to have or not to have an "Unplugged" Wedding?

I'm almost afraid to admit this. But I don't encourage my wedding clients to have "unplugged" weddings. It just isn't really a subject that gets brought up or talked about during meetings. But like I mentioned earlier, I have a lot of opinions about them.

So here goes.

An "unplugged" wedding is when guests are not allowed to take photos during the ceremony and sometimes during portraits and family photos. That means all cell phones, iPads, and cameras are restricted with the exception of the hired photographer and videographer. 

Photo by Shannon Michele Photography

Think of me like the Smokey the Bear of wedding photography. "Only YOU can prevent a wildfire of Instagram Storying."

(And I'm talking to both the people in front of and behind the camera.)

Ultimately, the decision to make a wedding unplugged is the decision for only the bride and groom to make. (Let's respect that everyone is different lest we wake the Bridezilla). It's as personal as deciding on whether you should serve salmon or chicken as your alternate dish, or choosing between roses or dahlias in your bouquet.

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. Ya know?

But I'm here to help you make your decision based on the pros and cons of making a wedding unplugged.

I present to you Exhibit A: an extreme example of what can happen during the ceremony of your wedding if it isn't "unplugged":

Photo by Taylor Parker Photography

Unplugged Pro: What happens above probably won't happen if you ask your guests to be "unplugged" and present. Most of you will be convinced at this point and stop reading. Bye!

For those of you still on the fence,

Unplugged Con: Your photographer may not get everything. Most brides don't realize how much they missed until they see their wedding photos. The day is such a blur, looking through photos is like reliving the day.

Photographers may seem magical with their witchcraft and Photoshop, but I somehow have not mastered the ability to be two places at once. If you haven't hired a 2nd shooter, you may not get all the shots you didn't know you wanted.

It also can take a long-ass time to get your photos back. This is important to note:

on average, it takes about 5 times the amount of time to edit a wedding as it does actually photographing the wedding.

It's normal for me to turn around a wedding gallery in 8 weeks. That's two months before you get to see your first kiss photos, or the photos of your husband tearing up during his vows.

Your wedding day is much more important for you and your guests than it is for your photographer. A guest that has known you since you pooped in diapers is going to be more invested and have a more emotional connection to you and your wedding day than anyone you are paying to be there. And quite frankly, anyone who has wiped your butt at any point in your life at the very least has earned the right to take a photo of you coming down the aisle.

Plugged Pro: Every wedding I go to has at least ONE person who is also a photographer, whether they are a hobbyist or a professional. I'm in the minority of photographers who think this is awesome for the bride and groom. They basically get an extra shooter for free! And I'm all for someone taking photos that I may be missing while I'm off taking portraits of the bride and groom.

You heard me right: I LOVE when guests take photos. I want the bride and groom to have so many wedding photos that they get sick of looking at wedding photos.

But there's a fine line of me loving this before it crosses over to a very big  Plugged Con:

problems only arise when guests start to compete for the same shots as the hired professionals.

I see you, sneaky.

It doesn't matter whether a wedding is unplugged or not; at some point, someone is bound to stand right next to me and take a photo of the same exact same thing I'm shooting. I've had iPads held directly over my head while taking family photos. I've had people jump in front of me to take a first kiss photo with their camera, I'm constantly checking my immediate surroundings because I'm bound to step on someone at some point.

Why is this a problem?

In most cases, it's a matter of eyeballs. If someone is taking a photo next to me during family photos, there is bound to be at least one person in the photo who looks at their camera. And if someone isn't looking at the camera in family portraits, it's noticeable. That person may as well have their eyes closed, and it causes me to feel the need to either delete the image or photoshop someone's eyes.

Ain't no one got time for that, honey.

Enjoy this commercial interruption from SLFWeddings.com

At the end of the day, I truly believe we as hired professionals are usually prepared and ready for this to happen, and are quick enough on their feet to compensate for Aunt Kathy getting trigger happy in the front row. 

