Julia & Andy’s wedding is featured today on The Broke Ass Bride website.

http://www.thebrokeassbride.com/2012/03/real-wedding-julia-and-andrews-home-brewed-spendin-wisely-new-england-wedding/

(And if you’re in love with this wedding, see more posts of it on our blog:

Julia’s commentary on her fav wedding photo

My fav photo from Julia & Andy’s wedding

The entire blog post of the wedding

A couple little extras

And Julia & Andy’s Engagement Session)

You may be thinking, “But, Heather, there’s no way to fit your awesome-town photography into a broke ass budget.” But au contraire. Julia explains how she did it, and more! (PS Andy has an awesome beer blog too, www.beantownbrews.com. Brewing your own wedding beer is not for amateurs.)

Love this and want to know more about us shooting your wedding?! Contact us at cirasphotography@yahoo.com

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I love this photo because as Paul and Resina are running back up to the house from the ceremony, their kids, Tyler and Sophia, were running up with them. Tyler was exclaiming “we got married!” The photos from a bride and groom walking back up the aisle married are always wonderful – so full of excitement and sheer happiness – but this was an extra cute little moment!

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I couldn’t help myself with the ’90s rap reference (for those of you who, like me, then need to watch the video, here’s the youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL2txMU50CI. I also highly recommend doing a search for the song on you tube because it brings up some hilarious home videos of people backing their asses up.)

But alas, I do not have the opportunity to back my ass up all that much, though I do have a lot of opportunities to back my PHOTOS up. (like that transition sentence, huh, huh??)

A good friend was in town this weekend (holler Joelle!), and as we were getting our INSANE pedicures at Pro Nails in Norwell, she asked me how I deal with the millions of photos Jesse and I take of Autumn (I currently have 1,118 photos on my iphone!!). Like this one where she laughs as she rips Jesse’s face off:

Or this one where she blows a raspberry as she blesses us like the Christ Child. She’s a multi tasker:

The good thing for us is that we already had a system for backing up photos, so we set her up with her own folder on the computer and external hard drives, and got to backing up.

I thought, then, that this information might be of interest to you folks, for your own personal preferences, and to know how we as professionals care for your photos.

Hypothetical wedding scenario to illustrate my point:

Step 1: Shoot wedding (if only it were that easy!)

Step 2: Come home, download RAW files and back them up on hard drive and FTP server.

Step 3: Edit RAW files; save them as jpgs

Step 4: Back up jpgs on external hard drive

Step 5: Back up jpgs on a pay-for-service website dedicated to hosting large files

Step 6: Back up jpgs to flickr. (This is a “just in case” measure in case the first two back ups failed. It’s a royal pain to download from flickr and I hope it never comes to that!)

Step 7: Burn a DVD of the wedding and store in a fire proof safe.

Step 8: After 6 months (or less, depending on how quickly it fills up!), the external hard drive moves to an off-site location.

Step 9: Order a bunch of prints. In the case of weddings, the client orders a bunch of prints, gets an album and whatnot so that the photos don’t just live online. With Autumn, or other personal photos we have, I tack on a bunch of 4x6s and enlargements with almost every order I place for clients. I keep some serious old fashioned boxes of prints in our closet, and it’s so fun to “waste” time when I’m supposed to be cleaning.

Somewhere in the middle of this process, the client is mailed their DVD with instructions for backing them up on their own. While CDs are awesome now, they probably won’t be in the future (hello, remember floppy disks? I have a ton of those with my college papers on ‘em, but no way to ever look at them again!), and they are really fickle (they hate heat, cold, moisture, shard scratchy things…), so backing them up online is good. Don’t just back them up on your computer, because it’s not a matter of if your computer will crash, but when, and don’t just back them up to an external hard drive when your computer fills up because those suckers crash all the time. I’ve had like 3 or 4 of them go, usually at the most inopportune times.

So, for you, this is probably overkill. You can probably just put your photos from your camera or phone onto your computer, and then back them up online (flickr’s a good, cheap option. It’s only $25/year for unlimited space.)  With Autumn’s pics, we haven’t yet burnt DVDs of everything, but I probably will and I’ll probably store that in our fire proof safe here at home. I’m even toying with the idea of dedicating an entire hard drive to just Autumn photos, but then I’m scared of leaving everything on one drive.

So, to recap, we back everything up in multiple places (hard drive, computer, DVD, online) so that everything isn’t in one place in case something fails on us.

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What?! No post on Valentine’s Day from a wedding photographer? Yeah, that’s right. We buck the trend. We aren’t huge Valentine’s Day fans. I think it’s maybe because we spend our lives with people who make every day romantic and beautiful.

Like Noah & Laura, who got married on a chilly January day… a day which happened to be their 10th anniversary! They’re only married a month, yet they’ve already been through so much together! Even though it was freezing outside, they braved the cold because it really was a beautiful day. And, it was a great idea to have a dance instructor during the reception because day weddings are usually a little more relaxed, and this got everyone up and moving!

The details:
Wedding Coordinator –  Marrero Weddings and Events
Hairstylist – Amanda Andella (Salon d’Emilio)
Makeup –  Christine Savas (Savas Studios)
Dress Designer(s) – Pronovias USA (bought at La Reine Bridal)
Officiant – T. S. Deacon Economos
Florist – Karla Cassidy
Cake – Cakes For Occasions
Band/DJ – C-Zone, DJ = Max Baun
Invitations – weddingpaperdivas.com
Israeli Folk Dance Instructor – Malka Benjamin

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Yes, the little nugget is growing up. Doesn’t she look like a flapper? I snagged the diaper cover and peacock feather headband from etsy here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/BottomsUpBoutique?ref=seller_info

Yes, in those two photos, she is a happy and compliant model. But this is what she looked like most of the time. Man, that hand is yummy!

