The Gearys engaged the photographic team of Ian McCloskey and Nikki Carter to photograph their wedding at a price of seven hundred fifty pounds sterling.

Lest you think that first photo is a complete fluke, here’s another example of McCloskey and Carter’s Work:

The entire album is brimful of blurry, poorly composed, amateurish shots just like these. In fact, in the picture of the Gearys signing their wedding register, there’s a disembodied hand holding a toy motorcycle where McCloskey and Carter attempted to edit out the bride’s small nephew… and failed.

When the Gearys saw their photos, they thought at first it was a joke and the real pictures would come soon. They soon discovered this was no joke. They demanded their money back.

It was not to be. McCloskey and Carter had already disbanded the business in the face of a string of disgruntled customers demanding their money back.

Gee, I wonder why.

But the really sad thing is that this entire situation could have been avoided. How? The Gearys could have taken a little time and trouble to check out McCloskey and Carter’s credentials.

When picking a vendor to handle any aspect of your wedding, always be certain to ask to see recent examples of their work and get references… then call the references and ask them about both the quality of the work and how it was working with that vendor. Do a quick Google search and see if you find complaints filed about them – and for what.

Finding a good photographer on a really tight budget isn’t easy. If you’ve got less than the average to spend, you may find yourself choosing between mediocre pictures of the entire event or a smaller number of pictures that are done better. Only you can decide which better suits your needs. But I can guarantee you one thing: pictures this bad shouldn’t ever happen for pay.

In fact, I got better pictures of my wedding from guests who barely knew which end of a camera was which!

But we also have a beautiful album of professional shots that make me smile every time I look at them.

Me? I wasn’t like that. I’ve known a lot of other brides who were more like me. They spent their wedding days really at their weddings and remember them clearly years later.

You may simply be the sort of person who gets caught up in emotions and forgets the details. It happens. But if your fog or forgetfulness springs from another source, there are ways to get more in touch with the moment and truly enjoy yourself at your wedding.

Plan the day in a way that makes you comfortable. It’s easy to get caught up in what’s expected or listen to someone else tell you what makes them relax. For instance, a lot of guides will tell you to make sure you have nothing whatsoever to do on your wedding day other than get married. For some, that’s great advice. For others, it’s a one-way ticket to nerves and stress. I helped make salads and set up the site on my wedding day, and I wouldn’t do it any other way. I’d have gone bonkers with nothing to do with my hands.

So think about whether doing something practical that day will relax or stress you. Think about whether having someone do your hair and make up for you will make you feel confident or drive you up a tree. Will having the photographer there while you’re dressing make you uncomfortable? Nix it if it will!

You’re an individual. Your stressors may be very different from another person’s. Work around who you really are. Don’t make yourself more stressed than you need to be.

Consider doing formal portraits before the ceremony or after the honeymoon. Mr. Twistie and I had all our formal photos taken before we went to the altar, and I would do it that way again. In China, some couples have their wedding portraits taken up to a year in advance. Still other couples have found it practical to hire a photographer to do candids at the wedding itself, but save up the formal portraits for after the honeymoon. Yet others will take all the formal shots that don’t require both the bride and groom in the shot before the ceremony, and the few remaining ones afterwards.

Any of these scenarios means less of a gap between the time the couple ties the knot and the time they arrive at their own shindig. That means earlier access to food, fun, and your guests.

Have a receiving line. I know a lot of people think this is stuffy, old fashioned, and for the birds, but I still think it’s worth doing. Why? Because it means you don’t miss greeting anyone, and you don’t spend the dinner hour missing the food because you’re hopping from table to table and then tracking down stragglers. If you’re having more than fifty people at your wedding, a receiving line just makes things easier.

Then once the line is done with, you can relax and concentrate on interacting with your guests rather than calculating who you’ve missed saying hello to. You can get the meal you paid for instead of getting two bites before you have to race off and talk to someone you missed. And eating your meal? Helps you keep from getting light headed from hunger. It also helps you keep the alcohol from hitting extra hard on an empty stomach. All these things help keep you in the moment.