I can count multiple weddings where I have had a lot more obstructions aside from cameras and iPads. I've dodged plants, cacti, trees, columns, stairs, the sun. It's common for officiants to forget to tell the guests to take their seats once the bride gets to the end of the aisle (I'm not even short but I don't have many places I can take photos if there are 10 rows of heads in front of me). I've had to climb on things and duck and dodge at every wedding no matter what.

At the end of the day, your photographer will do their damnedest to get the shots needed.

But I think it's important to make your photographer and videographer's job easier, not more difficult.

Here are three simple ways to ensure you get those Pinterest-worthy ceremony photos no matter what:

1. Hire a second shooter whether you are planning on having an unplugged wedding or not.

2. Ask your officiant to make an announcement before the ceremony to remind guests to stay seated and keep all limbs and body parts clear of the center aisle.

3. If you allow guests to take photos, request all flashes be turned off.

(Flashes usually emit what I can only describe as a red laser beam before they flash. Do you want laser beams in your wedding photos? Didn't think so.)

I hope this helps!

xo

Casey

I am bridezilla, hear me roar.

Spewing flames that scorch the earth!

A monster of mass destruction!

Civilization crumbles as its death rays blast a city of 6 million from the face of the earth!

It's coming this way... BRIDEZILLA!

how i imagine people think of me.

The number one thing I get asked when people find out I photograph weddings is, "What's it like dealing with all the Bridezillas?"

When I try to honestly tell them that I don't really have any horror stories, they seem so surprised. Trust me, if my clients were like those reality show bridezillas I probably would've quit this business a long time ago.

I think when someone hears "wedding" they automatically think the bride is crazy. And that's just not fair. I never thought the word "Bridezilla" would be directed at me (me? I'm so not going to flip a table over napkin colors). That is, I didn't think the word applied to me until I had that ring on my finger, and I started being accused of 'zilla-ing* just because I was saying "no" to suggestions and other people's vision that differed from what I knew I wanted.

(*Zilla-ing: A new dance move like dabbing, but with more fire and fury).

I have been in the wedding industry for several years now. I have seen just about every type of wedding with every type of bride. Do you know how many Bridezillas I have actually encountered? One. ONE. 

You know what monster is way more common at weddings than a bridezilla? The mom-zilla. The sister-zilla. The random-guest-you-didn't-invite-zilla. There are even vendor-zillas out there.

There is a 'Zilla at every wedding, and most times it isn't the bride.

I have never in my life had so many people give me unsolicited advice than I have while planning my wedding, or tell me something I NEEDED to do, or questioned my thought process or choices I made.

Allow me to kindly suggest where you can stick this bouquet of flowers if you tell me one more thing I "need" to do.

Everyone is an expert at wedding planning, apparently, and I never knew it until I got engaged.

Bridezillas are created when a bride-to-be is forced to put their foot down after a sea of opinions, inane comments, and such gems as:

"My wedding was perfect, so you should do it like that, too."

"What do you mean you don't have wedding colors? What will your guests take away from the day?"

"You're not having a priest marry you? Will it even be legal?"

"Why aren't you getting a spray tan?"

"Why can't your sister wear white? Don't you want her to feel special?"

"You're having food trucks? Well, your guests are going to hate that."

Not to mention the countless brides who I know experience people (strangers, even!) who comment on their weight, diet, etc because "You have a dress to fit into!" (I mean, does being engaged come with a "Please be rude to me!" sign around our necks?)

Let's be real: planning a wedding is STRESSFUL. There are so many decisions that go into wedding planning. Most of us are doing this for the first time ever (and hopefully the last time ever!). Many brides (like me) are already doing most of the decision making and planning work alone. I know this because I'm in several wedding planning groups on Facebook and all the complaints go to the same place:

"My bridesmaids are unreliable."

"My fiancé doesn't care about anything but the food."

"My future mother in law invited 45 guests we don't know."

Now, combine that stress with everyone (and I mean everyone you interact with who knows you are getting married) with a favorite ice-breaker anyone who hasn't seen you in the past week asks, "How's the planning going?" 

