Now how fun is that!

At the Campfire Ball benefit for Children’s
Oncology Services in May at Venue One in
Chicago, Cork Catering set up a make-
your-own s’mores station.

Photo: Gerber + Scarpelli Photography

While you are inspiring the kid in your guests, why not add an old fashioned soda bar.

At a promotional event at Skylight West in New York in June, Great Performances showcased its house-made sodas, ice cream floats, and handspun milk shakes at a soda jerk station.Photo: Mimi McCormick

p.s. This is a great way to end your reception. No one will notice that you have closed the bar.

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Brides.com announced a fun new toy on thier website, a virtual dressing room.

You upload your photo (they give you tips on getting that right)

Select your gowns and try them on to your hearts content.

Here is how they describe it…

Virtually try on bridal gowns and experiment with wedding makeup and wedding hairstyles to create your unique look. Choose from editor-approved gowns, celebrity-inspired styles, and more. Share your favorite looks online and invite your bridesmaids to try it out too—you can style your entire bridal party right from your computer!

Now it isn’t a replacement for the real thing, but it sure can give you a head start.

Why do I see a TON of wasted hours in everyone’s future?

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If you have ever considered a photo booth but you thought they were to big, bulky and ugly, then you haven’t seen this.

Picture this Nashville is the photobooth with out the booth. Instead the system uses 21″ touch screen iMac computers specially created for Picture This.

I could tell you about this until I am blue in the face, but until you play with one you just won’t get it. I had so much fun at last Sunday’s bridal show, I kept grabbing friends and dragging them to the booth.

To find out more, vist their website. Go to their Facebook page to see a whole bunch of fun images from the booth (including yours truly) AND find out where they will be so you can see this set up for yourself.

You can try it out at the Put a Ring On It Bridal Show on Sept.25th

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Linzi Jay will be intoducing these at The British Bridal Exhibition Harrogate next month. Can you think of anything prettier for a beach wedding?

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Who Is Your Customer?

I got to thinking about this today as I was following a fairly heated conversation on a couple of wedding blogs.

By and large, the customer base of wedding blogs and the wedding print media is wedding vendors, not the bride & groom.

Now think about that for a minute. Any information based business is going to advocate for their customer base. They are going to speak in such a way and feed their readers information that is going to enhance the position of their customers. Again, please remember, their customer is the wedding vendor.

What does this mean for the bride and our industry?

It means that today’s bride is being fed a steady diet that is not always in her best interest. She is being told what to do and what is hot based on what the wedding industrial complex wants to sell. Just take a look at the dramatic rise in staged photo shoots on wedding blogs. Yes, they are gorgeous, I won’t argue that. The problem is they aren’t reality, although they are often presented as such. Most are unreachable by the average bride. I hate to tell you, but not every couple is hipster or shabby chic. don’t even get me started on the wedding gowns shown in the major magazines editorial. I have ranted on that until I am blue in the face.

It is no wonder that today’s bride is turning to alternatives to wedding professionals. As heavily exposed as brides are to over the top weddings they are beginning to believe that they both will not be able to afford a “wedding” professional and that even if they could, said “professional”  wouldn’t listen to them anyway. It isn’t that they are exploring using professionals and deciding against it, they are looking for alternatives first.

Is there an answer? Maybe.

I think that every wedding professional out there has a blog, why not start using it to really advocate for the bride. There is this little thing called Karma. If you as wedding professionals start telling the truth, being an advocate for the bride, showing them that you do offer alternatives  they will come back. Not only that, they will see you as a savior, a bright light in the darkness and they will be your evangelists.

Disclaimer, the ads at the side of this blog are through an affiliate service. I don’t sell ads to individual wedding vendors. I probably should, but then I couldn’t be this honest with you. Karma, baby, karma.

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To hear Jerry tell it, “I just do what I do.”  Um,did I say humble? Heck, he won’t even post his many award winning images on his website!  Uh, no my friend, what you do is fine art photography meets fashion photography like I haven’t seen before.

Take a look for yourself. All of the images are linked to the original post on Jerry’s blog. Check it out and send him some Dish love.

This is from the wedding that Jerry shot for the VH-1 reality series, “My Big Friggin’ Wedding!”

This is also from Alyssa & Tyler’s VH1 wedding. I love what this image says about the couple.

This is perhaps my favorite wedding image of all time. It just screams, “Anna Karenina”The size limitations of this blog don’t do it justice. Click the image to see it on Jerry’s blog.

Jerry isn’t for the couple that just want a record of their wedding. His is the bride that sees the art in the finest photography and understand that to capture it on this one day, that is all that matters. You can view Jerry’s website at Gerard Tomko.com.

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And last but not least, because nothing makes life better than cookies and a breath of spring..

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Well now you do! Just go to the same place the pros go: the wholesale suppliers. You can be sure they know what’s in season when.