Ditch any traditions you don’t care about. Reading over a typical wedding reception timeline can leave you thinking you’ll spend the day running from one photo op to the next with no chance to catch your breath. Funnily enough, most of those traditions and photo ops are entirely optional. If any of them make you uncomfortable, annoy you, or just seem like too much trouble, you are perfectly free to not do them. If there’s something you’d rather do, like hire some belly dancers or a magician to perform, there’s no law against having them. Do what seems like fun to you.

Organize as much as you can in advance, and then put it into someone else’s hands on the day. One of the things that relaxed me the most in the days leading up to my wedding was the fact that I’d crossed my i’s and dotted my t’s and had all the paperwork at my fingertips. When you know you’ve done what you can to make things smooth, it’s easier to believe that it will go reasonably smoothly.

Of course, something will go wrong. It’s the nature of life. So on the big day, have someone deputized to handle all crises and make sure everyone knows who that is. Don’t try to handle every little detail that goes wonky yourself. Go play with your guests and let your assigned deputy – whether that’s a bridesmaid, a relative, or a hired day-of coordinator – deal with missing flowers, the ring bearer’s stage fright, and Great Aunt Beatrice’s dislike of the choice of processional music. You don’t need to deal with those things in the middle of your wedding.

Speaking of things going wrong, remind yourself regularly that perfect isn’t going to happen. If you’re comfortable with the fact that something will go wrong, chances are you’ll deal with it more rationally when something does go wrong.

Whether it’s something small like a bridesmaid in sudden need of an aspirin, or something big like finding the bakery delivered the wrong cake (That actually happened to a friend of mine! But since she was ready for something to go wrong, she decided that the gold frosting fit her color scheme and that the fact it was a fiftieth anniversary cake that would feed her entire guest list was a good omen), if you’re aware it’s coming, you can roll with the punches better. So keep your head and your sense of humor. It will relax you and help you stay in the moment.

While planning things, make sure you take time out to do non-wedding-related things, too. It’s easy to get so focused on menus and seating arrangements and choosing just the right readings for the ceremony that you forget to live your life in the meantime. But if you take time to see movies, go bowling, take night classes, and just hang out with friends, it’s a lot harder to get so completely obsessed that you lose sight of the bigger picture. Sure, your wedding is important. It’s a major life-changing event. It deserves its due importance… but it isn’t everything.

Remember to make time for the other things in your life. It helps keep things in perspective.

When you’re at your wedding, be at your wedding. You’ll have a better time and remember things the photographer didn’t happen to catch with the camera.

When wedding photographer Jerry Tomko survived stomach cancer in 2007 thanks to the excellent care he received at Thomas Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, he wanted to give back to those who had saved his life. And so it was that he asked the center to find a cancer patient or survivor who needed some nice wedding pictures.

For quite a while, the center didn’t have any ideas who Tomko could help. Then along came social worker and mother of four Melinda Muniz.

Muniz thought little of it when she began to feel tired every day last spring. After all, she was juggling a demanding career and four children as well as spending time with longtime love Christopher Jones, who is the father of her two younger children.

But then a tooth infection lead to dizziness, then fever, and she went to the emergency room for help. Doctors took a blood sample and discovered leukemia.

Late in may, she was transferred to Thomas Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center in dire condition. Jones, a maintenance worker,quit night school to take care of the children and Muniz started around the clock chemotherapy. The couple had been engaged since 2009, but decided they didn’t want to wait anymore. With Muniz too weak to even make it to the hospital chapel, they were married in her room. Pictures were taken, but Muniz describes them as ‘grim.’

Thanks to some amazing medical advances and great care, Muniz managed to beat her cancer. Using her twin sister as a half match bone marrow donor, she’s doing better. Muniz and Jones decided to have a more traditional ceremony – hopefully with happier pictures.

