Let’s talk about buying the disc of your session images, because getting those files is something on everyone’s mind when they book a photographer for a portrait session.

I receive tons of inquiries from people who say they love my work, but they don’t want any prints. They want to “just buy the disc.”  My clients invest a lot of time, money, and effort into their sessions, and I personally invest a lot of my time and emotion into shooting and editing. I want you to look at your pictures all the time and feel happy when you see them on the wall or hold your album in your hands.

The albums I design and the prints that I create are professional, archival quality which will last for a hundred years or more. Each album is custom designed for each client, and the album pages are thicker and high-quality, not the thin magazine style books that you can easily order through online consumer websites. By hiring a professional, you are choosing to invest in an heirloom piece, so the products associated with your investment should reflect that purchase. Professional photos are a luxury item, so they should be displayed in a luxury package. Think about it — imagine receiving a Louis Vuitton bag wrapped in kraft paper – no, it comes in a special bag to protect it. The same should be true for your professional photos, as well. They deserve to be designed specially in an album that differentiates them from the snapshots that you take with your point and shoot camera… don’t they?

Furthermore, the thing that most people don’t realize, either, is that digital media (ie, the disc of files) does not last forever. Discs eventually disintegrate after a few years. Think back to your grandparents’ photo albums that you loved paging through as a child. In a hundred years, your future grandchildren will want to see pictures of you, too, but where will that DVD be? Long gone!

So many people purchase a disc thinking they’ll make their own book, but the reality is that they are either unhappy with the book they’ve created because the quality is not up to par, or life has gotten in the way and they will probably never do anything with their images except put them on Facebook to share with friends because they keep getting too busy to sit down and work on it. I have quite a few wedding clients who purchased a disc rather than an album, and I know that they haven’t made their album or prints yet and it’s been years since they were married. This is truly heartbreaking to me as a wedding photographer, especially after spending a whole day with them sharing in the amazing emotional thrill of their wedding and spending weeks editing their images.

To give you an idea of why it’s important to me that my clients choose to make their photography investment in printed media rather than digital, the most special album that I’ve designed for myself so far is the one from my son’s birth, lovingly photographed by my husband. The book is a beautiful layflat coffee table book with a chocolate silk cover, and it’s about 30 pages long. On Zachary’s 2nd birthday last month, I took the book out and looked at it by myself while he played, after all the birthday guests had left the house. It was a beautiful and special feeling to sit there with my little boy and thumb through this beautifully designed book of images from his birth. To feel the paper, to drag my fingers across the pictures, to put the book up close to my face and lean into it, remembering how I felt the moment I got to hold my baby for the first time. Then I got up and one by one went around the house looking at all of the photos of Zachary that I’ve printed over the past two years, reliving many more special memories.

I wonder, one day, what kind of feeling my grandchildren will have looking through the albums I’ve created and will create for our family. There will be many, I hope – both albums that I’ll create and those that I’ll order one day from photographers who I commission to photograph our family, too. In a hundred years, who knows where my computer will be, what kind of digital files will even be in existence, or how we will be viewing pictures on a computer. What will matter is actual, hard copy albums and photographs which can truly be enjoyed the way they were envisioned – to be printed.

Friends…. owning an album from your photo shoot is something special. Whether it’s an engagement session, a maternity shoot, or a newborn session, you owe it to yourself and your family to purchase an album and prints for your home. Coffee table books start at just $375, and I’m very happy to give you low-resolution (watermarked) photos to put on Facebook or simply to look at on the computer whenever you’d like. You just need to ask me. If you decide that you want the disc after making your print purchase, it’ll be available for you.

One of my favorite parts of being a South Florida Wedding Photographer is photographing weddings at so many amazing venues! One of my favorite places to shoot is at the Ancient Spanish Monastery in North Miami Beach. It is one of the most beautiful and historic venues here in South Florida, and if you’re looking to add a special touch to your wedding photography, and you plan to get married in the cooler months (it s an outdoor venue), then the Spanish Monastery might be the perfect choice for you!

I’ve had a few inquiries regarding this incredible venue recently and I thought I would post some of my favorite images from past weddings so that my potential clients can see why I enjoy shooting there so much.

Here are some shots of the exterior and interior where the receptions are held. You can see how absolutely beautiful this venue is with the ancient stone walls, vines, foliage, amazing lighting and more. It is so impressive to look at and will WOW your wedding guests when they walk up!

The monastery makes a great background for your wedding cake and for the bar. Everything looks absolutely beautiful here, and it’s no surprise that they are usually fully booked for months and even a year in advance. It is such a great place for your guests to enjoy themselves drinking, eating, dancing, and socializing.

