Boy, what a month… this must be our busiest month on record.
Every minute of every day/week has been spoken for. We are looking forward to November when things slow down considerably. We don’t have much time to type a lot of things, but again, since most people look at images here, we’ve included a whole bunch…. Enjoy!

Model shoot at Hasselblad event in Boston (No model shots, we didn’t’ setup the lighting therefore didn’t want to use photos that weren’t our own) Shots were taken with a Hasselblad H4D50, HC 35-90 and Broncolor Verso pack:

Engagement session to the couple above:

Lauren and Jayson were another fun couple, not having loads of time, we brought them to some of our favorite locations downtown. As you can see, we all had a great time.

The day of the wedding, we got to see, first hand, not only the love they had for each other, but also the love their parents had for them. Such a warm group of family and friends. They are quite lucky and we were so pleased to be there and photograph such an event.

Nothing more to add for now – take a look at the photos!

For now, we simply need to get through 2010. What a year – Newport mansions, Boston Waterfront, beautiful private clubs, booked for the entire year. It’s been fantastic. We are now soon to enter July. This is where we earn our stripes, especially considering the heat

Here are some recent shots that we adore:

And to folllow that beautiful day was an equally beautiful one, with Myra and Jackson at the Astor’s Beechwood Mansion in Newport, RI.

Myra was stunning and we were lucky to have the opportunity to capture her infectious laughter, her wide smiles and her happy tears, on camera. She and Jackson compliment each other in so many perfect ways and how fortunate that we got to witness that type of devotion to each other. And another first – Myra was the recipient of the best maid-of-honor speech I’ve ever heard. A beautful tale of their friendship and all the years that took them to where they are, today.

And finally a quick sneak peek at a great wedding at the MIT chapel:

Forget the run – a Boston Marathon Wedding will make you sweat.

Luckily, Sandy and Henry were the picture of cool. From the beginning of the day when he, in traditional manner, asked for her hand in marriage until they were introduced into their 500 guest reception as Mr. and Mrs., they were calm, confident and crazy in love.

Here is a sneak peek into their day:

Tip #1
You can save yourself an enormous amount of money if you are open to being married during the off-season months of January, February, March and November. A Boston Wedding in December becomes a bit hectic with the holidays, parties and shopping, so we’ve omitted that month here. With Boston Weddings, it’s important to remember that if you DO decide to hold your wedding during one of these ‘off’ months, to hold them early in the day, as the sun goes down by 4:30pm and outdoor shots are next-to impossible without additional lighting during this season.

And if a winter wedding is not the wedding you have always dreamed of having, consider being married and holding your wedding on a Sunday. It’s another great way to save some cash, as vendors do most work on Saturday’s and a Sunday is not typically a popular day. A Sunday wedding can be elegant and chic. Be unique!

Tip #2
There isn’t an official name for this disease and it isn’t regional to just Boston brides, but many brides get it. If you identify it early, you can save yourself (and your family & friends) hours of anguish:
1st Symptom – Just about 3 months before your wedding, you begin to second-guess your every decision.
2nd Symptom – You grow increasingly scared and spend (what feels like) every waking hour obsessing about what more you can do to make your wedding better or more unique or more creative or more shabby-chic or more retro or more zen or more elegant or more….
3rd Symptom – Then you’ll ask friends, family, co-workers or essentially anyone that will listen to you about what they think of your new ideas and cry foul when they don’t seem to feel as strongly or as passionately about making improvements as you do.
4th Symptom – and most dangerous…you make a few phone calls and start upgrading a few of your packages.

The Cure – Trust. Just trust. Stick to your original budget. As the wedding draws near, your emotions, nerves, excitement, or gasp! the Martha Stewart in you begins to take over…ignore them (or her.). If you’ve outlined the vision that you have for your day from the beginning, your day will be beautiful. This includes your wedding photography. The only time you may want to upgrade is if your timeline has significantly changed for reasons beyond your control.

Tip #3
Holding your reception in a hotel has good points that you may not have even considered. Hotels can often decorate, have professional services (concierge, planners, etc.) and most likely will include the honeymoon suite as a part of your booking, with discounted rooms for out-of-town guests. Especially the larger hotels like Taj Boston, Langham Hotel, Intercontinental and Copley Marriott.

If you’re having a wedding with 75 guests or under, consider having your reception at your favorite restaurant. You will already know the staff and how the food is and you can often reserve the restaurant or, at least, a portion of it. This can help you to save a significant amount of money, as well.

Tip #4
Photographers charge too much?

Photographer’s equipment and workflow costs alone are quite sizable. There are batteries, flash cards, wear and tear on their vehicle, venue insurance coverage and, most importantly, the hours of work on and after the wedding that is factored into their pricing. Your paying for creative talent, not just in photoshop, but behind the camera when the work of capturing the images is done. You can save money on enlargements and albums but don’t penny pinch when it comes to the photographer. After your wedding day, the tangible memories, the ones that you can put in your hands and hold, are your photos. Everything else resides in your memory. Nothing else will endure and be passed down from generation to generation the way that your wedding photography will be.

Hire a photographer that gives you your digital high-resolution files, that way you can make as many re-prints of the photography from your wedding day as you’d like. However, for particularly special images or those that you wish to frame and showcase in your home, it’s highly recommended that you order the prints from your wedding photographer. Photographers have access to professional printers that use archival quality paper that will last for generations, unlike the print runs at Target, and the inks are UV-resistant and colors remain true over generations.