An oncologist remembered Tomko’s offer and told him Muniz’s story… and a wedding album was born.

In addition to the photographs, Tomko provided the happy couple with a bouquet and limo. As you can see above, Muniz and Jones have beautiful photographs to contrast with the grim hospital room ones.

May they have many years to share their joy and their love.

In this case, I was pointed in the direction of an article at Jezebel about a wedding missing an important person and how the family dealt with it in the photos.

You see, the groom’s father (at least I’m assuming it’s the groom’s father since they look a lot alike and it’s the groom’s sister who did the alterations to the pics) fell ill and wound up being in the hospital on the wedding day. The wedding went ahead as scheduled, but of course everyone missed the missing father, as you do.

So the groom’s sister sat down with the wedding pics and Photoshopped him into a selection.

How do I feel about this one? Well, if whoever is ill is going to be fine, and if it’s done in this entirely tongue-in-cheek way of adding completely ridiculous images, and if it’s just a few pics mostly for the family… then I kind of LOVE it. Otherwise I think I might HATE it.

But right now I’m finding myself thinking of asking Photoshop wiz Mr. Twistie to take my fave shot of my mother living it up at the Renaissance Fair and digitally adding it to one of our wedding photos. I know she would have had just that great a time at our wedding, had she lived to see the day.

So what do all of you think?

One of these stories is that of Todd Remis and his attempt to sue the living daylights out of his wedding photographer.

It seems that when Mr. Remis married his blushing bride in 2003, the photographer on the scene from H&H photography studio failed to capture the final fifteen minutes of the reception, including the bouquet toss and the last dance. Mr. Remis was also disappointed to find that the videotape of the six-hour event was only two hours long.

Okay, missing the bouquet toss – while it probably wouldn’t make me lose eight years of sleep – was a mistake. But the last dance is hardly an iconic wedding moment in most peoples’ lives, and believe me, six hours of every sneeze and electric slide is more than the most hardy of home movie viewers usually wants to see of even their own wedding. I would have advised Mr. Remis to tell all his friends he didn’t think H&H did a good job and leave it alone after that.

But Mr. Remis seems ill-acquainted with the art of Letting Stuff Go. He’s demanding that H&H restage his entire wedding at a cost of some $48,000 and bring all the principals together again so that they can capture those precious fifteen minutes… never mind that the marriage ended in divorce in 2009. Incidentally, that’s also the year he got around to filing his lawsuit citing among other things ‘infliction of emotional distress.’ He also claims that the photographs were ‘unacceptable’ in terms of lighting, color, poses, and – I don’t know – flavor?

Among the many fine reasons this seems unlikely to be a practical plan is the fact that Mr. Remis’ ex-wife has apparently returned to her native Latvia leaving no forwarding address.

The judge in the case – Justice Doris Ling-Cohan of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan – is allowing the breach of contract part of the lawsuit to go forward, but has dismissed much of the rest of it, including the emotional distress claim. She even went so far as to quote the title song from the film The Way We Were in mentioning her suspicion that Mr. Remis’ motives may have more to do with his ‘misty water-colored memories’ of his erstwhile marriage than his satisfaction or lack thereof with the services of H&H photography studio.

Mr. Remis, please. Your marriage is over. Your wife left the country. For the sake of your own sanity, if no other reason, just drop it.

The best way to look at an unexpected bit of precipitation on your wedding day is as a great opportunity to get some truly spectacular photos that will stand out from other wedding albums.

(via Andre Duerinckx)
The thing I love about this photo is how the umbrella co-ordinates with the wedding colors… though I can’t help thinking how hard it is on those bridesmaids to stand there in the cold in those little sundresses.

