Suddenly I See… A Slideshow
January 18th, 2008 @ 11:23 am by Mrs. Jasmine
Anyone who knows me knows this much is true: I’m a sentimental, schmaltzy sap. I cry during commercials for long-distance telephone services. I coo over adorable babies and in my eyes, *all* babies are adorable. I save ticket stubs, stuffed animals, greeting cards, invitations, notes, letters, old photos, fortunes from fortune cookies, etc.
So I knew one thing was given: there was definitely going to be a slideshow at our wedding. I know a lot of people find slideshows really boring and I think they can be if the right elements aren’t in place. But when a slideshow is well-done, it can be a poignant, funny, sweet moment during the reception.
– First, the slideshow has to be a reasonable amount of time. Always leave people wanting more! Ten minutes is the absolute maximum length of time before even your own mother starts zoning out.
– The slideshow should try to include as many guests as possible. There is nothing more boring that watching a ten minute photo montage of the same two people. But if I think there’s a chance I might spot myself in the slideshow, I immediately perk up (as self-absorbed as that might be). Making sure your slideshow includes lots of pictures of close family members and friends is also a sweet way to recognize them for their role in your life.
– Music can really set the tone for a good slideshow. It’s a great opportunity to choose songs that really showcase your personalities and represent you as a couple.
Mr. Jasmine and I are still working out the soundtrack for our slideshow, but we like what we have so far. For the first part (my life from birth to present), we’re going to play KT Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See”.
Completely ubiquitous, I know, but I love the song and everything about it fits my personality.
For the last part (pictures of us as a couple), we’re going to use Queen’s “You’re My Best Friend”. Here is the song in a moving and totally amusing tribute to the Jen Aniston/Courteney Cox friendship.
In the movie The Break-Up, that song plays during the Jen and Vince photo montage and I’ve always loved it. Plus, it fits well with “Suddenly I See” in that they’re both lively and vaguely folksy.
We just need a song for Mr. Jasmine’s part and we’re still working on finding the right one– one that represents his personality and blends well with the other two.
Are you including a slideshow in your wedding? Do you have any tips to share?
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20 Responses to “Suddenly I See… A Slideshow”
I love it. We used that Queen song at the end of our slideshow, too, for our “couple” photos. It was great — good pick!
We are working on one too, but I am clueless as to what songs to use. I have to say, it is pretty amusing going through all those old pics of Mr. Hydrangea (and I’m sure he feels the same way)!
I LOVE seeing slideshows at weddings — but if they’re 15 minutes long, I get annoyed. I went to a wedding where it was literally 15-20 minutes, showcased every activity the bride ever thought about doing, and had about six songs. Way overdone. Ours was about 3-5 minutes, and as a special “surprise” at the end, after all the photos of the two of us, we had the actual video clip of us getting engaged. People loved that! Oh, and we used Michael Buble’s “Everything” as one of the songs. Love that song!
Mine was only 6 minutes long. We did “My Girl” for my pictures (it was mainly a me as a kid and then me and my friends segment), “My Guy” for his segment, and then “Better Together for our segment.
I didn’t want to bore my guests plus my photographer put together a slideshow of the pictures from the day’s events and that was about 6 minutes long too. We had a long break in between the slideshows and my guests loved both of them!
my dad decided to put together a slideshow for my wedding…. and believe me, we all sighed a sigh of relief when the projection system inexplicably crashed - the slideshow was nearly FORTY MINUTES LONG. I’m so glad that guests only got to see about 8 minutes of it! It was really sweet of my dad to do, and I’m glad to have the DVD for myself - but 40 minutes is just PAINFUL! haha
I’m such a loser that we have “You’re My Best Friend” as our Woofie- From Puppy to Grown Up slideshow. So sad.
What about Feist’s 1,2,3,4, if you’re looking for upbeat?
We didn’t have a slideshow, since we never take pictures!!
really, 10 minutes is way too long! Even a first dance of 4 minutes seems long. I’d say the span of 6 minutes is pushing it, especially if 2 complete songs have played.
