I'm an avid user of Google products. Seriously, I'm a total fan boy--I use Gmail, Google Docs, Google Reader, Google Voice, and search (of course). My phone even runs Google Android. So, I was really interested when I saw this blog entry on the official Google blog:

Simple Wedding Planning with Google Docs



Google has partnered with Style Me Pretty to create 20 or so templates to help manage your wedding planning. I've looked at a few of them and they are great. They're well organized and include a bunch of tips that are really helpful.

They include templates to collect guest addresses, choose a photographer, plan and manage your budget, organize the seating chart and more. There's even one, the 'All-in-one wedding planner' that includes everything you need in one.

You can check them out at docs.google.com/wedding. They're really a great resource that can help to keep you organized in your wedding planning.

--Ben

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Jessica and Lennie's wedding day was as frigid and windy as they come. In spite of that, they had a beautiful ceremony and a great reception. I'm so glad that I was able to be a part of it and share their day with them and their family and friends.

Here are a few of my favorites:



Their ceremony was held at the brand-new Semper Fidelis Memorial Chapel at the National Museum of the Marine Corps--the first ceremony held there, in fact. The chapel is a beautiful, simple wood, stone and glass building tucked into the woods on the grounds of the museum in Quantico, Virginia. It has several core Marine values etched into the side glass panels, a few of which I felt were particularly poignant at a wedding, including honor, commitment, and Semper Fidelis which is latin for 'Always Faithful.' It's a great chapel.



And here are a few from the reception, which was held at the Clubs at Quantico, on the Marine Corps base. As you can see, it was a fun night!



This is my absolute favorite from the day:



Thanks again, and congratulations to Jessica and Lennie!

I'll be blogging Jessica and Lennie's wedding soon--but first, the photo booth! Everyone seemed to really enjoyed it and have fun with it--although the introduction of boxing gloves and Hulk hands made it the most violent photo booth to date!

Thanks to my friend Channon Zabel of Urban East portraits for running the booth! Here are a few of my favorites:



--Ben

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It's been a while since I've posted a new entry in my occasional blog series of Wedding Tips for brides planning their wedding. This entry is going to discuss three articles from The International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers. A friend forwarded a link to the first one, and I found the others from clicking around on the ISPWP's site. It looks like a great resource for brides and photographers alike, so be sure to look around.

The Secret Life of Wedding Photographers

First up is the article my friend sent me, about the secret life of wedding photographers. It starts with two pie charts. First, the perception of how a photographer spends his time:



Then, the cold hard reality chart:



It's kind of humorous, but I can attest that it is a pretty good breakdown of what really goes into running a photography business and what is really behind the price of wedding photography. I link to it in the hopes that couples who read this will have a better understanding of what they're really paying for--that it's not just 8 hours of shooting on their wedding day. It's a whole lot more.

The other two articles, Five Myths about Wedding Photography and 3 Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring a Wedding Photographer are very complimentary to each other and I recommend reading them both all the way through. I want to specifically highlight a few myths and mistakes that I feel are particularly important:

MYTH: “Wedding photojournalists don’t take formal portraits”

Wedding photographers who shoot in a photojournalistic style spend most of their day documenting the wedding day as it happens without intervening or directing. Their goal is to take images of the day as they happen and not create or setup images. This often leads to the misconception that wedding photojournalists don’t take ANY posed portraits or group shots.

I definitely lean more towards a photojournalist shooting style. For the most part, I am there to capture your wedding day as it happens in beautiful photos that you'll enjoy for the rest of your life. The main exception to that is the formal portraits and family group shots. A wedding is one of those times when the whole family gets together and is a great time to get a few photos of everyone together. It's rarely anyone's favorite part of the day, so I do my best to make it efficient and go smoothly so that we can get great shots of family without intruding on the festivities. I also like to take a little while with the bride and groom after the group photos to make some beautiful portraits of just the two of them before we head to the reception.

Mistake # 1 – Don’t Make the Mistake of Overlooking the Photographer’s Personality

When you are hiring a wedding photographer, don’t hire someone whom you don’t really like on a personal basis! Their photos might be great, but remember that your photographer is going to be a very substantial participant in your wedding day, not only capturing your memories, but becoming a big part of them!

I've touched on this in the past, but it's always a good point to reiterate. When looking for a photographer, make sure you like them personally, in addition to liking their photos. You don't want to look back and think "what a great photo, but man, the photographer was obnoxious!"

MYTH: “It’s better to have two mediocre/inexpensive photographers than one excellent/expensive photographer”

If you’re thinking of hiring multiple photographers for the sole reason of getting lots of images and viewpoints, don’t forget that you shouldn’t skimp on quality. It’s more important for you to focus on the talent and portfolio of the photographer(s) you are considering rather than the number of photographers who will be at your wedding.

This is a good point that I don't think gets made very often. It can seem like an obvious thing to think that two photographers are always better than one. While I offer the option of a second photographer, I think it's really only necessary if you're having a particularly large number of guests. I believe that for most weddings, as the article points out, that "talent and experience (quality) are more important than focusing solely on quantity."

Like I said above, both of these articles are very informative and helpful and I recommend reading them all the way through. There's a lot of conflicting information out there about what to look for in wedding photography and I think these two articles do a good job of pointing you in the right direction.

As always, I hope these tips have been helpful to you!

--Ben

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I posted a sneak peek from Jessica and Lennie's engagement portrait session a few weeks ago. You'll remember that we had their session on and around the Wilson Bridge in DC. We were lucky to have a beautiful day with beautiful light and we had a great time. This post has a few more of my favorites from the session.

We started out at Jones Point Park which is a little park at the base of the bridge on the Virginia side. It's got a nice little patch of forest that ends at the banks of the Potomac River and offers a great view of the bridge.




There's a little fishing pier right under the bridge, so we headed out on it for a few shots. The family fishing from the pier were pretty amused as we got started .



We then headed up onto the Wilson Bridge itself. Earlier this year they finished the bridge and opened a walkway that goes from Alexandria, VA across the bridge and to National Harbor on the Maryland side. So, we parked in Alexandria and walked out to the first viewing station.



We got to National Harbor just as the sun was setting and shot around into the early night.



I had a great time with Jessica and Lennie and I'm really looking forward to shooting their wedding in January!