The Tres Chic Bride: October 2009

Wednesday

A little love and thank yous

{insert lame excuse as to why I have been an awful blogger {then multiply by two since I've been home sick for three days and clearly had time} blah blah blah....moving on}

We recently had a very unique wedding. The bride and groom live in Atlanta and the mother of the Bride was my main contact. Not so different but she {MOB} lived between Cincy and San Francisco! I came into the process a little late and ended up having to hire the majority of the vendors at the last minute. As in DJ, Hair, Makeup and photographer all in the last month. While I typically spend most of my posts gushing on the b+g {I *heart* you guys!} I have GOT to take the time to give a huge shout out to some absolutely-fabulous vendors. When we were in a major crunch they all came through and delivered some amazing work.

Venue: 20th Century Theater - one of my favorites in Cincy. Lindsey is an absolute breeze to work with and always makes the whole process effortless. Rick and I are thinking of throwing a massive 30th {oh geez...} bash next year and guess what venue is at the top of the list? You got it...

Church: St. Marys - sooo gorgeous! See pics below for inspiration. I just adore old Hyde Park churches.

Makeup: Heidi McKenna. Nothing more needs to be said. Lots of love for this chic.

Hair: Maria V - {You all know Maria} my favorite, favorite hair stylist. Not only does she rock my hair but steps up to save me last minute. If your looking for a stylist for your everyday look or the wedding day give Maria a shot. Once you do I promise you'll be a lifer like me ;)

Photog: Harrington Photography - we met this little gem through Tracy at Liz & Diggs wedding last year. Sheri is so talented and really stepped up to help us out. She was a life-saver! Also make sure to jump over and meet her 2nd shooter, Vicki, here. {side story: Rick and I pull up at the church and Vicki says "you look familiar" I say I get that a lot..she says "did you work at the beach in high school? In the Tradewinds shop?" AYKM!?! Yep, sure did. My first job. Craaaazziinnessss.}

DJ: Jeff at Party Pleasers - seriously. Jeff rocks my world. Not only is he a great DJ but he's good people, too. And we like to vaca in the same spot ;)

Limo: Your Chauffeur - always comes through for me. Definitely a go-to vendor for me.

Cake: Affordable Wedding Creations - the only vendor {besides 20th C and the church} that I didn't select. Cake was gorgeous and tasted yum-o. Couldn't ask for more than that!

Florist: Personal flowers were done as a gift from a family friend. They traveled a long distance to the wedding and spent the night at the Kloth household Friday night. A little nerve-racking but it all worked out! Reception flowers were done by me. Again..seriously I'm going to need some 1:1 lessons from Court if I keep having to do these centerpieces!

So a HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE thank you to you all. XOXOXOXOXOXO MUAH!

Ok on to some pics - the first two are my {not so} fab shots. The rest are courtesy of Sheri and Vicky.

Lots of love to K+M - enjoy your honeymoon away from all the craziness and look us up the next time your in Cincy :)

Friday

Industry Perspective: The Cost of Photography

I was perusing some of my favorite blogs and ran across Mark Garber's site for Red Haute Designs. The post cited an article written by Shawn Richter {posted on facebook by photographer Allen Mueller} about the cost of photography. You can find the full article here but I put a sampling below. Thanks to Mark and Jennifer for educating us!

Why are Professional Photographers so expensive?

In this digital age where everyone has digital cameras, scanners and home "photo printers", when people upload their photos to a local drug store website and pick them up a few hours later, we hear this all the time - How in the world do Professional Photographers charge $55 (actually more then what I charge) for an 8x10 when they cost just $1.50 at the drug store?

Here's why. Simply put, you're not just paying for the actual photograph, you're paying for time and expertise. First, let's look at the actual time involved. If you don't read this entire page, at least read this first part. For a two hour portrait session:
- one hour of travel to and from the session
- two hours of shooting
- 30 minutes of setup, preparation, talking to the client etc.
- 30 minutes to load the photos onto a computer (2 - 4 Gb of data)
- 30 minutes to back up the files on an external drive
- 3 - 4 hours of Photoshop time including cropping, contrast, color, sharpening, saving a copy for print and a copy for the internet and backing up the edited photographs
- 2 - 3 hours to talk to the client, answer questions, receive their order and payment, order their prints, receive and verify prints, package prints, schedule shipment and drop package off at Fed Ex.
- For local customers, we also print a set of all of their photos, and meet them at our studio to review the photos and place their order. Meeting and travel time averages 2 hours.You can see how one two hour session easily turns into more than ten hours of work from start to finish.

