Wedding Photography: Don’t Let Uncle John Ruin Your Big Day

Jeff Coe Photography — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:33:17 +0000

There comes a point during every wedding when the bride and groom wonder what happened to their special day. Instead of a simple celebration of their love, it morphs into a social circus. Rather than enjoying the attention, they feel like celebrities doing tricks in front of the paparazzi!

Every just-married couple reaches the point where they want to shove the stranger with the huge camera into a closet and run away. When you get to this point, take a deep breath and remember why the wedding photographer is there.

After your wedding day, the wedding dress ends up packed away, the cake goes stale, and the groom never wears his wedding shoes again. Your only daily reminder of the big day is your photos. It is something to share with your friends, your family, and your kids!

Most people never look as good as they do on their wedding day. You would hope not, given the amount of money you spend on clothes, hair and make-up! Great wedding photographs mean you can show your kids what mommy and daddy used to look like, before gravity and baldness took over. Be prepared for comments like, “I can’t believe daddy had hair” and, “why did you choose that dress?”

Many couples feel tempted to get a relative or friend to take their wedding photos. After all, it means one less stranger at the ceremony, and more money to spend on the honeymoon! But what happens if it all goes wrong?

Everyone has heard an amateur wedding photographer horror story. That is because there are an awful lot of them out there:

“Uncle John’s battery ran out half way through the wedding reception, and Cousin Steve sat on his flash! Now the only photographs we have of our first dance was taken with an instant camera! It’s not bad, but our heads are missing, and it’s blurry.”

“Our photographer friend got drunk and fell into the cake, and then told the bride that his lens wasn’t wide-angle enough for a portrait of her mother. In the end we had to carry him outside and call the police.”

“Bill was great, we hardly saw him on the day! But when we got the wedding photographs back and they were terrible. There were loads of posed shots of distant relatives, and not one of us kissing!”

Uncle John may have a great camera but there is no guarantee that he will deliver on your wedding day. Your friend is talented, but can she actually get the shots without disrupting every stage of the wedding? Well-meaning amateur photographers may be full or optimism, but it takes skill and experience to consistently come up with the best wedding photographs.

Good wedding photographers get great shots because they understand posing and lighting. They also work as unobtrusively as possible, and keep the horde of amateur photographers at bay.

Your wedding day is too important to leave in the hands of amateurs: Blurry headless photos are not the treasured mementos that you want. Don’t put your memories at risk just to save a few bucks!

Portraits Gallery Expanded

Jeff Coe Photography — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:07:33 +0000

As promised in the post from yesterday, I have added more portraits from our portrait session in Garden City a few weeks ago. Enjoy! As a side note, I am looking for a quality runner that can assist with weddings. Not a second shooter but someone who can assist with setting up lights, tear down, and gathering and posing people. If interested, please drop me a line!

Children Are Precious

Jeff Coe Photography — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 11:47:35 +0000

I have to say that I love it when a family asks me to take pictures of their children. You can always capture the most incredible, natural portraits with kids. They don’t care what their hair looks looks like or if their shirt is tucked in. They only care about how much fun they are having right this second. Don’t you wish we could all live in the moment like that? Anyways, I want to thank Shirley, Melvin, Sonia, Shannon, Cathe, Garry, John, Janna, David, Cindy, Pete, Lisa and the gang for inviting me to their family gathering to shoot their family portraits in Garden City, Missouri! I enjoyed the opportunity very much and some great images were taken. I have updated the Children’s Portrait Gallery with a few of my favorites of the kids. I will post a couple of my favorites of the adults in the next few days. I know that you will enjoy your portraits for many years to come. Thank you again!