Wedding Aces WeddingWire Blog

Category: Wedding Photography

Hydrangea Bud

Engagement Pictures..To Do or Not To Do

September 2nd, 2010 by Hydrangea Bud     

Hydrangea Dude and I got engaged nine months ago and are excited about our upcoming wedding in April.  Once we got engaged, we knew that there were a few vendors we wanted to secure right away including the photographer.  In my opinion, a great photographer is very important in capturing what will be the best day of my life, so I wanted to make sure I did my research.  After a friend recommendation, we chose Emily Harris Photography, a photographer who works near where we will be married in South Florida.  After meeting Emily in person, we knew that she would be a perfect match for our personalities as well as capture beautiful moments.

One thing we debated right away was getting engagement pictures.  I don’t know about any of you future brides, but for some reason, I just couldn’t understand why we needed pictures of ourselves all lovey dovey and posed before our actual wedding.  In my head, I wanted to be different and not send out a photo as a save the date, so I just couldn’t see the reason why to do it.  So, we debated.  Should we get engagement pictures or have Emily come and take pictures at our rehearsal dinner as well?

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Lilac Bud

The Lilac E-session

September 1st, 2010 by Lilac Bud     

Lilac Dude and I met with our photographer, Jay Kossman (digital504.com) this afternoon for our engagement photos. He includes one additional shoot with wedding packages and we opted for an “e-session.”

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Not one of our photos, just one from the night we got engaged (personal photo)

It was so much fun! We went to a playground and pretended to be kids for awhile and then we had a classy picnic at a park.

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Cotton Bud

Capturing Our Wedding Memories.

August 6th, 2010 by Cotton Bud     

I’m a photograph junky.  I’ve always loved taking photos when I’ve traveled and have even worked as a studio photographer in the past.  So when it came to photographs at our wedding…  the more the merrier.  We hired a lovely trio of photographers, whom I’ve got all the faith in the world in to capture those “wedding moments”, but I wanted more.

I began scouring the endless wedding websites out there and discovered a couple of great options:
♥Encourage guests to share their photographs
♥Photo Booths

The first option, encouraging guests to share their photos is easy.  Set up accounts on Picasa and Flikr, print out some cards with the passwords on them, add a tutorial to our wedsite and Shazam!  Photo sharing made easy.

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Our Photo Sharing Cards
Images by Cotton Bud

A photo booth, however much it is a fun idea, is also quite pricy to rent.  We’re talking in the $1000 range, in the northeast.  Yikes!  Sorry, but $1000 isn’t anywhere near in my budget for something fun, that is far from a requirement for a reception.  Hmph. But I don’t give up that easily.  I could always have a faux-to booth, right?  I’ve seen some stunning ideas with macbooks and printers and remote controlled shooting.  Ugh, that still seemed like too much more work (and money) for us to commit to such an unnecessary extra.

But wait, there’s more!

I seem to always find some sort of alternative to a project, if I want it bad enough. I don’t mind if things aren’t high tech or if they blend a few different ideas together.  My solution to this photo booth that I desperately wanted, was such a blending of ideas.

Remember those disposable cameras that were such a hot item in the ‘90s at weddings?  They have those pretty silver bells or golden rings embossed on them, with the couples name and date and are sitting at every table for guests to snap candids of each other? Well, I thought, “Why can’t I use those in our photo booth?”  Surely, there are enough people at a wedding that guests could snap each others’ photos in the “booth”.  But those silver bells and golden rings didn’t quite fit into our style.  A bit of surfing on the web produced a wonderful website with a large variety of options – www.customcameracollection.com.  We opted for their Camp Bugs style, and naturally personalized them with our wedding info.  The best part of this website is that you can include developing expenses up front.  After the wedding, we can pop the cameras in their included pre-paid envelopes and toss them in the mailbox.  When we return home after our mini-moon, they’ll be all developed waiting for us!

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Source

But what’s a photo booth without props?  I’ve adored photos (like the one below) of friends and family framing themselves for the photo op.  I had to include a pretty wooden frame I had in our photo booth, but didn’t think it would be enough.  After a trip to Dollar Tree and our local party store, I came up with a bag full of silly props for only $20.  I can’t wait to take a picture in our booth with the fez hat on!

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Source

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Our Props!
Photo by Cotton Bud

I’d say, for the less than $50 total I’ve spent, we will be just as happy with the results from our booth, as we would have been spending a thousand dollars on the real thing.

How are you capturing all of your special wedding moments?  Will you be having a photo booth or some other quirky activity at your reception?

