Three points! 1. Investigate and determine your clients needs, limitations, and dreams. 2. Establish design objectives. 3. Exceed your clients' expectations. We set the parameters of size, style, and content from discussions with our client prior to the wedding. Having a series of questions to answer on a sheet means you get the information you need. Album type, size, and budget are the first questions. Then how many albums and what these would do. We gauge their response to our sample albums and ask questions about what might be important. We define the style by giving them a key description and To View More >>

I was upsold to in the weekend and didn't even know it. Now that I do though, I'm ok with it. Over the last few weeks my fiancee and I have been looking out wedding bands for us both. We'd again done our homework, been put off by another raft of useless sales people and ended up where we always knew we would, with the same jeweller I'd bought her engagement ring from. I blogged about that experience a while back. An hour later I walked out of the shop with a quote for a wedding band thicker, wider, with a bigger diamond and in higher quality gold than I'd gone in thinking I wanted. Kayla made To View More >>

Is it just me or are we all (suppliers to the wedding industry) suffering from our clients' "fear of commitment"? The numbers of bookings are down, the time between booking and getting married is getting shorter. "It's the Recession," we cry, and it's almost true. It's not the recession, it's the fear of it. How can we overcome that fear? This is just a question, but ... are we better to say, "We'll give you a 20% discount" or, "We can be flexible?" What does "flexible" mean? It might refer to payment terms. It might mean they can start with a 'shoot only' package and add the trimmings later – To View More >>

At weddings there are always time burglars stealing from the innocent, so we talk to our clients about how long things really take ... so we don't lose the time we need. Sometimes this means that a cunning couple will deliberately try to run us out of time because they hate having their photographs taken. We distract them by focusing on their feelings for each other instead of their feelings about photography – easy if you aren't constantly asking them to smile for the camera. One of the most guilty time burglars is the make-up artist … stealing time from the photographer to get the perfect To View More >>

There's a man on the side of the road selling dreams ... a guy comes up to him and says, "How much for a dream?" The Dream salesman says, "That depends, do you want a good dream, or a bad dream?" "I want the best dream I can get." "Did you know that your dreams are drawn from your own experiences?" asks the salesman. "Now I do. Maybe I could have somebody else's dream then," says the guy, hoping for a happy experience, and realising that his lacklustre life was not the material of amazing dreams. "Funny you should ask – I have a brother who sells books and lottery tickets, maybe he can help you." To View More >>

"The frankest and freest product of the human mind and heart is a love letter; the writer gets his limitless freedom of statement and expression from his sense that no stranger is going to see what he is writing." - Mark Twain. I've always thought of wedding vows as a love letter read out loud. But the way they're typically spoken, written, and expressed, is almost forced. They're an expression of love, I think, better kept for a love letter. I want my vows to be my frankest and freest thoughts and feelings. But I don't feel that limitless freedom that Twain talks about. Knowing this letter - the To View More >>

Because you'll probably (hopefully) never be engaged again, or plan your own wedding again, or be single again... Sure planning a wedding can be stressful, and frustrating, and hard work, and all those other things that make you want to run off to Vegas and elope - but it's also exciting and fun and romantic. It's now only two days until our wedding, but we're still taking time to relax, reflect, and enjoy the process. Wish us luck, rehearsal tomorrow. Cheers, Nigel To View More >>

Well I don't know about you, but we had a hell of a time finding a venue that had a date even remotely close to the one we wanted - and we were looking over a year in advance. Turns out corporates are booking their annual functions three or four years out, nabbing all the prime dates. We learned the importance of booking early the hard way, especially since we were planning a wedding in the peak summer season. We were after a venue that we felt cared about our wedding. So if we were shown around by a 20-something 'event planner' in high heels holding a clip-board who could only fit us in between To View More >>

In 25 days I get married. I’ve known my beautiful fiancée, Kayla, for over 10 years, dated her for over five and we've been engaged for one. We’ve been through some tough times together, shared plenty of good ones and believe that the heart of marriage is the relationship we create. I don’t consider myself uber romantic, funny, sensitive, or wealthy. But Kayla thinks otherwise. And that’s part of why I love her. I’m not a wedding planner or a photographer, just a normal guy in love, getting married … who happens to work at Queensberry. As you'd expect the photographers we work with To View More >>

Where do you start when planning a wedding? I've no idea... You'll have to ask Kayla! But one of the first things I remember was sitting down and setting our priorities. And the reason I remember is because I think it's probably one of the most valuable things we did. What I mean by 'setting our priorities' is that Kayla and I decided we needed to figure out what aspects of our wedding day were most important to us... other than the reception (the most expensive part). We each wrote down our top two priorities - things we considered deserved the most time, money and/or effort. The idea was that To View More >>