Ask me again how the planning is going.

How does one answer this question, exactly? What would you like to hear? I genuinely want to know. I could be honest and say, "It's stressful as hell, and everyone hates my ideas!" or I could smile and lie and say, "I love planning weddings and I wish I could do this again and again!" (God bless wedding planners).

So, next time you encounter a soon-to-be bride, please be considerate. Don't talk about her weight or her diet (a good rule of thumb is it's ALWAYS rude to ask anyone about their weight), don't try and give her your opinion unless she asks for it, and don't offer to help her and then not help when she takes you up on it. 

Don't add to the stress she already is experiencing. Otherwise,

if you wake the Bridezilla, it's probably your fault.

love and kisses,

Bridezilla Brodley

How I Found My "Niche"

I wasn't ever one of those artists that had an exact career trajectory. I knew what I liked and I knew what I didn't like, but I never said to myself, "I know I want to be a ____." I didn't even know for sure if I wanted to be a photographer at all. I kind of just thought being a photographer sounded cool.

When I was in school, I was really into studio fashion work and portraiture. My senior thesis project was based around a fictional world of characters from songs by the Beatles, such as Eleanor Rigby, Lady Madonna, and the Taxman. I did everything from the makeup to the lighting.

And I loved it.

"Taxman" 2008

When I started shooting weddings in 2012, I thought this love of fantasy would turn into me attracting couples that only did theme weddings, which is so niche I didn't even know where to start marketing to those cool people.

So instead, I started to encourage my friends to play dress up. And by "encourage" I really mean "force." I knew I needed a portfolio to reflect the type of photos I wanted to eventually be paid to take.

The first mock engagement session I ever did was a play off the movie Moonrise Kingdom. The movie had just come out at that point, so the idea was still new and exciting (but now, I think I've seen a million Moonrise Kingdom engagement sessions).

I swear this was original in 2012

Now I know that these types of "mock sessions" are really just called "styled shoots" in the industry.

Once I started getting busier, my clients began looking to me for suggestions on what to do for their engagement session. Honestly, I just wanted them to have fun. And I wanted to have fun, too. I knew my job would get really tedious really quickly if every shoot had the same prom poses with the same location.

And then it clicked.

Everyone is unique in their own way, right? Maybe my clients  don't like playing dress up, but there is certainly at least SOMETHING they like to do. Maybe they don't normally go to parks and hold hands and do corny things while skipping through the grass into the sunset. I honestly don't know if I'd want to meet the person that does this in their spare time.

So I started to telling my clients, when it comes to planning your engagement session:

I was open to any and all suggestions. No idea was too weird.

Then, it happened. One of my couples loved the idea of doing something that was totally "them." They didn't want to gaze into each other's eyes on the beach at sunset. They didn't want sunset at all, they wanted to get tattoos together at night.

They still gazed into each other's eyes, though. It was an engagement session, after all.

That shoot was challenging and fun, from figuring out the lighting to getting to know my clients, (who are now dear friends of mine and just had their first baby!).

I was hooked. And thus began my career-long obsession with doing anything my couple felt would be "fun." 

I photographed couples going on perfect dates. I started working with props.

I went on a road trip all the way up the coast to Big Sur.

And on our way home we stopped at In n' Out.

Some couples really went all in.

...while others chose to stay at home and make s'mores.

And these two just wanted to embrace in the snack aisle.

That's the most romantic place I know, too.

It's really rare that engagement sessions get published anywhere. Weddings are where it's at. No one wants to see 20 photos of people who they don't know making out, they just want to know about the things. So trust me, I'm literally only doing these because I think they are fun for everyone and they help me really get to know the people I work with. 

So, there you have it. My niche. I have no idea how it will look 5 years from now, but I know I'm going to meet a ton of people with incredible imaginations and I'll have a lot of fun along the way.

And I can still play dress up whenever I want to.