Dogwood Blossom

Our Decor

August 4th, 2010 by Dogwood Blossom     

One thing I have absolutely loved about BridalBuds is the feedback I have gotten from everyone! I had so many questions along the way, and my wedding colors were probably one of the biggest dilemmas I faced.  After much thought, I ended up going with Coral and Turquoise/Tiffany Blue.  I was pretty excited about our colors given the room we were working with, and the amazing natural light that filled the room especially during the sunset. Of course with all the candles we had, it was just as beautiful at night.

Here are a few pics of our decor, with a special thanks to Charlene Lopez at the Key Largo Hilton, Blooming Design and Events and Edda’s Cake Designs for making our wedding an absolute dream.  The creativity that went into designing this amazing scene was well beyond our wildest dreams.

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Our wedding cake… I couldn’t stop starring at it, I was just so obsessed with it!

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Lilac Bud

It’s the most important day of the year!

July 28th, 2010 by Lilac Bud     

Lilac Dude and I received an email from our photographer letting us know that he had scheduled a wedding on May 27th that was out of town. While he was sure that he’d be able to return in time to shoot our wedding on May 28th, he would have his two assistants available to shoot it in case of delay. It was a generous offer considering that our photography package calls for only one photographer, but it didn’t make me feel any better. How could he book a wedding that may make him miss ours?

I was pretty mad. After a new contract and some back and forth we still have our photographer.

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Photo from celebratewithstyle.com

Then in our reception hall search we called a certain place and asked if our date, May 28th was available. Yes, they said, it is available. So we take an evening to visit and talk with the manager. And we asked, are you sure you have our day? He assured us that they did have it available.

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Passion Blossom

I Tied the Knot : The Little Details

July 22nd, 2010 by Passion Blossom     

Imagine surprise when I woke up from a long nap this afternoon ( I am still exhausted from the wedding weekend) and found the most beautiful Facebook posting via our photographer, Amy Sandoval, about our little details.  Most of our wedding was DIY and on a budget.  I love that everything at our wedding was my vision and design. Our colors were pink and lime green…and here they are -

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Amy Sandoval Photography - http://amysandovalphotography.com/blog/

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Dogwood Blossom

Our First Sight

July 20th, 2010 by Dogwood Blossom     

Hi Everyone! I’m back! We had such an amazing time that words can not even begin to describe our experience at the wedding and on the honeymoon.  Our wedding was everything we could have ever imagined and much, much more! From the beach to the flowers to the massive party that ensued, we will always remember that day as the best day of our lives!

I wanted to kick off my wedding posts by sharing with you the best decision we made during the entire process of planning our wedding… the decision to see each other before the wedding.  Thanks to our amazing photographer, Emily Harris, for even suggesting it! I know that many choose to go the traditional route, and I thought we would too, but if you are comfortable to forgo that tradition, we highly suggest having that special moment before the wedding!

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Moments after first seeing each other!

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Passion Blossom

I Tied The Knot: A Brief Wedding Recap

July 20th, 2010 by Passion Blossom     

I am officially a married woman. We were married this past Saturday.  Today is Tuesday and my husband and I are still drained!  I just want to share a few brief hits and misses from our wedding and then I will get into the details in subsequent posts.  Here is our first official wedding photo. Our amazing photographer, Amy Sandoval, posted this sneak peak on her blog and Facebook for us Sunday morning.  I am dying to see the rest.

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Lilac Bud

Lilac’s Do Not Snap List

July 6th, 2010 by Lilac Bud     

Many couples have a “Do Not Play” list for their DJ or Band. I am in the process of creating a “Do Not Snap” list for our photographer.

At some point, much closer to our wedding our photographer (digital504.com), will send us a questionaire so that he can tailor our wedding photos to what we want.

There are some photos that I just don’t want to waste our time with. Here’s a sneak peak at the pictures that I don’t want (and why):

1. The whole family (as in anyone remotely related to the bride or groom). I have a huge family and this photo takes forever to organized with the 45 or so people for my side. I’d like to keep it to immediate family and grandparents.

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Immediate family is good. Photo from weddings.sc

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Maga Bud

Meeting with Wedding Vendors

June 14th, 2010 by Maga Bud     
Photo taken at the 2010 Seattle Wedding Show

Photo taken at the 2010 Seattle Wedding Show

Wow! There is so much to do. The good news is that I am getting things done. This month I have a couple of meetings with different vendors. I’m trying to remind myself of the following details for each meeting:

  1. Florist

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