, they’re showing up.

Jen: I’ve been bugging her all day, it’s fine.

Liz: So, moving on, what do you think that couples should ask you [at the first meeting]?

Jen: There a lot of those! A big trend right now is photojournalistic, And that’s how we shoot our weddings, very candid, very unobtrusive, it’s now the cheesy shots with everyone looking at the camera. And the other side of that is, this is still a wedding. We’re not shooting a war, we’re shooting a wedding, we still have to do family portraits! So, making sure that you really like someone’s work, how they capture emotions, is really important. Ask them how they shoot families, as well. It’s really important. So, ask to see samples. The pictures should be well-lit, it shouldn’t be too busy in the background, it shouldn’t be too distracting, just something pleasant to look at. And the other thing is finding out how long the pictures are going to take, You’d be surprised, they take a lot longer than you think. I hear it all the time, “we don’t have that much family, there isn’t going to be that many people, there’s just my parents…and we each have one sibling…and my cousins…and my aunt and uncle.” [Laughs] And all of a sudden the list just gets bigger and bigger, and the more people you have, the longer it’s going to take, and you are just going to get exhausted from having your picture taken. So, decide beforehand with your photographer who it’s really important to have portraits with. And if it’s really important to have pictures with all your aunts and cousins, then fine, we need to schedule that time. But understand that there are some things you’re going to have to trade off. Like missing your cocktail hour, some people want to hang out at the cocktail hour with their friends, or we need to schedule a lot of time before the ceremony and have most of those pictures done. And it’s one of those things that’s becoming more common, having the bride and groom see each other before the ceremony, and taking family pics, and I really recommend that people do that. You don’t have to go search and drag people back to take pictures, you can hang out, you can go to the bar, and then everyone can just enjoy the day. So, if we spend say, 45 minutes with the couple alone, 20 minutes with the wedding party, and then 20 minutes with family, you’re talking about a couple of hours, and that’s hard to get done during cocktails.

Liz: That’s true. And from the coordination end, whether you’re doing them before the ceremony or afterward, especially afterward, just keep in mind that someone has to track all these people down!

Jen: That’s why I stress that people do pictures beforehand, it’s just easeir to tell them to be at such and such at 4:30pm or whatever.

Liz: Rather than trying to track them down at the cocktail hour.

Jen: So much easier! You always lose Uncle Bob, and the groomsmen, the groomsmen are going to the bar, once that’s open. [Laughs] And it gets a little stressful for the bride and groom, so getting most of it done beforehand works better.

Liz: But if you do choose to do pictures after the ceremony, designate a runner! [Laughs] Someone who can find everyone after the ceremony.

Jen: You’re definitely going to need a point person to round everyone up.

Liz: I usually grab a bridesmaid! [Laughs] “Okay, you’re going to hang out with me while we go find everyone.” But thinking about the last wedding that I coordinated, people are getting more and more comfortable with pics before the ceremony. But there are some who just won’t do that. One of my brides won’t even talk about the color of her dress in front of her fiance, so there’s no way. She’s so excited about her dress, and it’s really cute.
But I’ve found that if the bride and groom do choose to see each other before the wedding, that photographers are able to make that moment special, can you go into what that “First look” event entails?

Jen: Yup, totally. About 85% of our couples see each other before the ceremony. What we normally do, we show up about three hours before ceremony call time, “Call time”, like it’s a show.
Liz: Well, it is! And as a side-note, that’s actually how I got started as an event coordinator, I was stage managing shows in college, and you have a background in theater, too, don’t you?

Jen: Nate used to work in the industry.

Liz: Right.