I started shooting at the Spanish Monastery back in 2007, in my second year of photographing weddings (and third year of photographing professionally).  Are you ready for a little trip down memory lane? Well, keep reading! It’s been fun doing this post and thinking about my awesome clients!! Not to mention, it’s neat to see how my editing style has evolved over the past few years!

In June of 2007 I photographed Mario & Natalia’s wedding, and in February of 2008, I photographed Lindsey & Otto’s wedding. They were my first Spanish Monastery weddings.

The first one was a smaller wedding with about 50-60 people, and the second was a much larger wedding. Mario & Natalia had their ceremony in the chapel on-site, and chose to have a private family reception at a restaurant. Lindsey & Otto, on the other hand, were married at a church a few miles away, and had an amazing reception at the Spanish Monastery with lots of music, flamenco dancers, and great food! The Monastery can be used in so many different ways.

I was at the Monastery quite a bit in 2008! The next wedding that I photographed there was Ashley & Ben in April. Another reason I enjoy shooting at the Monastery is because there are different places to have your ceremony, as you’ll see. Ashley & Ben were married in the gardens.

In May 2008, I photographed Julie and Remi, who had a destination wedding here in Miami (they’re Canadian). They had a very intimate wedding with about 15 family members. This allowed us to spend lots of time taking portraits of them with their family and by themselves. We had a great time getting creative and making beautiful images for them to remember. Their ceremony was very intimate and held in a private outdoor room off the side of the main area.

Most recently, I photographed Tricia and Gary’s wedding in June 2009. They were married in the Chapel and held their reception outdoors. It was a hot evening, but everyone had an amazing time dancing the night away! We were able to get many beautiful portraits all over the grounds that day.

Thanks for taking this trip through the years with me photographing at the Spanish Monastery! I’m looking forward to photographing more beautiful wedding ceremonies and receptions at this fantastic venue in the future. If you’re getting married and would like to book me for your wedding, please click here to contact me. Or you can call me at 954.247.1121!

I recently had a potential client lament that she wanted a good photographer, but was finding it very hard to stay within her budget. It was becoming tempting to ask a friend to take pictures or find someone just starting out on Craig’s List who would “give her a good deal.” At least then she would have some documentation, right? Well, maybe. Maybe she’d luck out, and a few photos would turn out okay. But more often than not, I  hear from brides that they made a huge mistake by asking their aunt or uncle or friend with a camera to do the photography, and they wish they’d just saved themselves the heartache by finding room in the budget for a better photographer.

Before you hire someone from Craig’s List who promises you the world in exchange for helping them build their portfolio, just think about it: do you really want to trust your wedding photos to someone looking for a guinea pig? Do you want your photographer to be a deer in headlights, or would you prefer that they have the skill and knowledge to be able to think on the fly and react to a change in a situation without a blink? Do you want to rest easy knowing they are a professional who carries a backup just in case something happens? A wedding is one of the most uncontrolled and chaotic events possible – you don’t want to be concerned that your inexperienced photographer is feeling clueless while shooting yours.

A professional photographer’s pricing is defined by their level of skill, experience, consistency of style, and education. Things like liability insurance, maintenance of camera gear, maintenance of backup gear, computer backup systems, and TONS more also have an effect on price. So does a photographer’s style. For example, some prefer to deliver unedited “proofs”  while others (like me) make it easy for you by editing each and every final image that goes on the high-resolution DVD.

Every photographer is different, of course, so you’ll surely see many different pricing models and ways of doing things along your search for the right photographer for you.

I have been in business for five years now (celebrating year #5 this year!!). I’ve worked hard to develop my style, maintain my education, and provide beautiful images for my clients.

I’ve worked at many local venues including destination weddings outside of Florida, and have a proven record of being able to create beautiful images for my clients no matter where I go.

I know that pricing is important to everyone these days, but I urge you to choose a photographer (even if it’s not me) who has the knowledge and talent for creating great images. You only have the chance to get married once. Make sure your wedding photographers and their images rock, and don’t choose someone based solely on price. Make sure they are an insured professional (not a student or a friend with a camera) who has an awesome portfolio and happy clients (click to read my WeddingWire reviews)!

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Because you can’t have a post without a great wedding picture, here’s one of my favorites from Christine & Justin’s wedding this past winter, one of my favorites!  My photography busy season kicks off again this weekend and I’m looking forward to it. It’s been a pretty awesome summer full of lots of traveling and family time, but the cool weather is here and I’m ready to get out there and make some fantastic photos for my always-amazing clients! Thanks for reading this post… and have a great day. :)

Most people probably don’t realize I have a little section on my blog that is all about how I’ve taken steps to “Go Green” in my business life. You can check it out by clicking here. I just wanted to spend some time discussing two of the companies who  make it really easy for me to achieve my goal of being a greener business.