5 Ways to Get Kids to Smile during family photo sessions

Maybe I should preface this entire post with this disclaimer: I do not have children of my own. But I have been around a lot of children, I am not afraid of children, and once I even was a child myself. And as a child, I vividly remember my mother begging me to take a photo for her Christmas cards every year. And I remember how much I hated every second of it.

Now that I'm an adult who forces children who are not my own to smile for photos regularly, I have a little more insight from the other side of the camera. I know how hard it is to work with kids of all ages. Sometimes getting smiles is like pulling teeth.

Here are some of the ways I get kids to have fun during photo sessions:

1. Be absurd.

Photographing kids means not being afraid of embarrassing yourself in public. It's hard to get reactions from newborns and babies, especially since they can't really take direction yet. Most newborns can't even focus their own eyes (man, kids can't do anything for themselves these days. Millenials, amirite?)

But I've learned that the majority of kids LOVE sounds. The weirder, the better. Pretend you're a duck. Now pretend you're an airplane. Now make whatever sounds a squirrel makes. Now make a farting sound. Now pretend like you're a monkey. DANCE MONKEY, DANCE.

(Not a session with kids, but I keep it animated no matter what.)

2. Bring their favorite toy.

Distraction is the key with any kid under 4. If they have a favorite toy, let them play with it or hold it during the session. It brings an added sense of comfort, especially for shy kids.

3. Don't be afraid to take breaks.

Hanger is a real thing. This may be the most important tip of all time: make sure your kid is well rested and fed before the photo session. And bring snacks with you. It's OK to take 5 minutes to have a snack, or change an outfit. For a lot of kids, these tiny breaks do so much to help their mood and attention.

So if this means scheduling the photo session right after nap time, so be it. I'd much rather the kid be in a good mood than it be the right lighting situation. Photographers can always work around the light. Yes, some light is more desirable than others, but when it comes to photographing kids all bets are off. You worry about the time when your kid is happiest, let your photographer worry about the location and lighting.

Don't schedule the session right before dinner and hope your kids will be patient. They won't. 

4. Make poses into games.

If you have ever had a family session with me you know I'm down to play a mad game of peek-a-boo. Or, a sing along. Or I'll ask older kids to run up and squeeze mom or dad as tight as possibly can. Then I pretend to chase them. Then I tell everyone to take turns tickling each other. Then I tell them to dance. I SAID DANCE.

5. Be ok with imperfection.

I think this one is the number one thing parents worry about before photo sessions with their kids. It's a bigger concern than outfit choice (seriously). And I can't tell you how many sessions end with one parent saying to me, "I hope you at least got ONE good one!" (spoiler alert: I did).

Here are my promises: You are going to feel like your session was insane. You will literally feel like it was pure chaos and you will wonder how all the other parents get such well behaved children and why today was the day your angel baby chose to turn into Satan's minion. You will feel so many emotions, friend. But breathe. It's ok. A good family photographer should be able to get something wonderful, even if it's not everyone smiling and looking at the camera at the same time. 

I hope these tips help!

xo,

Casey

the best business (and life) advice i ever got... from michael phelps

Olympian Michael Phelps to date has 28 medals, 23 of which are gold medals. He is not a business owner. But I recently heard a story about why Phelps is so consistently successful, and it has become the single most helpful piece of advice that I bring with me (along with my camera bag) to every gig.

Everyone has heard of "The Secret," right? If you can believe in it, you can do it? Well, whoever wrote that crap should've talked to Michael Phelps. This is the real "secret":

The key to success isn't visualizing what should go right. The key to success is visualizing what could go wrong, and having a plan of action.

Michael Phelps trains every day. He's an Olympian, duh. But you see, all Olympians practice. Nothing about practicing makes Michael Phelps special or different from any other athlete. The difference is Michael Phelps takes his practice to the next level. He uses visualization techniques before, during, and after practice. He visualizes the perfect race. He visualizes how it feels if everything goes right.

And then he starts to visualize things going wrong.

One of these visualizations included a common issue that swimmers face: goggles filling with water. I swam competitively in high school and I know first-hand that if you are blind, it's nearly impossible to win a race. You can't see the line at the bottom of the pool to stay on course. You can't see the lane dividers. You can't see, period. 

