Ceremony:  St Michael’s Catholic Church, McKinney, TX

Reception: Surrey House and Gardens, McKinney, TX

Hazel and I knew Darcie and Tyler for quite a while now.  Hazel received her MBA from University of Texas and attended there from 2006-2008 – and Darcie is the first MBA student that we had dinner with in the summer of 2006 – they met in what’s known as  ”Preview Weekend”, where first year students came to Austin for a preview of what life is like as an MBA student and to get know Austin, etc.    As school started for Hazel, she came back the first day and said “Hey, there is a guy at school who is from Kansas, and he’s a fan of KU basketball!!”

Because Kansas is a small state (by population), meeting another Kansas Jayhawks fan in ANY other state is like meeting a family member!  And, as fate would have it, I met Tyler later on that week at what’s known as “Think and Drink” day on Thursdays, it’s an informal event, really, an excuse for the MBA students to get together in a predetermined bar in downtown Austin for socializing and drinking.

Hazel recalled that one day after she sends out one of our latest slideshows to her friends that Darcie said to her “One day when I get married, I’m going to get you guys to photograph my wedding.”

On their story – Darcie and Tyler actually lived in Chicago within 10 minutes of each other and have never met even though they frequented the same places in Chicago.   They’ve finally met each other in business school, in Texas.

Fast forward couple of years, and here we are.

We felt really privileged to be part of their special day especially since I knew Darcie and Tyler, separately at first, and then together.

The wedding takes place in a really nice catholic church – which by the way, they have no restrictions for us in where we need to be to cover the ceremony!   The reception takes place in the Surrey House and Gardens, which is a historical building near historic downtown of McKinney, TX.   Stacey Allen, of Elegance by Stacey Allen, did a great job planning this wedding.

They were discussing about how her hair resembles Shirley Temple

Gorgeous dress…

Hazel took these two below:

Nice moment in the trolley between the ceremony and reception…

This is my favorite picture of the whole wedding.  One of the hardest to photograph is to include many elements in the same frame and have them all related and in “order”  When I saw the women cramming into the sofa, I was really hoping that Darcie and Tyler would stand to next to them and hopefully, getting a picture where she’s having a great expression and with everyone on the sofa having the same expression as well and that was the image in my head before the photograph is taken – that’s one thing about being true to your cardinal rule of never place people or clients where you want them and not manipulate the scene, instead – it just has to happen, like fate (or a bit of luck ):

The dress is made for dancing…..

Congratulations to Darcie and Tyler!  What a fun wedding!

Dallas wedding photography by Tony Ku, Ku Photography LLC

]]> http://www.kuphotographyblog.com/2010/02/04/darcie-and-tylers-wedding-day-surrey-house-and-gardens-mckinney-tx/feed/ 0 http://www.kuphotographyblog.com/2010/02/04/darcie-and-tylers-wedding-day-surrey-house-and-gardens-mckinney-tx/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KuPhotographyLlcBlog/~3/8nY8drWmfgg/ http://www.kuphotographyblog.com/2010/01/25/tara-eriks-wedding-day-courtyard-on-st-james-place-houston-tx/#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:10:54 +0000 tonyku http://www.kuphotographyblog.com/?p=585 Date: January 2nd, 2010

Wedding and Reception:  Courtyard on St. James Place, Houston, TX

Our first wedding of 2010 takes place on a beautiful day in Houston, Texas!

Tara and Erik met each other through Tara’s sister Tammy and her childhood friend Timmy.  (They are also the best man and bridesmaid of the wedding, Timmy and Tammy).  Apparently Tara and Erik went to the same  high school in Texas but didn’t know each other at the time – they actually ended up meeting each other at Timmy and Tammy’s 21st birthday celebration in Houston (but Tara was living in NYC at the time).

We did their engagement session in November just before Thanksgiving.  They are early birds – I prefer the light either at daybreak or dusk, so we were out around 8-8:30 am chasing the light in downtown Austin with their bikes.  The wedding coverage also starts at 8 am

Tara is a high school arts teacher –  I can tell how dedicated she is as a teacher – she is actually texting to about next week’s lesson plans on her wedding day!

One of the best parts of the wedding is the moment right after the ceremony:

One of the many reasons why kids are great at weddings

The major theme of the wedding is anything with birds – they decorated each table with branches, white birds and pink/hot pink flowers and floral theme.  I think even Tara’s hairpiece is representation of feathers/birds in a floral shape.

The groom’s cake is a scuba diving cake, very cool!

One of my favorite pre-bouquet photos….

These are some of the most fun moments I have ever witnessed between a bride and her sister.  Tammy ended up spinning Tara around…

Piggyback rides…

And vice versa…

I love it, coffee cup dancing!

