MY LOVE OF GREAT PHOTOGRAPHERS

Being in the wedding industry not only do I have the opportunity to meet the many photographers we are so lucky to have access to in the Ottawa area but as a wedding coordinator I also have the privilege of working with them and let me tell you, the truly great ones amaze me!

Planning a wedding as you may or may not know is a long process and a lot of hard work but the end result is always worth it and I love the role I play in making it all happen! I get to be the support my couples need throughout the planning process and the one who makes sure all their hard work pays off on their wedding day. And when their wedding day arrives I tell all my couples the same thing – It may have taken many long months to plan this day but now that it's here it’s going to fly by so take the time to savour each and every moment of it… and thank God you have a great photographer! Okay, maybe I don't say the photographer part out loud but I definitely think it.

I remember looking back at my own wedding pictures and thinking just that – thank God we had a great photographer! The details I worked so hard on to make sure our wedding day was a reflection of "us", the chair I had reserved at our ceremony honouring the memory of my dad, the professional pictures I'm so happy to now have with my mom, and the beautiful posed shots of our wedding party, family and friends. All these pictures make me smile. A good photographer will provide you with these wonderful images of your wedding but it's a photographer who is truly able to capture the emotion of your day that makes him great! The loving way my husband looked at me, the laughs (and tears) we shared, the special moments between us. If our photographer had not caught these on film I never would have known they happened.

These pictures were not posed for nor planned, they were just moments throughout our day that our photographer captured because he knew they would later mean something to us. Pictures that, regardless of the time that has passed since our wedding, are still able to bring back all the emotion I felt on that day and make it seem as though no time has passed at all.

Taken by a few of the great photographers in the Ottawa area, here is a small sample of images I absolutely love simply because of the emotion you can't help but feel when you look at them.

Blair Gable

Derrick Rice (wedding coordinated by Weddings Unveiled)

Andrew Geddes

Mike Dickson - And to prove my point, here is a quote from the bride: "I love this photo because when I was thanking my Dad in my speech I was very emotional and didn't have the guts to look at him. However his reaction to what I was saying was important to me and I would have never seen it had this photo never captured it... thanks Mike."

THE MUST LIST

The key to an amazing wedding album? Making sure that your photographer captures all the right moments: your father walking you down the aisle, the big kiss, your favourite nephew moonwalking across the dance floor. InStyle Weddings put together a list of 40 wedding day shots your photographer just can't miss.



1 - The invitation
2 - Bride having her hair and makeup done
3 - The gown and shoes
4 - Bride's bouquet
5 - Bridesmaids or mom buttoning up/zipping up the gown
6 - Bride getting ready in the mirror
7 - Bridemaids reacting to bride in her gown
8 - Groom getting ready/somebody pinning on his boutonniere or tying his tie
9 - Bridal party and family members walking down the aisle
10 - Groom waiting for bride to come down the aisle
11 - Bride and her escort walking down the aisle
12 - Groom's face when he sees bride
13 - Father giving away his daughter
14 - Bride and groom at altar or chuppah
15 - Exchanging vows
16 - Parents and guests watching the ceremony
17 - Special moments during the ceremony (candle lighting, breaking the glass)
18 - The kiss!
19 - Bride and groom coming back up the aisle
20 - Couple leaving the ceremony and being showered with rice, flower petals, bubbles, etc
21 - Portraits (couple alone, with wedding party, with parents and with family)
22 - Multigenerational shots (bride, mom and grandma)
23 - Guests mingling during the cocktail hour
24 - Bride and groom arriving at reception
25 - Bride and groom greeting guests
26 - Reception tables before guests arrive
27 - The band
28 - First dance
29 - Bride dancing with her father
30 - Groom dancing with his mother
31 - Wide shot of guests on dance floor
32 - Kids having fun
33 - Grandparents and other older guests
34 - Friends and family making toasts
35 - The couple reacting to toasts
36 - The cake
37 - Cake cutting
38 - Bouquet toss
39 - Bride and groom leaving reception
40 - The couple having a private moment

Photo Credits: Para TiNovia

VIVA'S BOOK CLUB - BEING IN LOVE NEVER GOES OUT OF STYLE

As the editor-in-chief of Grace Ormonde Wedding Style magazine, Grace Ormonde has built an enviable reputation in the wedding industry by creating the platforms for wedding specialists to showcase their products and services while offering prospective brides and grooms a multitude of choices, ideas and alternatives when planning their wedding.

After ten years of documenting extraordinary weddings and their elements, Grace Ormonde presents this collection of her personal favorites in one comprehensive volume.

Hold onto your panties!....

Because you are about to be blown away with some stunning imagery.

I am sure, more often than I want to know, I will post about something I have come across and folks will scratch their heads and wonder aloud "has he been living under a rock"?

This will likely be one of those times.

While driving to New Jersey a couple weeks ago I listened to an interview of photographer Cliff Mautner, and as impressive as it was things got busy and I didn't follow up on it.

Yesterday I watched the latest edition of Photoshop User TV and Cliff was interviewed again. Scott and Matt went on about how impressed they were with his work so I went directly to Cliff's website.