Jen: So, three or four hours before the ceremony, I want to get the last shots of you getting your hair and make-up done, getting into your dresses and your details before anything gets on you, the anticipation that builds, the feeling beforehand, it’s a lot of fun. And then, after that, getting a few bridal pictures done, not too many. You know, your nerves are on edge, you’re super excited, I want to capture all that, and that’s what that’s all about. And Nate, or my second photographer, will hang out with the guys, with the groomsmen, you know, at the bar.[Laughs]

Liz: And just to be clear, if you’re looking for the groomsmen, they’re probably at the bar.
[Laughs]

Jen: [Laughing] Right. And what we’ll normally do, is that we’ll go somewhere private, just the bride and groom. And, of course, if you want friends or family there, you can have them, but I like to go off somewhere private, with just the two of them, and set it up so that the bride sneaks behind the groom, there’s anticipation, and then they see each other for the first time. And the great thing is, they get to hang out with each other, they can kiss, you know, be with each other.

And I can’t tell you how many brides told me that it was the best time. Because when you first see each other at the ceremony, you have 200 eyes staring at you, and there’s just too much going on. And a lot of couples seem to really appreciate having that private time. So, I let them take that in, have that space, I shoot them when they first see each other, and then let them have a little bit of time to themselves, and then start shooting their pictures. Depending on where we are, we’ll cruise around for 45-60 minutes, and then we’ll bring in the bridal party, and then the family. So, people don’t need to be there super, super early, we’re finishing up with the family about half an hour before the ceremony. And we stow the bride away, so none of the guests have seen her, she’s still fresh and everything. The bride and groom get to relax before the ceremony, and then the day turns into the whirlwind that it is. So, it’s nice to have that time, the calm before the storm, so to speak.

Liz: So, do you help out with the timeline at all? As a coordinator, that’s what my focus is on. So, for someone who doesn’t have a coordinator, how involved do you get?

Jen: I really like getting involved in the timeline for the day, if for no other reason than to make sure that there’s enough time to get all the shots that they want. If the client wants to get 40 family shots and we only have 15 minutes, that’s not going to work .
And I’ve been to a bunch of weddings, so I also know how receptions, especially, should flow, and that’s not something that everyone thinks about. You can’t just wing it. What I’ve found that really works is to have the Grand Entrance and then go straight into your first dance, it sets such a great tone for the day. So, I’ll help people put that together, make sure that it’s well-paced, not too dragging, not too many distractions, letting people have a good time.

Liz: During the reception, I know that your primary focus is on the bride and groom, but what are the shots that you make sure that you take, what else is it that you focus on?

Jen: You want to get the obivious things: the grand entrance, the father-daughter dance, the boquet toss, but what I really love doing is just following the bride and groom around, seeing where they’re going, who they’re talking to. Seeing who their best friends are, making sure that I’m getting shots with all the people that really matter to them. I also really like to follow the parents around, and seeing who they’re talking to and hanging around with.

Liz: Which, again, is why you have a second shooter.

Jen: Absolutely, you need two people , there’s no way for one person to get everything. I also want to find things that no one else is noticing. Kids asleep under the cake table, people having fun at the photo booth in the hallway, just kind of searching out what else is going on. And, of course, I want to get people on the dance floor, but not everyone is on the dance floor, and I want to make sure everyone is covered.
And that’s definitely another thing you should talk to your photographer about – how they shoot receptions. Some photographers will only shoot the bride and groom and the dancefloor. I’m really hyper-aware of shooting all of your guests, ALL of your guests.

Liz: And I concentrate on that with my time lines, too, I always try and get in some time where they can go to every table and say hi, or get pictures with all of their guests. So, when the bride and groom and guests do go to the online gallery, those memories are there. I’ve talked to so many people who were upset that they didn’t get a chance to talk to everyone, and that’s definitely something I want to make sure that they do. You were able to say hi, you were able to get a picture, that everyone feels included in the day. And I’ve said this five million times, anyone who reads my blogs, gets the newsletter. Your wedding day is obviously this day to celebrate your love with this other person that you’re going to spend the rest of your life with, but it’s also a wonderful, wonderful time to get together with all of your family, all of your friends, with all of the people you love and who love you. And it doesn’t happen that often. The last time I had all of those people in my life in one room was at my wedding, you know?

Jen: It’s weddings or funerals, right? And weddings are the happy times, so make the most of it.[Laughs]

Liz: [Laughs] Exactly. How many weddings do you do a year?