Mayesh Wholesale Florists are one of the largest suppliers of wholesale flowers in the United States. As such, they do not sell to the public, but their site is still a wealth of information; information from REAL experts for professionals. You may not be able to buy directly from them but you can still benefit from their knowledge and information.

I found this very handy Flower Library on their site. It lists flowers by color, by group and yes, by season.

What better place to get your information than from the authorities on flowers.

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Well you know me, I just had to know more. Read below to see what René can tell you about finding and getting your own unique style for your wedding images.

Me: Rene, your style is fresh and light.  I read that you make a conscience effort with this.  How would you describe what sets your images apart?

Well, I think it takes a few things working in harmony to create a “look” that the viewer associates with the artist.  It’s how we look at things.  How we see them.  And what we want to communicate to the viewer.  Unlike writers, we have to use a visual cue to tell you what we are seeing; to make you feel it too.  Unlike a videographer, that visual cue must be a single image.  Because of the limitations of our media, that one image has to be powerful.  I think of it a little like haiku.

Since I shoot primarily weddings, my style is light.  I use a light hand when I shoot images, and when I process them.  Weddings are fun.  They are well-rehearsed, yet spontaneous.  The lightness of the day is infectious.  My goal when I process the images is to convey that lightness.

Me: As you view other portfolios do you find it true that the better photographers have developed a style all there own or are you unique in this?

I think the “better photographers” know who they are.  They have healthy egos.  They have figured out how to tell you what they saw in, not only in the way they capture a moment, but prepare that moment for it to be viewed.  Some use bright colors and saturation.  Some use contrast and shadows.  They all tell you a story.  Their work often tells you as much about them as their subjects.
There has been a lot of talk in the photographic industry about the liquidation of style; of photographers copying off each other’s papers.  But I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate; at least not to other artists.  So much of what we put into our work is uniquely our own, that it’s nearly impossible to truly copy.  The really good photographers out there don’t try to make their images look a certain way.  They can’t help but make them look a certain way.  It’s their signature.

Me:Could you give my readers some tips on how to figure out what style appeals most to them and how to convey that to their photographer?

I would tell your readers the same thing I tell brides every day.  I don’t have to tell you what to look for.  You have eyes.  You know what you like.  It doesn’t matter who took it.  It doesn’t matter how well-known the photographer is.  It doesn’t matter whom they’ve photographed.  All that matters is how you feel when you look at their images.

When you look at a single image of theirs, do you understand what the photographer was feeling?  Do you know how the subject was feeling?  Moreover, if you look at an entire album created by that photographer, what do you feel about the wedding?  Are you looking at pretty pictures?  Or do you feel like you were there?  Can you smell the flowers?  Taste the cake?  Feel the sun?  Hear the music?  If you can answer “yes” to just one of these, the artist has done their job.  If you can answer “yes” to all of these, then this is the photographer for you.

To better understand more about a creative, it helps to know how they got where they are and a bit of their philosophy.

I’ve been photographing weddings in Anaheim Hills with my husband Jay since 1987.  We started out shooting medium format film cameras.  It was a completely different world then.  Because we were unable to see what we were creating while we were creating it, the learning curve was sharp.  You had to know what light would do, and what film wouldn’t.  You had to know what would add and what would subtract light; and more importantly, why to do it.

It was also very expensive to press the shutter release; at least a couple bucks for each click.  Because of that, photographers had to learn to wait.  We couldn’t just shoot.  We had to wait for the moment to completely unfold.  Too quick and you missed it.  Too late and you missed it.  Sometimes I think it was the very best way to learn photography, and more importantly to learn wedding photography.  Because we learned to shoot “blind,” we aren’t encumbered today by the same rituals that newer photographers deal with………….specifically, the need to flip their camera over to see the exposure they just shot.  So often THE shot is the one right after the one you just took.  Look at the back, and you miss the “real” shot.

We went digital about seven years ago.  It was tough to change tracks, but it opened up a whole new world to me.  It opened up endless possibilities to further perfect the story I wanted to tell.  Post processing gave me that freedom.  No longer shackled to the retouching artists at the lab, I could interpret the images I had captured in the way I meant for them to be seen.

And yes, I went through the same missteps I think most of us did during that transition.  We all felt the need to kick up the contrast to unimaginable levels.  The saturation slider in Photoshop was at once my best friend and worst enemy.  We did some pretty odd blurry things to our pictures in the name of art.  By, like most pros who have been around for a long time, I finally settled into my style about five years ago.

Now I think of post-processing and retouching much like I think of makeup……………if you’re good, you almost can’t see it.  I think a heavy hand is your worst enemy.  I still want it to look like you………just better.  I still want the story told, I just want the viewer to see it a little more clearly.

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Take it Personally is launching a new line called Hugs and Kisses and you can win a set of 50 Save the Dates and 50 flat invitations.

To win you have to register by midnight January 19th on the Fan Page

Custom Cartoon Invitation

Once you register, hop over to Christine’s website to check out the rest of her too cute for words personalized invitations and stationery.

I absolutely love her custom cartoon invitations.

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