Photography Advice for DC Wedding Planning

I’m not sure if it’s because I’m turning 40 this year, but recently I find myself looking back on all the experiences I have had as a photographer and thinking I’ve got some great stories to share. Ten years in the newspaper business is a sitcom/tv drama series in itself and maybe someday I’ll get around to writing about it, but I thought readers here would be more interested in my wedding work. After nine years photographing weddings, I can say that I have seen the good, the bad, the amazing, the wonderful, the sad and mostly the fabulous inside view of what really goes on at weddings. Not the weddings you see dramatized for reality TV, but the real weddings right here in the DC/VA/MD area. Along the way, I realized that sharing my experiences might be useful to other couples planning weddings. So that’s what I intend to do here- share my wedding planning advice, along with a few stories in a series of blog posts.

My advice comes strictly from the photographer’s point of view. It’s shared here to get amazing photos. Some of it may not apply to your specific wedding. Take what you need and leave the rest for the others. I’m not a wedding planner and could never do what they do (you’ll see why in one of my later posts), but there are some things I have seen that work and some that don’t and when they don’t work for the wedding, they probably won’t work for the photography either. I welcome your questions, comments, suggestions and secretly hope that one of you will plan the ideal photographer’s wedding and then hire me to shoot it. (Well, I guess it’s not a secret now)