Congratulations Tara and Erik!  Birds of a feather, as they say.

Houston wedding photography by Austin wedding photographer, Tony Ku, Ku Photography LLC

Happy New Year everyone!

In a few more days we’ll present a slideshow of our favorite images from 2009, most likely by Wednesday.

For now, we’re writing this post about wedding planning in general and how it relates to photography – our experience in the last five years gave us a unique perspective on what our clients went through the entire process and hopefully, this will give you a better “guide” to wedding planning than what other wedding magazines will show.

There are three things that are the most important after your engagement as far as wedding planning goes:  the date, the budget, and the location.   Everything you decide depends on the three things.

The date – if you need to book a photographer, we need your date   There is no way to “reserve” a range of dates.  While vendors such as baker or florists can do multiple weddings, most wedding photographers can only do one wedding per day and some times, one wedding per weekend.  The availability is based on the date and the location.

The location – generally, this just has to be the location of the wedding (city, state, etc.)  and not necessarilythe actual ceremony and reception.   Once you have the date and the location, most vendors can show you the availability and also the cost.

The budget – This is where things get tricky and this is where you need to decide what you want to empahsize on in your wedding.  This is the area that we don’t feel is our place to get into, because it really depends on what is important to you. Is it the dress?  the cake?  the photographer?   etc.

The simple 7 steps we’ll recommend is the following:

1.  Pick the date and location and the budget – these should go at the same time.  Everything pretty much depends on this first step.

2.  Photographers – of course, I am somewhat biased – but, wedding dates book up fast.  We must have received 10 inquiries for May 1st and half a dozen for other dates in May after the date is booked.  It all depends on who the photographer is, and what you’d like in your final product.   I’d recommend that every bride look at a COMPLETE WEDDING SLIDESHOW or two or three, from beginning until end, to judge how good the photographer is throughout the day.  That’s the only way to gauge our ability to produce and the consistency of our product.  You simply can’t have a bad day as a wedding photographer.  Do you want more portraits or more photjournalistic approach?  Does the photographer catch the not-so-obvious moments, or just the garden variety type?

3.  Planners/coordinators – some venues have planners, some don’t.  The thing about wedding planners is this – their recommended “list” of vendors might not be what you want.  In fact,  a lot of wedding planners and coordinators’ photographers’ list are photographers who produce the work that they like and not necessarily what you’d want, style wise.  Planners like to emphasize on details (that’s what they do), so the photographers they recommend will be ones who emphasize on details – and if you’re looking for a photojournalistic photographer, most likely it won’t come from a planner.  I’m speaking in generalities, but a lot of times, that’s what planners do.  Again, it may not be in the budget, but a coordinator/planner is a nice thing to have on the wedding, especially if they can coordinate the family members afterwards for the family formals so that we don’ t have to spend a lot of times on them.

3.  Cake/Dress/Florists – If you have a planner, you’ll probably get a list of the vendors as well.  Again, this all depends on the budget and how you want to appropriate (i.e. how much do you emphasize on the vendors), so we won’t go into that.  If you want to get a list of the vendors we worked with in the past, feel free to email us.

4. Entertainment/DJ/Band/Hawaiian dances – This again, depends on the budgetand what you’d like at your wedding.  A great band adds to the atmosphere of the wedding and it’s a guarantee that the guests will go wild on the dance floor, same goes for a great DJ.

5.  Themes – this is where you can bring out your favorite wedding magazines and try to figure out what you want to have in your wedding.  And it can affect #3 and #4.   Special cultural weddings is important here.  This is where you should get an idea of what you need and speak to your photographer about it, particularly for ceremonies that are not of the “norm”, if there is such a thing as a normal wedding   Personally I believe each and every wedding is unique and should be reflected in the photos.

6.  Timeline – we just need the generic timeline – the rest we can get at the reception with the DJ or if you have a band or coordinator, then we can get it from them as well.  It’s good to speak to your photographer about what you need in terms of portraits, etc. so that appropriate “time” is allocated, as well as the appropriate time of the day for the best light.

7.  Don’t stress out if you only have a couple of months.  We have two couples in 2009 who decided to get married within 2 months of the wedding day, and both had spectacular weddings.  One had a planner and the other couple did not, and honestly, I didn’t see a difference in the schedule, etc.  Both were great and unique in their own way.  If you have 6-12 months, then you have a bit more time – but don’t wait if you need to make sure a particular vendor (photographers and venues) is available for your wedding day.

Hope that helps out a little – if you have any questions, feel free to ask us.

2009 favorites slideshow coming soon in a couple of days.

Best wishes for the new year,
Tony & Hazel