And for the next two hours I wandered through his website and his blog looking at his drop dead gorgeous wedding images.

So go check out his work and his two and a half day workshop where he teaches "less is more" when it comes to light.

You will be inspired... and blown away.

Call for images of Veterans...

Memorial Day (weekend) will soon be upon us and as we have done for several years the blog will be coming down, replaced with the Memorial Day slideshow we created.

The plan was to create a new slideshow each year, but as with all good intensions life has gotten in the way, but I will be creating a new slideshow for Veterans Day (2010).

This is where you come in, I will be looking for images of veterans from our readers, the friends of our readers, and their friends too.

So please, send in an image of a veteran in your life (both living and those who have "gone on ahead"), ask your friends and families to do the same.

Email your image (max size 200k) and a line or two about the veteran that appears in the image you are sending in.

There is no limit as to the number of images you can send, if you have 5 veterans in your life, send an image of each and every one.

I promise that every veterans image I receive will appear in the upcoming slideshow.

So please, start spreading the word!




(legal babble - you will maintain all ownership and rights to any image you send in, you will be granting us permission to use it in this slideshow, which will be the only use we will make of it)

A word (or two) about our reviews...

This post was sparked by comments made on my last review and I figured if Sharon and Chris had questions, then others did too.

First, regarding reviews in general.

For various reasons about 25-30% of the products sent to us for review never make it to the blog (you can read our review policy here).

I take the trust of our readers (very) seriously and would never want to betray that trust so when I review a product it needs to provide me with something that will make my photography or my business better. It needs to bring something to the table. I then assume that it will do the same for others.

I take money seriously too, so not only does a product need to contribute, it also needs to make back the money that was laid out to bring it on board.

It is difficult to explain how badly I would feel if you spent your hard earned money on a product that I recommended and it was useless to you.

So bottom line, for a product to get a positive review it needs to contribute to the cause AND it needs to pay for itself.

My suggestion (and what I do myself) if there is a product I am interested in that is over $100 I email and ask if there is a guarantee, if the product does not deliver as expected can it be returned.

Second, regarding our last review.

Sharon and Chris voiced concern over the lack of details about what was actually contained in the book. I can't tell you how much I appreciated their approach... thoughtful, insightful, respectful.

Chris hit the nail on the head about the fact that "get it together" is intellectual in nature and if you give away the content you remove the need for people to purchase it.

Add to that, when folks send me stuff like this (intellectual in nature) they specifically request that I not share the content, just my thoughts on the content.

But I can give you a bit more information, the book is Millie's story of what she did to run a more efficient (thus more profitable) photography studio. She doesn't tell us what we should do, she tells us what she did. Our job then is to extrapolate out how (and where) what she did would apply to our own studio.

She covers:

● How to organize thoughts and ideas
● How to implement a workflow
● How to make your email work for you (not overwhelm you)
● How to make the most of your leads
● How to pick vendors that work

and a few other topics as well.

I hope that gives you a little more insight regarding the content of the book.

Lastly, if you read one of my reviews and you're left wondering "is this for me?", PLEASE contact me, I would so prefer (and be happy) to spend time with you via email or by phone to make sure something was a fit for you, so you don't waste your hard earned money.

And finally, thanks... thanks for being our readers, for coming back week after week to listen to my dribble, and for trusting in what I have to say.

Review of "get it together"...

There are times when I get products for review that make me feel fortunate that I write this blog.

Receiving "get it together" is one of those times.

Usually when I receive a package of an item sent to the blog I open it, check out the contents, and set it in its place on the shelf to await its turn to be reviewed. When I opened the package containing "get it together" I did not put it down until I had finished reading it from cover to cover. But I still wasn't done, I then took the CD that comes with the book to my computer to look at the sample documents that are included.

The first thing I noticed is the graphical layout of the book, every time I turned a page my interest was held not only by the content but by the design as well. It's not just to make it pretty, but to help drive home the points and ideas presented in the book.


The book itself is 100 pages long and the point from the first page that is carried (quite nicely) to the last page is how to set up the workflow of a successful studio.

Some of the content I already knew (and do), other information I had thought about and the book drove home the point that is was a good idea, and still other things I hadn't thought of but were brilliant and will be incorporated into our studio workflow "system".

"get it together" arrived the day before I drove to New Jersey to shoot a wedding with Stacey Kane and I asked her to take a look at it, I was curious to see if a person with more time, more experience, and more success as a professional photographer was going to be as impressed with Millie Holloman as I was.

"get it together is an absolute must for those just starting out, it will prevent them from having to go through the painful 'trial and error... and error...and more error...' stages of establishing a studio system along the way to building a business.

A fantastic reinforcement tool for established photographers. It will help them solidify systems that they already have established as well as give them fresh and new ideas on how to run their studio more smoothly.

In either case, a very creative and inspirational sourcebook from a studio that has 'been there, done that' and continues to do so every day."

There you have it, four thumbs way up.

Follow these links to learn more about Millie and more about "get it together" at the website and the blog.