Jen: We stick to between 25-30. And I do that because I really want to make sure that I have enough time for clients. I don’t want to be so busy that I don’t have time to take phone calls and talk to people. That’s one of the advantages to having your own company, I can give my time to everyone. One of the first years that we started, we did 50 weddings, and I got to tell you by September, I was burnt out. Between the two of us, it was FridaySaturdaySundayFridaySaturdaySunday. And that’s not good for the clients, so we decided to limit the number of weddings we do a year.

Liz: Do you do one wedding a weekend, do you do one wedding a day? I know there are two of you, so sometimes you split up, how does that work.

Jen: It depends on the time of year, sometimes it’s one a weekend, sometimes one a day. We do split up sometimes and each take a second shooter, but we don’t ever shot two weddings each on one day.

Liz: [Laughing] No?
Jen: No, you couldn’t pay me enough to do that! You should see me at the end of a wedding, I’m done.

Liz: Yeah, I’m pretty much forbidden to do anything the day after a wedding. My husband freaks out if I even do something like go to the store, he freaks out about it, “No! You must rest!” So, I have my favorite part of every wedding, where I’m like, “oh, I love it when this happens!” What’s yours?

Jen: My favorite part is when the bride is getting ready. All the anticipation, all the excitement for the day, you haven’t seen each other yet, I feed off of that energy. She’s just gotten into her dress, that’s my favorite. And I have to say, I’m a sucker for a good Father-Daughter dance. I’m a total Daddy’s girl, and I have shed a tear or two, I’ve got to say. It always gets me.

Liz: My favorite part is when the bride and groom see each other for the first time, whether it’s the first look, or during the ceremony, that gets me every single time. I was at a wedding in San Diego a couple weekends ago, and just started bawling. And one of the guests said to me, “You probably go through a lot of mascara,” and I told her that I don’t even bother with mascara theres’s no point!

Jen: It shows that you love what you do. We’d be dead if we didn’t, and didn’t react that way.

Liz: It’s one of the best jobs in the world. You get to deal with love, you get to deal with joy, and you get to deal with pretty, and it’s awesome.

So, What other questions do you think that people should ask? What else do you feel that people should know?

Jen: Another question is, what is your photographer going to wear. For instance, if I’m going to a Black-tie event, I’m going to wear a suit. Or if it’s a casual beach wedding, my goal is to blend into the atmosphere. I would never wear sneakers or jeans, or anything like that, but I want to blend in. I’ve found that the photographer uniform, a good fall-back is that everyone wears black. But this is a good story, we were shooting a wedding in Palm Springs, and she wanted us to shoot the rehearsal dinner, and we showed up dressed in black – and it was a White Party.

Liz: Oh, no![Laughs]

Jen: Everyone was dressed in white. So, we were standing out like a sore thumb! So, definitely tell your photographer what type of party it’s going to be, and go over what they’re going to wear.

Liz: Is there any specific equipment or space you need when you’re at a wedding? Other than, obviously, a meal during the day.

Jen: Yeah, “feed me!” [Laughs]

Liz: Just to let everyone know, you’re going to have to feed your photographer!

Jen: I don’t have a lot of stuff, but I have enough, and DJs are usually pretty cool about letting me store it behind their table. But I’ll find a place for it. I want to keep it close by, but I’m definitely aware of not leaving it out in the open or in the way.

Liz: So, as far as working with other vendors, I always work very closely with photographers, because that’s one of the biggest moving parts of any wedding. And also with the DJ as well, as far as what’s going to happen when and when it needs to happen and when stuff needs to not happen –

Jen: Just as important.

Liz: Yeah, beause sometimes you don’t want to stop dancing to cut the cake. And sometimes you want to stop dancing in order to cut the cake, it depends on how things are going. So, can talk a little bit about how you interact with other vendors.