(via Tom Philo Photography)
Of course, if you’re holding an outdoor ceremony in Oregon, chances are you have more umbrellas handy.
(via Ravenburg Photography)
I adore these photos, especially the one on the left. The casual sweetness of the jacket thrown over her shoulders utterly delights me. Do be sure to go check out the whole album. There are some great shots in it!
(via Say Anything)
The lovely lady who posted this photo of her wedding was hoping to win a new set of wedding photos because of her disastrous day… but I have to say I would never have guessed without reading her story, because this picture of the bride and her maids protecting their wedding finery with garbage bag ponchos strikes me as the most fabulous example of making lemonade I’ve seen in yonks.

Whatever happened with the contest she entered, I sincerely hope she’s come to appreciate what an awesome image that really is.
(via Love Olio)
Or you can always do what this delightful couple did and ignore the weather. After all, they have their love to keep them warm.

When I was asked to write about my five favorite wedding photos, my brain went nuts. It did not narrow the field to five. My brain was not helpful.

Upon further contemplation, I decided that this could be a great learning experience! Really thinking about what I like and why I like it. And maybe it will help some future brides decide what they like… guiding them to make a great choice of a photographer? I hope so!

Without further ado, in no particular order…

Number one comes from a recent wedding:

By Todd Pellowe Weddings

By Choco Studio

By True Love Photo

By Luster Studios

By Cheyenne Shultz Photography

By Erin Langford Photography

By Ryan Brenizer

Love it? Hate it? Think it’s slightly ridiculous but overall okay because, hey, no one’s getting hurt? (That’s my take.)

Ah, the classic wedding ring photo...

Oh my, Wedding Photography Week II is winding down. And that means getting down to the nitty gritty – wedding ring photography. Love it or hate it, it’s one of those things I suggest letting your wedding photographer take since it’s a five second process and you may end up liking them. That said, I found a great set of wedding ring photography tips in a wedding photography guide for brides and grooms written by wedding photographer Glen Johnson. Here’s a taste:

This is one of the most difficult shots to get for a wedding photographer. Most couples are not aware of the fact that they are blocking it either with their hand positions or with their bodies. To turn this moment into a great photo opportunity, all you need to remember is that as you are putting the ring on, position your fingers on the top and bottom instead of on the sides of the ring.

One more tip is to avoid extending your free hand out to grab your partner’s wrist so that you can push that ring on there better. If you feel it is necessary to do this, try putting your hand UNDER your partner’s hand and grabbing on from below. This approach prevents your wrist from blocking the shot. Practice this couple of times, and you will see that it is possible to put the rings on while keeping your ring visible from your guests’ view, and photo capture.

Do you plan on taking wedding ring photos? Would you be terribly disappointed if your ‘slipping the ring on his/her finger’ shots didn’t come out?

So let’s say, apropos of yesterday’s post about wedding photos making you nervous, you’re feeling a bit or maybe a lot squeamish about having a wedding photographer all up in your business during your ceremony and reception. Now besides the fact that you can specifically ask your wedding photographer not to be so in your face – which many aren’t to begin with – you can also take some of the pressure to look good off your mind by making wedding photography FUN.

Would you rather write a thousand vows than take one wedding photo?

How? By thinking up some fun action shots and other poses that you can suggest to your photographer or ask her or him to do.

If you read that and thought to yourself “I’m not that creative,” say hello to my best friend, the Internet. And if searching through thousands of wedding photos for some creative inspiration doesn’t sound like fun – !!! – then I let me recommend David Pearce’s Wedding Photography: A Guide to Posing. It’s a wee book meant primarily for wedding photographers, but it can be a great inspirational guide for couples, too. It has 525 full color images of brides and grooms being photographed in various ways to give you all kinds of cool and doable ideas about body positioning, location, lighting, and more.

Should you try to be in complete control of your wedding photos from the processional to the last dance? No way – you’re hiring a professional wedding photographer for a reason, so let them do what they do best. But by learning a bit about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to wedding photos, you’ll be more confident about being the star of your wedding album, and you’ll be much better able to communicate the kinds of wedding photos that you want to your photographer so you can relax and have fun with it.

Confidence? Knowing what you want? Fun? Sounds like you just conquered those wedding photo nerves!