Laura and Mike got married at Hidden Meadows in Snohomish, WA this past weekend.  Please stay tuned for more pictures from their beautiful wedding.

I finally have time to sit down and recap year 2009 and put together a short slideshow of some of my favorite Seattle wedding photographs I took from last year.  I hope you enjoy the show! 

Hope you are having a great holiday season and looking forward to the new year! I have two great news to share with everybody! If you are not reading from an RSS reader, you’ll probably notice the new website design. I hope you like this improved look better! I am slowly updating old posts with the new design, soon portfolio galleries will also be up and running. Please let me know what you think!

As I was waiting for the new website to be designed, I had to hold back the excitement that I have been accepted by the Wedding Photojournalist Association! It is really an honor for me.  WPJA was the place where I find out more about awesome wedding photojournalists from my area and around the world. Being accepted into that list of photographers is humbling and exciting for me. If you are a bride, I hope you can find great resources about photographers from that website as I did when I planned for my wedding.

Having been on both sides of the camera, as a bride and as a photographer, I am writing down some tips for the bride, in hopes that you will get better results for your wedding photography. Your wedding day usually goes by way faster than you expect, but your pictures will be there to preserve your happy memories for a lifetime.

1. Connect with your photographer
I’d say the number one tip is to connect with the photographer. Having a good match in personality is something you should not ignore when selecting the photographer. Having a photographer that can talk and laugh with you will help you be natural and relaxed in front the camera and be the best of yourself. One thing I highly recommend is doing an engagement session. When the big day comes, you already know exactly how your photographer works, and you will just have to worry about being your happy self!

2. Allocate a lot of time for your pictures
Make sure you plan enough time for pictures, not just enough time for formal pictures with the family. Having some private moments to capture images of you and your groom is priceless. I recommend that you think about this when planning your wedding day timeline. Pick a few locations that you’d like to have pictures taken and discuss this with your photographer before the big day.

3. First look
This is most definitely a personal choice. More and more brides chose to see each other before the ceremony nowadays. I did that on my wedding and I found that to be a great decision. The first look can be as emotional as the one walking down the aisle. This ties back to point number 2, by having the first look, you and your groom will be have a lot of time before the ceremony to take pictures. You will also feel less rushed after the ceremony ends. You can then enjoy that time talking and greeting all the guests that are at the wedding to celebrate your day with you.

4. Location, location, location
Your ceremony and your reception may not be at the grandest places. But you can pick some locations, or ask your photographer to help pick some great location for pictures of the bride-groom and wedding party. Have a place with large windows for getting ready (parents’ house, hotel, etc). A beautiful backdrop will never hurt!

5. Custom designed album
Many people asked what I did with my wedding pictures. I always laugh and tell them, nothing, absolutely nothing. I did not even have one printed out. I tried, I loved my wedding pictures a lot, but I could never make up my mind which ones of the hundreds of pictures I got back on DVD I wanted printed out. Now that I am a wedding photographer, I love designing wedding albums. Each album tells a story of love. They are hand selected pictures that completely tell the the story of the wedding day. These include little details that you’d never thought about printing out a picture for, to the formal and candid portraits of the bride and groom and the loved ones that attended the wedding. I know I would be designing the album for my own wedding. Soon I will also have a beautiful flushmount album to relive the story of my wedding day.

These are the tips I can think of for now. Feel free to drop me a comment on what you did for getting better pictures on your wedding day!