Tag: hottake

Wedding Traditions…Outdated or Must Dos?

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Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. Probably one of the only traditions I myself followed (unintentionally) at my wedding. Every American bride knows there is a certain amount of tradition worked into your wedding from the moment you start planning it, even before you have colors, you have parts of your day planned just based off of what came before you. That is…if you chose to follow them. I’ve worked with traditional brides and I’ve worked with extremely unconventional brides, yet they’ve all worked in at least one the classic wedding traditions everyone knows. With that introduction out of the way its time from another….

HOT TAKE

Now, I’m going to limit this opinion to just the American wedding traditions, religious or cultural traditions to me are in a completely separate category. The traditions I’m going to discuss here with my opinion are:

-The somethings (old, borrowed, blue, etc)

-Garter/Bouquet Toss

-Not seeing the Bride the day of the wedding

-Not seeing the Dress Before the Wedding

-Cake Smash

-etc.

Now, seeing as I’m a sucker for emotion and tradition (I got married on my deceased uncles birthday and took his motorcycle jacket with me to wear for photos), this is going to be a complete 180 for me as far as my opinion.

I think that Wedding Traditions are completely outdated and unnecessary. At least the standard ones. 

Did I wear a garter at my wedding? Yes, but I did it for myself, because it matched my sash, and because I fully planned on doing a trash the dress photo with the garter but never got around to it. I didn’t do it because some tradition dictated it, and I sure as hell didn’t do it to make my photographer suffer through the awkwardness that is photographing a groom removing a garter from under his Brides dress. I’ve had brides do the bouquet toss, but not the garter, I’ve had brides/grooms do both, and I’ve had brides do none of the above.  Really, I think the whole idea of the garter/bouquet toss is pointless. No one wants to be the singled out single at a wedding. If your a man planning to make a proposal happen at someone else’s wedding during the bouquet toss, JUST DON’T.

Now, that was a lot of hatred for only one of the normal traditions, on to the next one. The Somethings…this one is a tradition that I feel a little less strong about. I think pieces of the something tradition are actually kind of sweet (see previous comment about my something borrowed at my wedding), but I don’t think it is something any bride should stress over.  If you only have something borrowed and something new, than you only have borrowed and new. There shouldn’t be an entire task dedicated to your maid of honor finding all these items for you.

The cake smash is one that I’ve seen time and time again back fire on grooms. Brides constantly screaming “NO” throughout the wedding to their grooms suggesting that cake will end up on and all over their faces at some point during the night, and Grooms just not listening. Inevitably, cake gets everywhere, including the dress and you end the night with a pretty upset bride…especially if the cake was chocolate.

I guess what I’m trying to say in all this ranting is….Make your own traditions or throw out traditions all together. Just like families all have their own traditions for the holidays, even if that tradition is having no traditions at all, every couple should make their wedding day about them. If you want to smash cake in each others faces, then it should be a mutual decision. If you want to have a first look instead of leaving the moment to the altar, make sure your photographer is there to capture it. If you want to forgo anything resembling traditions, than do it, just be aware that you may get some heat from your family members for it.

Thats all For Now,

Your Friendly Neighborhood Wedding Photographer

Unplugged?

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We live in a world where no matter where you look everyone around you is plugged into the online universe. Whether it be scrolling through social media, reading a blog, listening to podcasts, or playing a game, the online world often seems like a better reality than the one we’re actually living in.

Which leads me into this weeks topic of conversation and HOT TAKE!!

Cell Phone/Cameras during the Ceremony! Necessary or Completely Rude?

There’s a couple ways to approach this, but I’m going to take it on from the perspective of a wedding photographer who edits their own photo gallerys and give you, the people of the internet, my Hot Take.

PUT YOUR GOD DAMN PHONES AND CAMERAS AWAY!! 

Personally, I think that if the Bride and Groom shelled out hundreds sometimes thousands of dollars for a professional team to come in and capture their big day, all guests should respect the wishes of the Bride, Groom, and their families.

No moment on your phone is more important than the Brides walk down the isle with her father, no photo is worth blocking the professional shot with your arm and hardware while risking the contract the Bride and Groom created with their chosen photographer, and no cell phone is going to get a better photo than the thousands of dollars worth of photo equipment no matter what the spec sheet of your iPhone XR says.

Brides and Grooms shouldn’t have to ask their guests to put their phones down and be present at the ceremony, but if they do happen to ask you as a guest FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST DO IT.

Now that you know my opinion, I’m going to tell you a little story that lead me there.

Story Time

Recently, my husband and I we’re hired to shoot a wedding, a wedding where all of the guests we’re told by the family multiple times that they should unplug and be present at the ceremony. Even posting signs like the one below all around the wedding venue:

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My husband and I actually really appreciated this ask, we’ve had trouble in the past in the editing stage where there were constant phones ruining the shot, or people leaning into the isle blocking it entirely making it hard to deliver a shot that didn’t require hours of photo shop to fix.

Seemed like a simple enough request, guest put your phones down, the professional ones will be shared with you once they are delivered, which wasn’t too long after the wedding if I might add.

However, this request couldn’t be respected. They’re not my guests, so its not my place to say anything, but it made delivering the images from the wedding a slower process seeing as we had to turn images similar to the one below where the bride was walking with her father, into images that we’re acceptable to deliver.

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Amongst my editing process, as more and more of these photos came up, I decided to send a pre-edit shot to the Mother of the Groom, whom I had dealt with most of the process leading up to the wedding, and who I was sure would have her own opinion of the shot. She sent me back the image below, of which she blasted to the guest on Facebook. I was happy that the family still had our back, but just upset I couldn’t get the photos to them sooner due to the extra time it would take to erase all the digital evidence.

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So whether you’re a guest or the bride and groom, for the love of all that is holy PUT YOUR DAMN PHONES DOWN. Enjoy the ceremony, and then capture all the fun of the reception. You can handle a 30 min detox from the digital world, I promise.

Love,

Your Friendly Neighborhood Wedding Photographer