So when you see a Photographer charging a $200 session fee for a two hour photo shoot, you are not paying them $100 / hour.

For an eight hour wedding:
I won't bore you with the details, but an eight hour wedding typically amounts to at least two to three full 40 hour work weeks worth of time.

Again, if they are charging you $4,000 for an eight hour wedding, you are not paying them $500 / hour.Now for the expertise. Shooting professional photography is a skill, acquired through years of experience. Even though a quality camera now costs under $2,000 taking professional portraits involves much more than a nice camera.

Most Professional Photographers take years to go from buying their first decent camera to making money with their photography. In addition to learning how to use the camera itself, there is a mountain of other equipment involved, as well as numerous software programs used to edit and print photographs, run a website etc. And let's not forget that you actually have to have people skills, be able to communicate, make people comfortable in front of the camera - and posing people to make them look their best in a photograph is a skill all by itself.

Think of it this way - the next time you pay $X to get your hair done, a pair of scissors only costs $1.50. But you gladly pay a lot more to hire a Professional. What about the cheap studios at the mall?Please don't compare us to the chain store studios. But if you must, consider all of the time and work that we put into our photographs, compared to what they do. Good luck getting a two hour photo shoot at a chain store. Not to mention they won't come to the beach! And of course, look at our work compared to theirs. You get what you pay for.

The truth is, most of the mall and chain store studios lose money. In fact, in 2007 Wal-Mart closed 500 of their portrait studios because of the financial drain they were putting on the company. What the chain stores bet on is that you'll come in for some quick and cheap photos, and while you're there, you'll also spend $200 on other things. They don't have to make money, they are just there to get you in the door.

Conclusion: We hope that those who have taken the time to read this page will have a better understanding of why professional photographs cost so much more than the ones that you get from your local drug store. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Needless to say there were some great comments including, "Don't forget about the $15-20k worth of equipment it takes to do the session and editing/artworking."

I'd love to hear some thoughts from our loved Cincy photogs! C'mon...leave me a comment!!

Tuesday

Doughnuts can be beautiful, too!

Ok, I looove getting to prove people wrong! {Or rather - shedding light on something new. That's nicer, huh?} Backstory - I was at a final meeting and our bride said she'd like to bring something out towards the end of the evening for her guest to munch on. I mentioned doughnuts and the venue contact looked appalled! I'm like - your not going to bust out a box from krispy cream BUT who doesn't love doughnuts? Especially after an evening of drinking!

So here's my proof that doughnuts can step out from their dark corner and bask in the light of new acceptance. Notice - in all the pictures below you'll see that the sweets are displayed beautifully. It's all about the presentation.

These are from Dee’s Mini Doughnuts!

How fabulous would this be passed at a fall wedding?! I don't even drink coffee and I would partake!!

Or you can always do a cake shaped like coffee and doughnuts! haha - to each their own.

K - peace out my loves! I'm headed to Buskens......

{confession - we had doughnuts at the end of our wedding. They were made fresh at Ivy Hills and I totally stuffed one in my face before we made our sparkler exit. And I - and our guests - loved it! There's something about a fresh baked doughnut at 1:00 a.m. that takes me back to college... ;)}

Sunday

M+T

Slacker coordinator here....we just kicked off a crazy busy wedding blitz this weekend and I've been a bit slower than usual. My apologies :)

In my slow movingness {yes I just made that word up..} I hadn't gotten around to posting pictures from our last wedding. Rick and I had a great time with this one - the bride and groom were absolute gems to work with. M + T are such kind people, it makes our jobs easy! M's main direction to me was "do what you think looks best" I love hearing that!!

This wedding gave me the opportunity to dip back into my days as a flower-shop assistant as I did the centerpieces. And while I'm no Courtenay Lambert, I think it came together beautifully. We kept on budget by ordering all the flowers from flowerman {in Dayton}, M and her ladies put their bouquets together at the shop and I picked everything up the day of and got to work. If you are on a budget this is a great option - however, it's very time intensive so it's not for everyone!

Ceremony & Reception: Yankee Trace {beautiful!!}

Photog: Robert Hogan w No. 9 images

Florist: me and flowerman

Musicians: Brian Deyo {always fabulous!}

Ok enough chatter...here are some of my {not so} fab pics from the day!