So, Phelps would practice in the dark. He memorized approximately how many strokes it took to get from one end of the pool to the other. And he'd visualize these blind stokes every day before and after practices.

In 2008 during the Beijing Olympics, Michael Phelps's goggles filled with water when he dove into the pool during the 200m Butterfly. So he counted his strokes, and he finished the race blind. And he won gold.

OK, so now you're saying,

From Superbad

but I need you to just sit right back down and be patient because I'm about to drop some serious knowledge on you. 

Picture this:

I attended a rehearsal for a wedding I recently photographed, and during the entire run-through of the ceremony I noticed a family-member recording video on her iPhone. This normally wouldn't be an issue, but this guest in particular was way up in the bride and groom's personal space. I'm talking closely hovering around the couple and circling them like a hawk through the entire rehearsal. Had it been the actual wedding day, she would've been blocking the bride and groom in every. single. one. of my photos.

Not really the most romantic memories to have. I was hired to do a job, and something (in this case, someone) was literally standing in my way of success.

This could not happen on the next day during the wedding. But what was the most professional way to handle this? It's time to use the Phelps method. Or, as I like to refer to it:

W.W.M.P.D.? what would michael phelps do?

*This is a photo of me doing my job, no matter what the day throws at me. Photo by Victoria Gold Photography

So what WOULD Michael Phelps do to prepare for this? Would he risk insulting her by pulling her aside and kindly asking her to sit down? Is she the type of person to not listen, even if she was asked politely? 

It's not my job to tell someone they can't take their own photos during a loved one's wedding day (I can talk more about my opinions on "unplugged" weddings another day). But for all I knew at the time, if I didn't do something, it had great potential to interfere with my job and jeopardize the success of the wedding photos. 

So I decided I would sleep on it and before I went to sleep, I visualized it happening during the ceremony. And I came up with a game plan.

step one:  be aware of the potential issue and do what you can to prevent it from happening before anything actually happens.

Phelps practiced in the dark, so you should too (metaphorically). In  my situation, in an effort to stay professional and not insult any guests, I pulled the officiant aside on the day of the wedding before the ceremony and asked her to make a tiny announcement to guests as they take their seats : stay seated during the ceremony and to keep clear of the center aisle if they wanted to take a photo. I knew if I at LEAST had the aisle clear of guests, I'd get all the necessary photos for the bride and groom. And if they stayed seated, I'd have even more angles and opportunities for other photos, too.

Step Two: Figure out your damage control.

Say you do everything to prevent the dreaded thing from happening, and it still happens. What are you going to do?

Look, you can only control so much. You cannot control what other people do. But if you want to be a professional, you need to know how you are going to handle a tough situation when it's thrown at you. 

I thought, if worse comes to worse I could always maneuver or politely tap a shoulder to remind them there is a professional there that is paid to get "the shot." The worst case scenario would be physically pushing someone out of the way (which I have done and am not afraid to do. I'm watching you, Uncle Bob).

Fortunately, my prevention tactic worked. The officiant politely reminded everyone to stay clear of the aisle for the photographers, and everyone stayed seated. I even think the announcement reminded guests that they were there to witness and be included in photos! 

Step Three: be a total badass on the reg and don't be sorry about it.

You can apply this worst-case-scenario technique to anything: A big presentation. Asking your boss for a raise. Traveling somewhere new. Your wedding day. Visualize the possibilities of what could go wrong, think of ways to prevent it, and then think of your back up plan. E-mail your presentation file to yourself, just in case you forget the USB. Figure out where you'd need to go if you lost your passport abroad. Get a tent in case the weather predicts rain during your outdoor wedding day.

It's also an important practice to help face our fears. What is the worst-case scenario? Lose your job? Will you die?  (If you are likely to die, maybe it's not worth it to begin with).

What are some solutions or ways to avoid those possibilities? What's the back-up plan? 

And most importantly, even if things don't go according to any plan...

Until next week,

Casey