$1000.00 for a photographer is a great price but if they charge $100.00 for an 8 X 10, where is the savings? Don’t just look at the photo packages or wedding day shoot costs, ask how much their albums and prints are as well. It’s only worthwhile to pay $1000.00 to a wedding photographer if they actually give you the images once the wedding is over. Ask the questions. There is a tremendous amount of fine print and cost associated with photographers that have prices that seem almost ‘too good to be true.’

Lastly, define ‘retouching’ with your photographer. The term ‘retouching’ is used loosely within the wedding photography industry, never mind with clients. Retouching can mean simply ‘color correcting’ (Which simply means ensuring the color temperature of your photos is correct) This is the simplest of retouching practices. We consider this the bare minimum, but many area wedding photographers get away with this technique and call it ‘retouching.’ Few Boston Boutique Photographers go through each and every photo and retouch skin, remove non-permanent blemishes, stray hairs, remove distractions such as huge exit signs behind a stunning photo of a bride….and that’s just the basics. It’s very important to distinguish exactly what a photographer is going to do to your photos after your big day. It’s the difference between spending 2 hours for color correction and 40 hours going through each photo and making each a true masterpiece.

Tip #5
Let’s face it, the only service you NEED to get married is an officiant.

However, most Boston wedding coordinators can save you money because they know…

About all the tips mentioned above plus more..
What to say to and ask your vendors..
Important connections in the industry..

You really don’t need a coordinator at your reception once the dance floor is open to your guests. That usually happens between 9-10pm.

You could hire a wedding consultant to help with the final stages of your wedding: creating a detailed wedding day itinerary, making up a checklist of items for the ceremony & reception locations, and confirming with your vendors. While they won’t be in attendance at your wedding, they have planned the day smoothly on paper. As long as you follow the times closely (not exactly) and hold the events in the same order as the itinerary states, you’ll be fine.

You can appoint a friend or family member to be your honorary coordinator. Give them an itinerary, checklists (ceremony & reception items, photo and music list) and phone numbers for all your vendors. The honorary coordinator should be someone that’s organized, the more obsessive-compulsive the better and not scared to open their mouth when something goes wrong (or right!)

Well that’s it folks – just a few thoughts, like we said. Our Best of Boston Wedding tips is complete. Don’t skip over the hours of sunlight during the winter or forget about Daylight Savings Time. These can both have dramatic affect on your time line when planning your day and your Boston Wedding Photography.

Cheers!

Don’t misunderstand – a winter wedding CAN be a challenge – the kind that helps to separate the good wedding photographers from the not-so-good, but I have to be honest: Despite the imperfect weather being cold and grey, Taylor and Bob lit up whatever was around them, inside and outside of the Fairmont Battery Wharf. A truly elegant and magnificent couple with some serious style….and the woman can DANCE!

Some photos of the rehearsal dinner at Eastern Standard:

Wedding Day:

Some say the imagination is seen as the ultimate source of originality and original thinking is what marks a true artist and thank goodness Lodxhi and Dave were willing to take a tour of two Boston wedding photographers imaginations and follow us, despite our train of thought leading them to the top of a building. We’ve wanted this shot for ages, we pursued it and guess what? We got it. In our past with our photography, there have been and will continue to be imitators and replicators. But much like Dylan, we did it first and that’s when it’s done best.

Taxi driver is just slightly impatient….

Someone is a little taller than the other

Just kidding… Natalie and I were laughing about this today in the car, though. We seem to push the edge of Boston’s old-school manners. Call it greed, but we’re willing to go the distance to make sure we get the shot. (One instance included Homeland Security and this guy, at this place, with this thing…on second thought, we’ll save that story for next time…) But for now:

Jen and Keith.
I don’t think they believed us when we saw this boat from about 200ft away. I said, ‘We’re going to get on that boat’. They shrugged and half-laughed. We went on shooting. Then we headed over to the dock and they said ‘Ok, now what?’ and I said, ‘Ok, let’s get on that boat.’ They looked at me with disbelief… Sure enough, a security guard was on the dock and heading our way as Jen and Keith were mugging for us but we got what we needed and he never caught up to us.

Second example is a little more tame. We were in this beautiful hotel and the staff were already giving us looks. We decided to ‘give them something to talk about’ (Pretty sure that’s a song name), we rearranged the room and we stole this shot:

We aren’t hoodlums (though I did grow up in Southie, where that word has been mistaken for a compliment), but when we envision something a certain way, we’ll stop at nothing to honor our vision, and yours.

Anyhow, we have plenty more in the pipeline…. stay tuned!

Enjoy.

On Saturday, we had the pleasure of shooting the Ward/Schultz nuptuials and Tiffany and Rob could give our engaged couples some lessons on how it’s really done on your wedding day. These two only had eyes for each other….no rain, no diners, no police, no cupcakes could tear their gaze away from the other. They completely handed the reigns of creativity over to us and let us drag them from Somerville to Medford and across the Mystic River to Arlington where they had a very unique, original event at the Arlington Library complete with all the non-traditional wedding fixins’, including an Indian menu, ‘geek’ cupcakes and Wii Tennis.
These are just a few ‘teaser’ photos. We’re looking forward to having more quiet time this week to spend with the images of these two fantastic couples. Cheers!

The interview went well and began with one of the area’s best wedding planners who gave tips on how to save on things like food, music, etc and was sure to stress that the one thing you people cannot afford to skimp on is the wedding photographer because, after all, it will be the only tangible keepsake that you’ll have to look back on and remember the sequence of events on your wedding day. At that point, our portion of the interview began and we offered some of our own tips on how you can get the most for your photo dollars. It was a quick, lovely little interview and a fantastic opportunity to set ourselves apart and remind current and future clients why we do this and reiterate our passion and love for photography and the investment we make in their day.

The segment will air on 3/23 at 6pm and 11pm. Check it out and tell us what you think!