Weddingbee Blog

I plan on leaving it to the professional, minus my must-take list that will have all the portraits that we would need. I think there’s also a difference between posed portraits and nice, not so traditional posed portraits. Does that make sense?

I just don’t want to miss a pic with a family member or anything. I really do have to say, leave it up to the professional. Mine asked me on day one how I felt about photojournalism versus posed and so I think he gets that we would like a nice miss. I love our photog, so I trust him a lot!

I was reluctant to give our photographer the “must-take” list, thinking I would be IMPINGING on his ARTISTIC FLOW or something. Hire someone good & let them do their job, right?

But then I couldn’t help myself. I composed a 4-pg single spaced list of photos in a timeline. I gave him sample photos. We met & discussed ideas, poses, backgrounds, timing, the light, etc.

And I am so glad - I am delighted and thrilled with his work. He knew what shots I wanted and got them. (In the craziness of the day, it’s so easy to forget “take a pic with parents” even though it seems so obvious.)

I also love photojournalism, it’s fun and captures the emotion, but you need a mix with traditional formal styles. Ideally, your photographer can make the formal poses look fresh and not-boring.

It’s your one & only wedding day & you want it documented. Even after you hire the best photographer ever, tell them exactly what you want. Make it easy for them.

I’ve been aware of the “must-take” list for months, but we dismissed the notion of needing one because our wedding was so small.. The only relatives we had at our wedding were his parents, my parents, my sisters, and my uncle. And we still forgot to take a family portrait of his side! The day really is a big blur and a “must-take” list would have really helped.

On the bright side, I love love love all the photos that we did get. All 2000+ of them…

Our photos will be half digital, half film. We will have a must-take list of family, bridal party and details. I have a couple cousins in charge of rounding up my side of the family (the teenage boys who hate pics will probably try to escape to the beach).

Also, we are going to have 2-3 computers with card readers to download guests photos. My cousins will be running this for us. Lots of our guests take amazing photos (hopefully the 3 professional photographers who are guests will take lots! =) )

You can’t fix everything, but if you regret not getting engagement pictures, then why not just hire someone to take pictures? You won’t look any different unless it’s years down the road.

I’m the type of person who’s far more likely to send a candid shot or funny picture to family and friends than a posed shot, so I’m fine with not too many posed photos. There’s also only one set of grandparents between us, and very few aunts and uncles still living, so it’s not like we have a ton of people to track down for photos. My dress isn’t ornate, so I don’t need any close-up dress pictures, there isn’t a garter, we aren’t having toasts, or bubbles or rice, etc. We aren’t making a list of must-takes at all, but our photog is coming to the rehearsal dinner to meet the major players the evening before the wedding.

We’re heading over to the local train yard right after the ceremony to take pictures near graffitti-ed up trains, with anyone from the bridal party that wants to come.

What is the average budget for photographers??

I’ve hired a film photographer who dabbles in artsy shots, but is way more traditional, which is exactly what I want. While she told me to be responsible for what people I wanted in what shots, I’ll be writing down all family combos necessary so that I can just stand there and smile. Family members will have digital cameras, some of them very good, and probably take hundreds of photos on their own, so for me it’s the best of both worlds. My photographer was only $1000, but it was a quarter of my budget. And I live in rural Missouri.

we’re pretty much letting our photojournalistic digital wedding photographers to do whatever they want.

the only exception is that we must have family portraits done at some point in the day :).

The photographer I’m using will be using a film camera but will scan the film into digital files and put it on a CD for us. so we’ll have both the negatives and digital files! it seems like a lot of film photographers are doing this, these days. i plan to keep the negatives in a safety deposit box in a bank for absolute safety.

mrs. bee, could you buy the negatives from the photographer and/or if you already have it, can you have a service scan it into digital files for permanent keeping? i think that technology is available these days, and prices for this service will probably drop over time…

my photographer’s strength is in photojournalism but he made a point of asking me to come up with a must-take list. i think any photographer who understands and appreciates weddings for what it is, should be willing to accomodate the desire for both photojournalistic and posed photos.

kit - the photographer won’t know who your family members are — that’s why it can be chaotic and it will be helpful to have a list of must-take pictures for family members. the photographer will probably call out names on a list and might have an assistant to help corral the crowd into group photos.

Re engagement photos — I couldn’t really afford engagement pictures (since the wedding is so expensive already and every little bit of savings helps) –but I figured my fiance and I will be taking lots of pictures together immediately after the ceremony and during the wedding, so we will still have a lot of couple shots. And we like candid photos anyway!!