I kinda started working on ours yesterday, getting myself familiar with the programs on my computer.
I love slideshows and I am doing the same as you, putting as many pictures of our guests as we can to get them interested and feel involved because obviously they are!
I can’t wait to see yours! Woop woop!
Other thing I was going to say was that I was going to use more upbeat songs so that it’s not too mellow and they bored. =)
I loved the photo montage from the break-up and ever since then we’ve decided to use “You’re my best friend” in ours too.
Our videographer is putting our slideshow together with an interview he did of us…I told him 10 minutes max!
So far I want somewhere over the rainbow for me growing up, not sure about him - maybe the wonder years song and The Luckiest for the couple pictures…
Miss Jasmine….
This is so strange… I just got married in August… We had a slide show also and we used the these same songs! For my part, I used “Suddenly I See” and for us as a couple we used “You’re My Best Friend”. And for the life of me, I cannot remember my husband’s song…But it was great and our guests loved it.
This is a huge thing for me, the slideshow. I can’t wait to start working on it. I’m a big fan of Eels and Badly Drawn Boy…they’ll figure in there, somehow. And pretty much the entire Rushmore Soundtrack. “Suddenly I See” is such an awesome song! Great choice, definitely.
It seems like a lot of people these days are showing their actual wedding photos in lieu of a story-of-my-life montage. Since so many photographers are going digital, they can have an assistant put together a quick best-of, and it’s a nice surprise for the guests to see what when on for the couple during cocktail hour. This idea works even better if you take photos before the ceremony.
Does anyone have any recommendations for a good program to use to create the slideshow?
I agree with your point about including as many guests as possible! We played ours at the rehearsal dinner and I was able to get all of our family and friends who attended the dinner in at least one photo — people loved that. Song-wise we used “Landslide” (Dixie Chicks) for my portion, “The Only Living Boy in NY” (Simon & Garfunkel) for his, and “In a Little While” (U2) for the pictures of both of us … total length was about 7 and a half minutes, which seemed to go over well.
Oh, and I used ProShow Producer (www.photodex.com/) — the basic model was $29.99, had all of the options I wanted and was incredibly easy to use.
My dad worked long and hard to make us one. I don’t remember what program he used, but he loved it and it turned out great!
We tried to get songs applicable to the point in our lives. Like “You are my sunshine” for pics when I was a little girl since my dad used to sing it to me. Or, 10,00 Maniac’s “These Are Days” for my college days. (Yes, I’m a bit older). My now-hubby had Mellencamp’s Small Town for when he was a boy. Then, for the pics of when we first started dating, I used At Last by Etta James (one of my favorite songs). My mom got a kick out of it since we met later in life (at 30/31) and it also sounds like at last we finally met and fell in love. =)
I have more song recs if you’d like them. I think we used about a total of 10 (not the entire ones, though).
I love to make slideshows… so much that it turned into a small business on its own… I also cry on every commercial i see, every movie.. i mean talking about sappy… i even cry when i make this slideshow for other people… My creativity, combined with my over-emotional personality combined with my love of computers end up in this.. http://www.ShockEventsMiami.com
Check out my sample videos… with personalized backgrounds, animation slides and poems.. its a great keepsake to have.
Mrs. Jasmine, Chicago/LA
Age and Occupation: 25, Attorney
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Attorney
Engagement Date: March 24, 2007
Wedding Date: June 7, 2008
Blogging Since: September 20, 2007
Venue: Hotel on the westside of Los Angeles
About Me: I'm a happy-go-lucky, imaginative spirit trapped in the body of a lawyer. I love reading, shopping, dining out, and exploring my beloved adopted city of Chicago with my fiance. We're planning the wedding of our dreams in my hometown of Los Angeles and we're excited to incorporate our cherished Indian/Pakistani customs and traditions.
i LOVE “suddenly i see”!! i dunno if you’ve ever watched “so you think you can dance” but that was one of the signature songs on it during season two and i was obsessed with it!!
like the second song too…what great selections!! can’t wait to see what you’re going to pick for mr. j!