It has been said that travel broadens the mind, but shrinks the wallet. Broadly speaking that’s true. We are just finishing a trip to the Los Angeles area visiting my wife’s aunts house. She is married to a world renowned heart surgeon and they live in the Pacific Palisades, the next town south from Malibu. Needless to say, I am still getting lost in the house, it’s that big, which overlooks the Pacific. A million dollars will buy you a one bedroom house (with street parking) or smaller, another world from the Atlanta marketplace. Oddly, prices haven’t dropped here, they have just slowed in the growth rate.
We just took a walk down to the Farmers market in central Pacific Palisades and were sitting on a bench listening to the local high school band playing, while they were asking for donations so that their teacher didn’t get laid off due to California’s imminent bankruptcy.
I was looking around marveling at all of the photographic opportunities for neat bridal shots when I realized that if I lived here, I just wouldn’t see them. After all, familiarity breeds content… or that’s my version of the saying. It’s just that when you live in an area for long you just stop seeing it.
So why should that affect you hiring a local photographer for a destination wedding? Well, there are several reasons why you should not.
One, is that you’ll never see the photographer again, and he or she knows it. So he or she may not be concerned if the wedding photographs aren’t that good as you’ll be long gone when you get them.
Second, the local photographer will not see the location opportunities like a stranger will. A stranger will be excited by the look of everything and pick out interesting locations. Remember, the couple will also find the locations interesting as they are unique for them as well.
And third, your destination photographer will work like a dog while with you. I don’t think that you’ll like to pay for a destination photographer and have him lay on the beach. No, he’ll work, work, work. So you’ll get tremendous value for the money.
And that means many more images to review and add to your once in a lifetime wedding day album and prints.
I had two recent incidents that made me smile. One was during a shoot of a bride at a Kennesaw race track on Sunday. At the end of the shoot one of the photographers was looking at the photographs I took, and exclaimed to the bride … “Use his photographs, they are much better than mine!” Now that was flattery.
And as I run the Atlanta Wedding Photographers Association – www.atl-wpa.com I have gotten to know many metro Atlanta photographers. I’d say that a third a really good, a third are fair and the final third should quit the business and give the booking fee back to their clients. I’m sorry that couples wind up with the bottom third, but that’s business.
Anyway, one of the really good photographers called me a few days ago excited that she was getting married next year at the Chateau Elan, a really nice venue north-east of Atlanta. She said that she also knew a lot of photographers (she was and old hand at the business) but she wanted me to photograph her wedding.
I was honored, and sincerely flattered. When I shoot it, I’ll post some images under this post.
This may seem like a strange question, as your first response is to take pictures, but it isn’t. When you book a wedding photographer, you obviously want him or her to photograph your wedding. But how and why? Although your think that your photographer will take the pictures you want, he’ll actually take those that he thinks you’d like. Fortunately, often they are coincident with what you are expecting, but not always.
What should you do? It’s very important that you and your photography are on the same page. Although you may write your shot list, you need to have a sit down meeting just before the wedding and go over the details just so it sinks in. You have to remember, that a busy wedding photographer has a number of weddings lined up, and so it would be prudent that they become very clear about your wedding just before it happens. There will be fewer errors.
A key suggestion is to have all of the guests who will be in the formals close by, and have one person go down the list of each group to help the photographer. The assistant clearly announces who is in the next group, and the guests move smoothly through the formals cycle.
One last point. You can have your photographer shoot the formals outside in or inside out. If the reception is NOT at the same location as the wedding, he should do outside in. That means the largest group is photographed first and then smaller groups until just the bride. You do this, so some of the guests don’t lose interest and leave for the reception. Once they are gone, they are gone. Inside out, means starting with the bride and working towards the big group.
I prefer outside in as guests like to gravitate towards the bar and the snacks as soon as they can.