Táve

Where would I be without Táve Studio Manager? Táve the brainchild of me and my husband Adrian. We created it back when I was a new photographer and needed something to help manage my business better. It is my backoffice & client relations management system which has, for the most part, eliminated the need for client related file folders and paperwork! The lack of extra paper in my life has been astounding, and I feel so much less wasteful. The software has some cool updates coming later this summer, too, which will probably help me even further – with order importing from other applications, online questionnaires & surveys, and more!

The best part of Táve, for me, has been the ability to have my clients approve their quotes & sign their contracts and even make their payments right online. It makes my life easier, it makes my clients’ lives easier (especially those that live out of state or in another county), and once again, the lack of paperwork previously associated with contracting on paper has made a huge difference.

If you are a photographer and you are not yet using Táve for your Studio Management, go sign up for the 30 day trial right now! I promise you will love it!

Pro DPI

Pro DPI is one of the main photo labs I use and is moving towards being the only one! Not only are they an extremely accommodating company with a small-business mindset, who really and truly cares about their clients, but they are making strides to Go Green, and that is important to me. They offer so many Eco-friendly paper options for their albums, proof books, and custom cards, and I absolutely love the high standard of quality they provide. They also have so many different options for drop-shipping orders to my clients. This is really important to me since many of my clients either live out of state or between 30-60 minutes away from me. It doesn’t make sense for them to waste up to two hours in a car plus all the gasoline just to hop over here and pick up their print order. It’s much easier for all of us, much less wasteful, and more eco-friendly for me to drop-ship the print orders to my client and let UPS take care of the driving, saving my client their gas and traffic time and allowing us all to spend more time with our families!

Hope you are all having a great Earth Day. If you’re not yet doing something to add a little Green to your business or your life (or both) then there’s no time like the present to get started!

Also… keep an eye out for my next post! I’m doing a giveaway in conjunction with my personal blog, Bright Autumn Sun (my family, mommy, non-professional photography blog), and I’ll be announcing it tomorrow!

I have heard many times from brides especially in the past year as our economy continues to have problems, that they just love my work, but it’s not in their budget. They feel torn, because they want artistic, unique wedding photos photos that tell the story and capture the magic of their day, but they also want their dream wedding experience, too. I have thought up a number of ways that brides and grooms can help to cut their budget without having to sacrifice the wedding photography that they REALLY want.

1. Some vendors (including the photographer!!) may be willing to give a discounted rate for an off-day wedding, which occurs during the week (Monday to Thursday). Don’t count on an enormous discount, since working a wedding on an off day is just as intense as on a weekend, but since it’s a day that would otherwise not get booked, it’s worth asking about. Maybe you can score an extra hour of coverage, some additional photos in your album, or a complimentary custom print. In this day and age, every little bit can help!
2. Book your vendors 12 months in advance, before prices go up. All vendors, including photographers, generally raise prices for events more than 12 months out. You’ll save more money by booking your wedding vendors a year ahead of time.
3. Reduce your hours of coverage. While it would be great to cover your reception from beginning to end, you can save a few hundred to over a thousand dollars (depending on the total length of your wedding) by cutting out the last two to three hours of your reception.
4. Postpone buying your album. The photos aren’t going anywhere, so why not purchase a few prints and hold off on the album until after the wedding is over. You can use some of the money you received in your wedding gifts to buy your dream album, or save up and purchase the album for your first wedding anniversary. There are also smaller album or brag book options for those who need something now but can’t afford to pay for the main album yet.
5. Have an intimate wedding! Intimate weddings are the new black. With everything about the wedding scaled down to only include your nearest and dearest, you’ll have lots more room in the budget for things that really matter to you, like better pictures, or a nicer honeymoon. While I had a beautiful wedding, if I could go back and do it again, I absolutely would have gone this route. Aside from having more time to spend with your closest family and friends, you’ll also have more time with your photographer if you choose an intimate wedding – and you’ll be able to spend more time taking beautiful portraits that you’ll look back on to remember your day for the rest of your lives.

Finally, if you are really stuck financially and cannot afford your dream wedding photographer no matter how many sacrifices you make, find someone whose work you like who you can afford. Then, book a post-wedding bride & groom portrait session with your dream photographer. The post-wedding session can be anything from a stunning portrait session at a place like Vizcaya, Fairchild Tropical Gardens, or Morikami Gardens while wearing your wedding outfits, to a full on “Trash the Dress” session at one of our beautiful South Florida beaches. If you can’t afford to hire your dream photographer on your wedding day, I think that an after-session is the next best thing!