It’s Thanksgiving week, and we are taking a much needed blogiday! Enjoy the oldies but goodies that we have for you this week.  

Consider the Time

Great photography is a result of great light. Natural light is constantly changing throughout the day as the sun moves from the east to the west. There are certain times of the day when the sun is in the ideal location for that perfect, glowing portrait of a bride and groom in love. Those times are as close to sunrise as possible and about an hour before sunset. To get the most out of your wedding day photography, I highly recommend you consider the time throughout many elements of the big day.

Consider the Time of Day

By checking out the light around the time of your event before the big day, you give yourself the chance to make minor changes that could make a major difference in your photographs. If you are having an outdoor wedding, make sure you visit your venue at the exact time you plan to start your ceremony. Observe how the light falls around where you will be standing. Bring your fiance, and observe the light on his face. If he is squinting because the sun is in his eyes, then he will most likely be squinting in the ceremony photos, too. Knowing this information ahead of time should give you ample opportunity to make any necessary changes so that you will end up with the best possible photos during your ceremony.

Consider the Time of Year

If your dream wedding photos include rolling hills spotted with autumn colors, then you will probably want to have an autumn wedding. Or if you always dream of having your pictures taken in front of Monument Terrace in downtown Lynchburg, you could probably have your wedding any time of the year.  My point is, by knowing what kind of images you want you should also know the type of scenery you want. Consider the season in which you plan your wedding, and understand what your scenery options will be before the big day arrives. Plan according to what you want.

Also, considering the time change last weekend, you should definitely remember daylight savings time!

Consider your Day-of Timeline

You can know the best time of the day to take your portraits, but if you don’t execute a good day-of timeline then you won’t have time to have your portraits taken! When you sit down to plan the timeline for your wedding day, plan for everything to take longer than you might imagine. A thirty minute ceremony with a receiving line quickly becomes one hour. When time gets tight, the first thing to be cut short is often your time with your photographer. Also remember to generously calculate the amount of travel time between locations. Plan accordingly to maximize your time with your photographer.

Weddings are whirlwind days. Emotions, activities, to-do’s… your day will be full of excitement! Use these suggestions to assure your memories will be captured in the best possible way by the photographer you hire.

Thank you again, Liz! To check out Liz’s photography work, click here … the link will take you straight to her own blog.

One thing about being a photographer is trying to decide how to market and present yourself to brides, and as a bride you need to figure out how to find those vendors that can make your wedding dreams come true. Well, this past weekend, Hill City Bride hosted Bliss, a fine wedding fair, and I love Liz’s take on it. Read on to find out more …

Bliss was a huge success! This was my first time taking part in an official bridal event and it was an absolutely wonderful experience. The intimate environment was perfect for my business brand, giving me ample opportunity to speak with brides throughout the entire day and plant seeds for friendships in the future. It was such a pleasure meeting so many excited and glowing ladies!

Sabrena Deal and I presented a session together during the first session time slot. The title of our session was  A Warm Welcome: how to make your guests feel at ease and comfortable throughout your wedding day. We had so much fun sharing ideas with the ladies about ways you can prepare your guests, help them navigate through your day with ease, and activities and foods to offer to make the day more enjoyable for everyone involved. We had such a good time with the session that we plan to offer a similar one again at the next Bliss event.

Here are a few pictures of my booth at Bliss. Since the day was more about educating (and treating!) the brides, the vendor booths were smaller than they are at bigger bridal expos. I loved my booth and had fun passing out cards and sharing goodies with each bride that came to visit me!

The balloons in the picture represented that I was a speaker (blue) and a sponsor (green) of Bliss. I thought it was fun that they matched my booth perfectly.

Jonathan from the cupcake guy made the delicious Chocolate Chunk Sliders you see in the last photo. He tinted the vanilla cream to match my brand colors! He was SUCH a pleasure to work with and the cookies were delicious.

So, yes, Bliss was a huge success and I am so excited about the next one, but in the meantime definitely keep checking Hill City Bride for lots of wedding inspiration, DIY projects, and advice from wedding industry professionals.