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I’ve been trying to think of little things that I point out during the wedding day that could be helpful to post on the blog. So while it’s not rocket science to hold the bouquet of flowers correctly, I might as well point it out because I do at 99% of the weddings we shoot.

Step 1: Commandeer Bouquet.

Step 2: Hold bouquet with both hands

Step 3: Bring the bouquet down. Almost everyone naturally holds it too high.

See how nice it looks at this height? And, if you leave a little space between your body and your elbows, it has a slimming effect:

Step 4: Pretend that you’re resting your forearms on your hips. That’s the right height. See here:

Step 5: Point the flowers out just slightly, so that when I’m taking photos, I see a bit of the top of them, not just the side.

Step 6: Stop worrying that you’re holding them wrong, because it doesn’t really matter. Now laugh. You smiling is all that anyone cares about seeing.

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This past fall, our Halloween wedding from 2010 was featured in Bride and Groom Magazine!

Mandi and Jay had a classy wedding that wasn’t Halloween themed, but was inspired by the day: http://cirasphotography.com/2010/12/wayside-inn-wedding-mandi-and-jay/

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A little man came to the studio the other day… Can you even handle the cuteness? I love the photo of him digging into his bday cake. He liked it for about 30 seconds and then hated being dirty!

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Ok, I admit it- I just googled my own name. Hey, I was curious to see what came up! Well, this did- my interview with Well Wed magazine about my boudoir photography. How fun

http://www.weddingsmarthasvineyard.com/blog/spotlight/talent-spotlight-interview-heather-ciras-ciras-photography

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I kid about the title. I have never actually wanted to kill any of my brides, though in the beginning there was a little drama concerning timelines. It had mostly to do with me, as I wasn’t assertive enough to tell my brides and grooms what I thought was best way to get good photos on their wedding day. (Though Jesse might contend that I’ve never not been assertive enough to say anything!) Not anymore folks. This is my way to help you budget time better on your wedding day, and preferably not at high noon when the sun overhead makes you all look like raccoons. Well dressed raccoons.

The photo above perfectly illustrates the need for a good wedding day timeline that allows room for awesome photos. Lisa looks unstressed and happy as she approaches Eric, and Jesse was able to get this artsy photo that we had brainstormed before the wedding. (I love when we say in the car on the ride over “Hey, I want to get a photo of the bride approaching the groom, him cropped from the chest down and out of focus” and it happens! yay us!)

There are a few priorities that we have for good wedding day photos: a clear timeline that tells everyone where to be and when, a timeline that allows the bride to be unstressed, and preferably the times when we’ll be outside taking photos will be when there’s nice lighting conditions.

General Tips for the timeline:

1. Raise your hand if you look cute stressed. If you were here, you’d notice that my hand is not raised. I furrow my brow and squint when I’m stressed and that is NOT pretty. So tip numero uno is that even if everything goes horribly wrong, just smile. In the end, you still get to marry your best friend and have kick ass photos.

2. On a more practical note, remember to factor in travel time. Even if you have the ceremony and reception at the same place, it takes at least 10-15 minutes to move all the bridesmaids across a country club, because everyone will need a bathroom break, half of everyone will forget their purses, and hey, you know you don’t move all that quickly with 15 pounds of dress on and a 30 pound bouquet in your hand!

2. Plan in time to take a breather. At our wedding last Saturday, we did portraits outside for a while and then in the ballroom when the cocktail hour was beginning. At the end of the portraits, I gave the bride and groom 10 minutes alone to eat their appetizers and chat about the fact that they just got married. When they were ready, they came into the cocktail hour refreshed and happy, instead of tired from just doing 30 minutes of photos in the freezing cold.

3. Assume that things will run late, and be ok with that. Yes, you can have a timeline that has dinner served at 7, first dance at 7:20 and cake cutting at 7:35, but that is never going to happen. As long as you have a goal for these three things to happen back-to-back beginning around 7, I think that’s a good plan. Just don’t be upset if dinner isn’t served until 7:30 because it took longer than expected to wrangle all the guests from the bar at cocktail hour!

Here’s a great sample timeline that has worked well for us. Let’s assume the ceremony is at 6.

2:30-3:30 or 4: Getting Ready

Our goal for getting ready photos is to get a combination of fun girl photos, cool guy photos, and sentimental photos, like the one above where the dad is watching the girls get his daughter ready. This is one of my favorite times of the day- there’s a buzz of activity, people are really themselves because no one’s staring at them yet, and for the most part everyone’s happy! There’s no way to make this time completely stress free, but at least it can be fun!

4-4:30: Travel to portrait location

4:30-5:30: Portraits

We split the portraits into 3 sections: First look, family and wedding party portraits, your portraits. The first look only takes about 10 minutes, the family photos are about 20/25, and your portraits are about a half hour. We will absolutely welcome more time for this, but if you only have an hour that’s ok. We try and sneak some more photos in after the ceremony because the light will be awesome and you’ll be a little more relaxed.

5:30-6: travel to ceremony site from wherever we ended up during the portraits and relax

6-6:30: ceremony

6:30-6:45/7: a few more portraits that we can sneak in there (Both of the portraits above were taken after the ceremony when the light was gorgeous and both couples still had time to go to cocktail hour!)

6:45- 7:30: cocktail hour

7:30-9:30: Reception Coverage

All this being said, we make everything work. If we have 10 minutes in the ice cold darkness, we’ll definitely come back with a good photo or two. But, with some thinking done beforehand, we can aim higher than that and really get some awesome photos! Oh, and if our brides want to chat about your timeline, just shoot us an email and we’ll help you craft a custom wedding day timeline based on the time of your ceremony, locations of portraits and whatnot!

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