Weddings are in the air!

 It's been a busy few weeks and weddings are in the air! I photographed a wedding a couple of weeks ago but the next one is a family affair. My son is getting married in a couple of weeks time and that is taking a lot of my attention right now. We are planning our trip out to the west coast for the wedding; airfares and hotels are booked, the rental car is arranged and I've found someone to care for our elderly diabetic cat while we are away. It should be a wonderful trip, but I can't help thinking about last year's adventure, when we had to reschedule everything due to COVID...

I generally enjoy weddings, especially when I'm a guest.  I'll be taking my camera anyway but it won't be my job to cover every last moment of the day. This is my son's second marriage and he is determined to do everything better than the last time. His first marriage took place on a day where temperatures unexpectedly soared to 103°F. The bride got heat exhaustion and the candles on the tables at the outdoor reception melted. There aren't many pictures of that wedding; the photographer he engaged from Craig's List was better at photographing table decorations than family.

It is a fact that I have never heard anyone say they wish they had spent LESS on their wedding photography!  So why is it that many couples try to go cheap?  Your wedding photography is the only way to remember the details of the wedding day that cost so much and passed by in a blur!  Of course we all have our memories but memory is a funny thing. I think of the Lerner and Lowe song from Gigi, "Ah yes, I remember it well". The point of the song, of course, is that the old lovers have completely different memories of how they first met. 

I have just signed up to be a vendor at a wedding expo in August and I will enjoy talking to couples about their plans and educating them on the value of what I do. Everyone has a "cousin with a camera" or a friend who has volunteered to take pictures for free.  I have news for you: you get what you pay for.  From the friend who got drunk and lost the exposed film, to the DVD of image files discovered to  be unreadable, (after the free photographer had deleted the originals); in my 15 plus years of photographing weddings, I have heard some horror stories!  But that is a subject for another blog post!