by admin on March 31, 2009
Last fall, Tanja Lippert took some e-pics that came to be immortalized as the “Chicken Suit and Naked Chick” series. The pics made her the talk of photo conferences across the land, and rightly so. And the subjects came to be known in internet vernacular as “that smoking-hot D&D guy” and “the chick with the amazing bod and all the model friends.”
This is what a typical engagement pic looks like, in case your brain was parked in CSI land for the past ten years and took a pass. Don’t get me wrong, this is a beautiful couple with a sweet shot.
BUT. This is what the Chicken Suit pics look like. Of course, if you prefer your e-pic subjects clothed, they did those too, which are also generally admitted to be amazing.
All those American heebie-jeebies about nudity aside, the Chicken shoot taught us something.
When you go to bridal shows and get beaten over the head with vendor offerings and contests, e-pics quickly become something to check off the list. After all, they have a dull history: something you’d slip to the paper to be reproduced in all its dark, grainy glory to notify your parents’ friends. A wedding mug shot.
So, couples don’t experiment much with e-pics. As for photographers: let’s face it … bored stiff.
What this couple realized is that e-pics can and maybe should take more risks.
Let’s say you invested in one of those fab photographers like Tanja, because you really want a fine visual record, one that moves you years later, without those crappy soft-focus filters.
Chances are, this is best photographer you’ll ever engage in your life. This is also one of the freest shoots you’ll ever have. At your wedding, you’ll have to cram in the shots during cocktail hour. You’ll be half-crazed. Here, you can unwind, take your time.
At your wedding, you’re wearing The Dress, or maybe two. But here you can flirt with all sorts of sartorial silliness.
And let’s be honest: youth is beautiful. You as a couple are the best-looking you’ll ever be, this minute. 20th anniversary photos will be touching for sure, but nothing else save the wedding will capture the luminosity you’ve got right now — which you probably don’t even know you have.
No, you’re probably busy saying, “gad, I need to lose fifteen pounds!” and pinching your belly. Meanwhile, your skin is glowing, your eyes are shining, you’re all pumped full of natural collagen. But you probably won’t appreciate that until you look back fifteen years later.
None of this is to say that e-pics should be yet one more area where a bride feels compelled to out-stylize the next, God no.
But if you see these pics and feel that little flutter inside, like hey! I coulda done that, or Oh my God I LOVE that couple!, then consider bringing a little more of yourself to that shoot for two you’ve got planned.
‘Cuz this one shows that you can actually get shots of the human spirit on your e-pic day.
by admin on August 24, 2007
One thing in the wedding business you really grow to love are human voices. Few and far between, they really are like good, deep swigs of Cab or Barbaresco: you learn to anticipate, then savor them. One of my favorites belongs to Khris Cochran, of DIY Bride (the site, and soon, the book).
As we all know, weddings come with a heavy burden of perfection, and perfection comes at a price (as does “elegance”). Somehow, this price has come to seem innocuous, something to be got through in a year or two that might consist of more trips to Albertson’s and fewer to Trader Joe’s. But as Khris points out, the numbers still add up to a diamond-hard truth: the cost of an average wedding’s not far from two-thirds of the average year’s salary. Ouch.
That’s fine and good, she says, as long as life goose-steps to the tune of the plans you’ve made. Khris had every reason to think hers would. She’d nailed a high-flying job in an industry that was pegged to make the industrial revolution a quaint historical byway. Money was flowing in so fast around the valley, no one quite knew how to spend enough on Ahi tuna, Cirque du Soleil performers or martini luges to make a dent in it. Plus, Khris knew how to manage her cash, not just make it. That virtually made her a poster girl for the responsible 30K wedding.
Yet, things went wrong.
Just about one generation ago, you knew from age five on what kind of wedding you’d have. If you wore cashmere sweater sets and a dainty pearl choker and it wasn’t just the milkman who called you “Miss,” you’d have a society shindig.
Your father paid for it; your mother directed the caterers and nodded sagely when you tried on the right gown, and jointly, your parents battled over which social contacts deserved an invitation. When all was said and done, Dad might gripe about the ailing state of his pocketbook, but you and Mr. Big started your swank new life financially unencumbered.
If none of these applied, you’d have a little affair at the VFW or your own backyard. A newphew was tasked with the record player, and blood relatives would show up with supersized casserole dishes on each arm. Sweet, simple, cheap. And again … unlikely to throw any curveballs that might darken those first few years of married bliss.
These days, most people are in limbo. They might get help, but parents rarely foot the bill. Couples themselves are at their most financially vulnerable, being young in their careers. And yet, virtually everyone feels that the $30,000 wedding is within reach, and they’re entitled to it. They feel this strongly. And in many cases, they get it.
But matter how many do, the fact is, paying for this kind of wedding is a HUGE high-wire act — unless your family is, to put it bluntly, loaded.
Sure, a lot of people who aren’t make it across that wire. Some, for reasons that once seemed unforeseeable, don’t. Virtually everyone who goes there is taking a financial risk that, in the days before wild credit and wilder debt loads, seemed like a free ticket to a sanitarium.
There’s no question that the wedding of your dreams can be worth every penny you spent. But would that still be true if you spent six years paying it off on cards with rates creeping ever-higher into the double digits because one of you lost your job?
What happens if you have a $30,000 wedding, and after you send off the band and pack up the dress, life throws you a curve ball?
