Our new friends Sarah and Dave were married yesterday at Bayshore in Oswego. Our old friend Karen was their coordinator at Bayshore so it was a good day for friends all the way around. Dave is such a sweet, caring guy - he loves Sarah with ALL of his soul. When he looks at her, the rest of the world seems to melt away and he forgets we’re all around. Sarah has the confident air of a woman who has found peace with her life, her love. She has an enthusiasm for life that just permeates everything from how she talks & thinks to her dancing expression of joy. She seems so blissfully happy in her world.
It was our tremendous pleasure to spend Sarah & Dave’s wedding with them - from the moment we first got together until the last dance and beyond last night, we’ve felt like we belonged at their wedding. We wouldn’t have missed this for the world and we’re so grateful to spend days like yesterday in our life. Here’s to new friends - and hopefully some great imagery.
It doesn’t really matter how many photos we take at a wedding - we shoot what it takes to do a great job for our couples. That being said you always know in the back of your mind “what the record is.” The record number of shots we’ve taken in one wedding was 3398 at Michael & Kristin’s wedding last year.
Every offseason we work on ideas, new lighting, things we want to do, etc. At Heather & Stefan’s wedding we shot 3830 images - a new record by almost 500! That was needless to say a record we thought would live forever. We shot A LOT of family formals, wedding party formals, we had tons of time with the couple and basically shot everything we could! It was a fantastic day and hopefully the photos showed themselves worthy of that many images being created.
Well….records are meant to be broken. We broke Heather & Stefan’s record not once but TWICE this weekend! We had back-to-back weddings and shot 4189 and *drumroll* 4830 photos! In all, we shot 9019 photos in 2 days, not including a portrait session on Saturday morning (another 250). 9000 photos in a weekend!!! Unreal. We are still working on all of these images of course but we hope the 9000 photos taken justifies the results again as well!
Now I have to get off the computer - my trigger finger hurts.
During our final meeting, Tom & Erin said they hoped we had good weather for the whole weekend but “really we’re trying to keep as much as possible for Saturday.” They couldn’t have kept more! The day turned out absolutely gorgeous all around. The weather was perfect, the rain held off until we stepped into the reception and everything went as planned.
Tom & Erin booked us for their wedding a LONG time ago and it was great to finally see all of their preparations & plans, hardwork and dedication to this wedding come together like it did. We truly do have the greatest clients ever. I know other people like to say that but for us, it’s just true. We loved Tom, Erin, all of their family & friends. The wedding party today was a riot and their families are so genuine.
Here are a few teaser images from Tom & Erin’s wedding. We have to go to bed for Sarah and Dave’s wedding tomorrow but I wanted to post a few before we do:
Congratulations to Tom & Erin! We will post your slideshow as soon as it is done! (read the post below about our week - it will be a little while!)
Oh one last thing - if you really want to get on your photographer’s good side, treat them like you want them at the wedding. Let’s just say not much beats a place card, table and good dinner.
This past week has been great - filled with final consultations, wedding interviews and meetings. A new hair cut for Sarah (photos after today’s wedding!) and a hike through Robert Treman State Park in Ithaca. That was, however, just the prequel.
In the next eight days we have:
- 3 weddings
- 3 portrait shoots
- 2 wedding interviews
- trips to Rome, Oswego, and Mexico.
And more! We also have photos to release from Elizabeth, our wonderful swimmer! Here’s one as a teaser:
Ok, I’m diving headfirst into the next eight days! See you on the other side with lots of photos and plenty of memories!
The Old Idea - Get married, get your dress dry cleaned, press it, put it away for 30 years. Pull it out and your oldest daughter wears it on her wedding day (despite whatever in-vogue style she maybe had in mind?).
The New Idea - Get married, call your photographer (or us), schedule your dress trashing and have fun! Get new, great photos of either yourself or you and your new husband having FUN getting down, dirty, wet, whatever it takes.
The Candidates - first and foremost, we are looking for real couples, real brides, etc. We would rather get our super-cool clients the awesome images than work with someone who models for us, etc. We want to show real women in real dresses. If a bride of ours wants to trash a dress but not her OWN dress, we can probably find one to trash!
This idea is catching on in NYC, SoCal, Florida, New Orleans - and why should Syracuse always be the “last to know?” We know! Let’s do it! Call or email us today and let’s trash a dress.
The Buzz Awards are a yearly competition at WPPI that showcase the best marketing campaigns throughout the year, best mailing piece, etc. When I was in Vegas, I didn’t get to go to the Award night because I had a mentorship meeting where I was talking to & helping another photographer (Dan - who won my Mentor Auction!).
Anyway, I was just looking something up on the Blossom website and found out we won an honorable mention at the Buzz Awards! http://www.blossom-publishing.com/buzz/ Very cool stuff! We had a feeling we wouldn’t WIN our first attempt but we wanted to try. We will definitely try again too.
I just thought I’d drop a short note to make sure you check out the resources we have linked above. One of them is Wedding Bee at http://www.weddingbee.com/ They are a very prolific group of bloggers - some married, some getting married, and a few special guests. I have the honor of being the first “Shutterbugz” poster, discussing photography styles. Check it out!
We have known Julie almost as long as we’ve been wedding photographers. Her sister Erin was our first truly STUNNING bride. We were soooooo surprised Erin & Rich chose us but we were thrilled! It’s been quite awhile since we shot Erin & Rich’s wedding and now it’s Julie’s turn on June 2nd.
This past week we went to Mexico (NY) and shot with Julie and her fiance Michael. We started out at the Behling Orchard and moved to Casey’s Cottage on the lake. Check out their photos and slideshow!
I’ve said it 100 times on the blog and I’ll say it again - my least favorite words are “I’m sorry, we’re booked for your date.” This especially stinks when you’re planning OVER A YEAR AHEAD and thinking you’re in. We currently have two very great inquiries for August 16, 2008. Both seem to like our work a lot, both seem like the type of people we want to work for, both can’t have the date.
Web planning sites and checklists can be dramatically wrong sometimes. Here’s a good example - TheKnot.com checklist says to “
