I know that all decisions with regards to your wedding are major ones, and with all of my clients placing a high value on their wedding photography coverage, booking your photographer will be one the most important. With regards to securing your date I have one simple policy that I use that is used by many other businesses and that is, first come – first served. It’s that simple, but let me explain a little further.

Even though there are 365 days in a year, only a fraction of those days are usually desirable for a wedding. Most couple’s first choice would be a summer wedding on a Saturday, followed by Sunday, and then very few if any opt for a weekday wedding. Then couple that with our freezing cold winters and you have even less days available. What this means is that I’m only one person that can be available for a limited number of weddings per year. Now you can imagine that with multiple engaged couples contacting me for their wedding date there are bound to be conflicts.

Imagine for a moment that you have had your eye on a particular item from your favourite store for the last little while, and then one day you walk into that store and you see your item. Even if that item is at the back of the store, your eyes somehow lock onto the item and you are drawn towards it. You start to get excited so you pick it up, hold it in your hands and you think to yourself this is it, I have to have this. You then realize that the item you are holding is the only one left of its kind. You then also realize that that you’re not alone, and that there is someone else looking at the same item. What do you do? Well you have a decision to make, you either take it now or put it back and take the chance that the other person doesn’t buy it, but remember because it’s the last one you can’t “hold” it. What I’m saying is that your wedding date cannot be held, by an email message, a phone call, or by being penciled into my calendar (I actually don’t use a paper calendar anymore).

In order to secure your date we will need to fill out and sign a wedding agreement contract, and then along with this receive your retainer cheque of $500. By doing this I will no longer be available for anyone else, and I will be your photographer for your wedding. I know it sounds simple, but like most things it can easily be overlooked so I wanted to share this with you. As always, I will go over all these details at our pre-wedding meeting. If you have any questions, please feel free to give me a call, I’d love to hear from you.

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There is one aspect of wedding photography that is usually not that glamorous and typically doesn’t get the ooohs and ahhhs from your friends but at the same time is still in my opinion very important. What I’m talking about is the traditional formal wedding photographs of the bride, groom and their immediate family.

The reason I want to touch on this subject is that it generally doesn’t get that much attention at first in but quickly becomes important on the wedding day when everyone is dressed up and looking their best, and you quickly realize that you probably won’t have this opportunity for awhile if ever at all. I typically don’t like to spend a lot of time with these types of photographs as I prefer to spend as much time as possible with the couple, but with some planning we can make it as painless as possible and be able to quickly move on with the day.

At this point, I would recommend that you either enlist one of the bridesmaids or that aunt or uncle that knows everyone in the family (we all have one) to help out and gather everyone together. I will usually take the formal photographs immediately following the ceremony. In order to make this process less time consuming and confusing for all parties involved I would appreciate that your helper have everyone ready and standing by for your desired formal groupings. The general standard formal groupings are listed below, and will generally take 15 minutes:

* bride and groom with bride’s parents
* bride and groom with bride’s parents and siblings
* bride and groom with groom’s parents
* bride and groom with groom’s parents and siblings
* bride and groom with all bridal party
* bride and groom with each respective party (if not taken pre-ceremony)

Please note that it is very important that you consider time restraints when adding to this list of formal photographs. You can estimate an average of 3-4 minutes per grouping. It is absolutely vital that everyone who is in the formal groupings be ready to begin when called on.

I should also mention that with everyone at the wedding having a digital camera of some kind, including your grandmother, I would hope that they won’t interfere with the formals by distracting anyone in the group. I certainly don’t mind the odd photo, and I’m not going to yell at your grandmother, but often times I’ll need to take these photos in an area that is somewhat quiet from the post ceremony buzz so we can get it done. As always, I’ll go over this portion of your coverage at our pre-wedding meeting.

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Chat: 905-924-1730
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Nothing adds stress to your day like running behind schedule. Just imagine how flustered you feel when you’re a little late for work and you have to hit the ground running. Now try and imagine what it must be like on your wedding day if things start to fall behind the agenda.

If you try and pre-plan your wedding timeline realistically, keep and open mind and try and stay positive throughout the day you’ll be on your way to an amazing day. Now when I say realistically, this will depend on many factors including the location of all the major details of the wedding, such as the pre-ceremony coverage, the ceremony, the formals and the reception. Other factors include the size of your wedding party, the size of your family and extended family, any special or unique traditional customs and the traffic on the 401 that day. Just kidding about the 401, if I have to travel and the 407 is an option that will be my first choice.

With regards to your wedding photography, I would definitely encourage you to plan sufficient time for your creative photography. This is the number one way to ensure great images. This is the time after I finish the family formals, but before your reception starts, and I would suggest at least one hour give or take. You’ve already invested a lot of time, energy and resources into all the aspects of your wedding and this is the day that you will both look your best and this is the time to capture that. This time alone with the newly married couple is used to create some of those relaxed romantic portraits that everyone loves, and this is a time for you and your husband or wife to spend some quiet time with each other on this busy day.

I realize that things don’t always go as planned, and there may or may not be something that could have been anticipated, but as I mentioned it’s best if you can just go with the flow. I’ll go over your timeline with you at the pre-wedding meeting and help you come up with something that is both realistic and sufficient to get all of those awesome wedding images that we’ll create together.

Send me an email
Chat: 905-924-1730
Visit the MJP Photography main site