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ON TV!
Ok so it ain't a viable option, but seriously the best wedding cake ever was just on TV. It was in the new McDonald's commercial and made from Chicken McNuggets. You know how bad ass that would be. Just stick some fondant over it and bam!; you got savory and sweet! I was trying to find a picture of it, but I can't seem to find one. Someone has got to get me one. I bet all those stupid chicken mcnuggets would cost a bundle to build like a 4 tier cake complete with frosting to hold it together. I bet if I did that, I would get McDonald's to pay for it and supply everyone with some Lipitor because they are going to need it.
Why can't someone just endulge me and build that for me. I'll invite you to the wedding!
This post is for all those people looking for wedding photographers.
You can always distinguish a wedding photographer and how long they have been in the business or how much professionalism one has based on their mannerism and communication skills. I think it is very important for the photographer to exhibit some qualities of professionalism because it is that same professionalism that they are going to bring to the job. So bear in mind there are many things that can be deemed examples of professionalism, but these are some of mine that I am looking for and have found.
1) Responding to inquiries in a timely manner. If you are a professional wedding photographer who shoots digital you have one of thing: a computer (duh!) and you might have another: blackberry (or as like to call it some delicious crackberry). Both of which are hooked up email. If you are a pro with your own website, your website email is either hooked up to your webmail or outlook/thunderbird/stupid mac mail. Point is they are always hooked up to their email. So if you send an email asking for pricing, a week is a good amount of time for a response. If you want to set up a meeting, 48 hrs is a good response time. But no response is not a good thing. What is the point of posting the email address or having a form if no one is going to answer it? I have emailed tons and tons of photographers and yet I have people who don't respond. If they don't want the business, then at least respond saying so. Then I have 1 guy who responded with vague pricing and so I emailed him back and he dropped all lines of communication (I know he didn't die because he is still blogging [Matthew Saville Baldon you have just been called out!]). Respond to your damn email you high priced rip offs.
2) Follow up emails are always a pleasant surprise. I say surprise because not a lot of people do it. I mean I know for the top guys they get so many inquiries that they don't need all the business so letting it slide is not a biggy. You generally see this from the smaller fish who need to fill the books. This is a nice little thing. It would be nice to see the big fish do it because maybe they can send out some referrals if prices are too high or unavailable. It is always nice to get referrals from other people in the business because they know talent.
3) If meeting, it is nice to call if going to be running late. It is a meeting, it is an interview, so better to be on time. You want them to make as good of an impression on you as possible otherwise why would you want to work with them.
4) A beverage offer is always nice. They should be trying to impress you and most of the time you are meeting them at a coffee shop or outdoor deli. They should offer to buy you a beverage. Meetings can go from 30 minutes to 1+hrs. During this time you might get parched and so it would be nice if you could have something to drink. Most big name guys do this because they know. It is the smaller guys that you don't get this treatment. It is what separates the pros from the wanna pros.
5) Show off your work. So maybe bringing a laptop is overkill but it is always a nice addition for someone to see your work. You should see an album at least. A plus would be if you saw a proof book to see the entire wedding so you can get a look at all the photos and not just the best of the best.
6) Post summary emails of meetings. We may not always be able to take notes during meeting or may not get everything so it is always nice to get this. We have met with 3 photogs and 1 has done this. This is very professional and gives a follow up to see if there were any unanswered questions.
These are just some things that I look at beyond body of work, price, and offerings. Most important is that you like the person and they have drive and motivation. Like they say you will be spending the most time with them and if you don't like anything about them, then cut them loose.
P.S. If you need a cheap, but good photographer, hit me up and I will send you some people who I think are worth more than their money.
Some of the best things that you will do while planning for a wedding is eat. Yes, you will eat when you try out different caterers and also eat when you try out different cakes. What is the best part of this? It is FREE! Yes my favorite F word. FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE. So we went to go try out King's Hawaiian in LA. Since there is a Hawaiian bakery in NorCal and I am a frequent visitor of Hawaii, I think I have a good sense of what a Guava chiffon cake should taste like and for the most part, King's Hawaiian fails miserably. However I cannot blame this on their recipe. I blame this on their attempt to satisify the potential customer with a smaller nub piece that looks like it was baked for the same duration as a full cake except in a smaller pan. The cake was very dense and dry on the sides. They covered it with non-dairy based white cream to cover it up and it didn't help. We also had 3 other flavors: Paradise, Lilikoi (Passion Fruit), and Chocolate. What was weird was that Paradise and Guava were the nubby pieces that were dense and not very good. The other two were slices from a full size cake and tasted moist and favorful. We brought our friends who get cakes from King's Hawaiian all the time and they said that the little nubs is not representive of the cakes that you buy. Well I hope not, b/c it was the worst one I have had ever.
What is the best part of King's Hawaiian? It is cheap. Ok it ain't like Ranch 99 cheap but it is very reasonable. They also have this book of decorations that they do for free. They do charge for flowers, but recommend that we get our flowers from the florist. The only thing is that they use non-diary cream so you can leave the cake out for 8 hrs so you don't get fondant. Sometimes fondant just looks nice because it is so smooth, but hey, at least the cake is going to taste better than your avg wedding cake and for us that is more important. So for right now this is in the lead.
Now it is just time to go eat more cake for free.
PS. Don't get the coffee because it is bad. It is burnt, old, and just nasty.
My fiancee asked me a pretty simple question the other day, "Who do you think looked the prettiest in their dress this year?" "Ummm....everyone?"
Seriously though, I could not remember what people looked like. All these wedding just sort of blended together after a while. I mean they are all special and if I actually think about it, I will remember each one, but thinking as a whole, I have no clue. I couldn't tell you how they wore their hair, what their dress was like. All I remember is that they wore white and looked pretty.
So I don't remember what they wore or even looked like, what do I remember? I remember two things: the food and the dancing/DJ. Shoot I can't even remember what events (ie slideshow, speeches, etc..) happened. But I can remember when the food sucked or the food was good or whether or not the DJ actually knew what a good song was.
I have pretty high hopes for our food, as for our DJ, I don't know b/c we haven't booked one yet (have to choose from a venue provided list), but I do know I am going to give him songs that I do not want to hear like "Celebration".
P.S. As I write this blog, I realize I can't write worth da sh!!. If this was class, I would totally fail my grammar portion.
So I have emailed two photogs that I want to meet with. I emailed them a while back to get pricing information and started a back and forth with them a couple of times. Well then the line went dead. I was still collecting information and evaluating who we wanted to meet with. So now that we are all ready to meet with them, I sent them emails (b/c who doesn't check their emails) and now I never hear back. WTF? Do you not want money? So now should I email them again? Wait some more? Or just do it the old fashion way and call and ask where da F have you been?
This is how I view this. Sept is a slightly off season month. These photographers I am pursuing may not be full timers but looks like they want to be. So I would think most of them work little jobs not making any good coin so they pad the income by shooting weddings. Well why don't they take business 101 and if inquired, they shall respond. Hmm...what to do what to do...I will probably call them this weekend if I don't hear from them on Sunday because I want to meet with them and if we don't like them, then that just means a higher priced photog at my wedding and not necessarily better.
Blah!
Man it was nice to get away and take a break from wedding planning. Basically went to the islands for a week and didn't do any planning. Zilch. None. My fiancee looked at some magazines and sites for dresses and caught on some blogs, but no talk of vendors, buying anything, etc... Man that was NICE! Take a break, it makes you come back more rejuvenated.