Special thanks goes out to Liz for creating our Bliss, a fine wedding fair, along with our posters, cards and programs. I will be sharing more details, photos and a video about Bliss soon, but I really enjoyed hearing one of our vendor’s takes on the day!

Happy New Year, friends! So many of you are getting married THIS year! Sooo exciting! I’m back again to chat more about ways to get the most out of your wedding day photography. I know it seems like I say this in every article, but today’s topic is something that I think is SUPER important. Whether you do or do not connect with your photographer can make a world of difference in the final product.

There are a couple of reasons that connecting with your photographer is so important. First, you are going to be spending a lot of time with your photographer on the day of your wedding and you want to make sure you at least enjoy their presence, right? If you don’t feel comfortable around him or her, chances are pretty good that you will remember that feeling when you reminisce back to your wedding day. And you do not want those memories clouding the other memories of your beautiful day.

In addition, if you don’t connect with your photographer, your pictures may not reach their full potential. Feeling uncomfortable or frustrated during portraits can make it almost impossible to capture you in all of your joyous beauty. You may not look as beautiful as you could in your pictures if you were completely comfortable, relaxed, and feeling good.

You also want to make sure that your personalities connect. This helps with the communication on your wedding day and helps the process of portraits go as smooth as possible.

Overall, you want a photographer that brings a good energy to your day. Someone you enjoy, someone who understands your vision and whose vision you trust, as well as someone who genuinely makes you feel good about being in front of the camera.

Thank you again, Liz, for your advice … it is so important so that the brides have the best visual memories from the day that they can! Liz Cook is the owner of Sincerely, Liz: Photography, and I encourage you to view her work by clicking here.

Hello friends! I am excited to share with you another suggestion to help assure you will get the most out of your wedding day photography. This is something I really believe makes a huge difference in your photography experience, so I am eager to get right to it. But, real quick, if you ever have any questions or comments about anything that I write, please feel free to leave them in the comment area. I would love to hear your feedback! Okay, onto this month’s topic …

I cannot stress enough the importance of scheduling an engagement session with your choice wedding photographer. Though brides often think the only result of an engagement session is the final pictures, there really are many reasons an engagement session is beneficial to both the couple and the photographer. If your wedding day photography is important to you, an engagement session should be right near the top of your wedding planning priorities.

Getting to Know Your Photographer

Each photographer is different in the way they approach a session. Preparing for the session, interacting with the couple, and even setting up shots can all be done in different ways producing a different end product. No matter how an engagement session is handled, chances are very good your photographer will treat your wedding day photography in a similar fashion. An engagement session offers a great chance for you to experience being in front of your photographer’s camera and get a feel of how the pictures will flow on your wedding day. Doing this before your wedding day really helps to shake any “picture-taking” nerves ahead of time.

Give Your Photographer the Opportunity to Get to Know You

The biggest reason I highly suggest booking an engagement session with each of my clients is because it gives me the opportunity to learn how my clients interact with each other in front of the camera. Sometimes they want to kiss in front of the camera, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they are afraid they are going to look awkward in the pictures, sometimes they prefer to model for me. Every couple is unique in the way that they behave in front of the camera. Knowing this information before the wedding day is crucial in my finding ways to encourage natural interaction between a bride and groom.

See the Quality of Product Beforehand

From a client perspective, this may be the most beneficial aspect of booking an engagement session. Through the final product, you are able to see the photographer’s vision of the relationship between you and your fiancée.  In addition, you can observe some other things that may matter to you as well. Things like the turnaround time, the quality of any products you purchase (guestbooks, prints, etc) and general customer service. All of these things can help you decide if you want to continue with your decision to hire that person as the photographer of your wedding day.

I hope you can see that there are more benefits to booking an engagement session than just receiving the final prints. If you want to get the most out of your wedding day photography, I would highly suggest you book an engagement session and treat it as a trial run for your big day.

‘Til next time!

Thank you again, Liz, for your sage advice! To read her other “Point of View” columns, just click here, and to take a peek at her photography, head on over to the Sincerely, Liz: Photography website … you will be glad you did! All of the work within this posting is Liz’s.