Jen: There are some vendors that I definitely interact with more than others. So, if there is a florist I know, I’ll come a little early to say hello to them, but they’re not usually there during the wedding. And I love talking with coordinators, and going over the schedule, and what happens when. But I also know that as organized as you can be, like y0u said, if people are dancing and having a good time, you’re not going to stick to the schedule and stop a good party. So, my advice to brides is to relax and let go of the day. Be as organized as you can be, but once you’re there, let whatever happens, happen. I tend to defer to the coordinator on that day, or the DJ, or whoever is running the day, and checking in with them every half hour or so – “Okay, are we on schedule, where should I be?” So, I’m not running off to the bathroom when they’re cutting the cake or whatever!

Liz: Wow, and it’s 8:02.

Jen: I can’t believe it, that was fast.

Liz: Is there anything else that you would like to say, as far as anything they should know?

Jen: Yeah, we covered a lot.

Liz: Is there anything else you would like to close with?

Jen: You know, I think that when you’re looking for a photographer, it can be overwhelming, because there are so many of us out there. You should start with picking a couple of sites at a time and going from there. Don’t even think about price at first, just see which images are really grabbing you. And follow through on three of them. Don’t interview 10 photographers, just go with three of them, find out where they are, their price range, figure out if it makes sense for you and your budget, and go from there. Everything gets so concerned about the cost, which is a totally reasonable concern, and you obviously don’t want to be looking at $20,000 photographers when you only have $5,000 but you should start with what you like, first, and then go from there. Everyone can find what they like in their budget. Meet with your photographer and make sure that you like them, not just their work. Because it really makes a difference, if you enjoy spending time with your photographer, because you’re going to be spending a lot of time with them.

Liz: That is a good point. These are pictures you are going to have for the rest of your life.

Jen: Yeah, and photography is one of the only things that you’re going to be taking away from your wedding. Not to belittle the other parts of it, because they’re all important, but think about it: your flowers are going to to die, you’re probably never going to wear the dress again. So, you’re taking away your marriage, your rings, and your photographs! And that’s it.

Liz: Yeah, you’re going to have your rings, your pictures and your spouse [Laughs]

Jen: You have to make sure you like them!

Liz: Because if you don’t like your pictures, you’re not ever going to like them. And as Jen said, very graciously, if you are concerned about cost, you should be able to find a photographer that fits into your budget, whose pictures you like. But you should with liking the pictures. And I also agree that you should start with three photographers, because it’s just so easy to get overwhelmed. And pick a photographer that you want to hang with. They’re going to be in your face all day, you’re going to be working on your album, you’re going to be spending lots of time with them.

Jen: Yeah, if you don’t like them, it’s going to taint how you see your pictures. Great pictures are important,but you need to like the photgrapher. I heard a horror story from a bride once about how she hated how her photographer acted on the day of her wedding, and now she can’t look at her pictures. And it just broke my heart, because you spend all this time and money and then to not be able to look at the pictures. It’s just very important. You need to love your photographer and you need to love your photography, they go hand in hand, literally.

Liz: Jen, thank you so so so much, and also for sticking through the technical difficulties.

Jen: Thank you!

Liz: I’m going to be posting the mp3 of this tomorrow, but I’m also going to do a transcript, which should be out by the end of the weekend, because I’ve found that the transcripts are a little easier for people to get through. Jen, can you tell me what your website is, again?

Jen: It is www.bandgphotography.com

Liz: And if they want to email you directly, it’s just jen@bandgphotography.com?

Jen: That’s right, and the phone number is 310-441-1581

Liz: So, once again, thanks for everyone for participating. And, of course, if you would like to talk to me about what wedding coordination looks like, you can call or text me at 310-801-3602 or email me at liz@silvercharmevents.com, and we’ll set up your complimentary consultation, and together we’ll figure out what you need to have the wedding you want.
My next newsletter are on Tuesday and Wednesday, and Friday is my weekly guest post on www.thebrokeassbride.com. I’m not sure what I’m writing about, but probably how important it is to get along with your vendors, I think that’s been a running theme through this teleclass!

Good night, everyone!