What I learned from my two brothers about weddings
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My Older Brother and Video
My older brother was married when I was about 11 years old (he has 11 years on me). For their wedding video, they enlisted the help of my uncle, Bob. I mean hey, it was better than paying a professional when your uncle could just do it, right?
When my brother and his new wife came back from their honeymoon in Hawaii, they popped in the tapes Uncle Bob had taped, hoping to see all the things they miseed or forgot about during the busy day. My sister-in-law has in tears halfway through. Uncle Bob got tired during the reception, at which that point my cousin Jerry picked up the camcorder. The rest of the footage consisted of kids chasing kids, Blair Witch style. Speeches, gone. First dance, gone. Toasts, gone.
The lesson is: don't let Uncle Bob tape your wedding. Unless they can have a professional work ethic at a family gathering, you will get less that you would like.
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My Younger Brother and Photos
Below: Actual unaltered image of formals from my younger brother's wedding. I'm the sixth shadow from the left
My younger brother decided to get married in college and was short on finances, of course. Everyone laughed when he said he'd squeeze a wedding in South Orange County under $15,000. He purchased a cheap photographer with the full packages, getting the album and what not. The photographer, well, sucked. He shot film and many of his shots where blurry and underexposed (film means the results aren't seen until after the wedding is over). Entire rolls during the reception were unusable.
Part of the package was to receive the images in a digital format. The scans were blurry and had resolution equal to a desktop wallpaper (1024 pixels), which would barely make a decent 4x6. After the wedding day, the photographer was a nightmare to deal with. Finally they received decent scans, but only after months of frustration and run-arounds.
Now my brother makes a good living (along with his wife too), but they do not have any good pictures from their wedding to make a nice album. The album they do have is a bunch of 4x6's put into sleeves. Their regret is that they can't make a better coffee table album now that they have money to spare.
The lesson is: get better images over products, because you never know how much you'll make down the road. Products can be made in 1 month or 10 years, but images can only be catured once. Make sure you get the originals too (negatives or digital files).
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