Wedding Planning Tips for Brides -- from iVillage Wedding Expert Anne Chertoff
- Weddings
- From I Will to I Do
Fan-tastic
I went to a concert last night and as soon as the music started all these lights popped up on the ground level in front of the stage. I pointed them out to Dave and commented how weird I thought it was that so many people brought lighters with them to a concert – you know the image of waving the flame in the air – and he looked at me and said, “Those aren’t lighters. They’re camera phones.”
I guess I haven’t been to a concert in a while, unless you count Barry Manilow with my grandmothers earlier this year – which was awesome by the way.
And of course I thought of a great wedding tip – forgive me if you’ve heard this from me before – you do not need to buy disposable cameras for your wedding. Most of the pictures taken with a disposable camera are blurry or only show part of somone's face. 9 times out of 10 they are not useable in any album.
Your guests will come with their own cameras – or camera phones – and e-mail you a link to the pictures they take as soon as they upload them to snapfish, flickr or another photo service they use. The cost of buying disposable cameras and developing the film can be put to better use – favors, invites, your dress, food.
I received hundreds of photos that friends and family took with their digital cameras on my computer and they didn’t cost me a thing!
Great suggestion! I mainly see little kids running around with the disposable cameras taking photos of the floor at weddings. As a wedding photographer I feel the need to help save the film. I might also suggest that you set up an account somewhere for online hosting of your wedding photos. At the guest book table have a little card with the URL/account name/password. Ask your guests to upload their images into that account as well a their own. Also post a link on your wedding website. That way your wedding photos are all in one place! I am a big fan of Shutterfly or Smugmug. I think often people never even see wedding photos that their guests take because they are stuck in a camera or computer somewhere. Make it easy on yourself and others by having ONE place for ALL your guest photos!
Jon Stewart did a whole bit on the phone-instead-of-a-lighter bit on the Daily Show recently, ragging the folks who do that! So funny to see it mentioned again. Please, folks, if you're going to hold up a light, make it a real lighter, lol. Otherwise people WILL make fun of you!!
So true on the camera phones, too bad they take such awful pictures! I have a near-top-of-the-line camera phone and the pics are just as bad as the disposables and so low-res they can't be printed at a normal size. However, at least the same horrific quality is free for the couple! They are good for sending to other people's phones, though.
Best advice for guests - pick up a real digital camera, even the cheap ones are a lot better than the best camera phones and you can even get one that slides right into a fancy purse or small pocket.
And definitely follow One Love photo's advice and set up a Shutterfly Collection page or similar, not only can everyone post pics, but they can add comments that tell the rest of the story.
Thanks for the great advice!
Yes, and after you get all the photos together, you can make a photo book on snapfish and invite people to come look at it. Some might even want to purchase it to remember the wedding by. You can make some really awesome books, and order one for yourself, too.