Marriage and the Power of Divorce

I think how it works is a lot of photographers will put a huge watermark on the pictures and require that you pay some outrageous price to order prints directly from them. This is apparently very common and our photographer made a big deal to point out that we own the pictures, not them. We got a couple DVDs with all the pics in the mail a few weeks after the wedding and just ordered them for like 2 cents a picture off Snapfish or something instead of $8 for a 4x6.

Noodleface_sl said:

We had some family members that are photographers that offered to do it for free, but we just didn't feel right. In hindsight, I should've just said fuck it and took them up on it and gave them a sweetass tip

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Nope, that would have been a terrible idea. First of all, if they don't specifically do wedding photography their inexperience when it comes to setting up the shots/poses/etc. is going to show in your pictures. A devoted wedding photographer will have a plethora of go-to poses and shots that they can get in quick succession, and will have the experience to coax the best expressions and reactions from their subjects. Secondly, eventually your family members are going to want to not take photos and instead take part in the wedding, which means they could very easily miss some awesome candid moments.

Lastly, even if they say they can do it and if you have seen some of their other photography and think it is good, that doesn't mean they are actually good photographers. When my buddy got married his dad offered to do all the photography. All of their wedding photos ended up terrible. All of their posed photos looked stiff and forced because he didn't know how to coach his subjects and he didn't really have many ideas on different poses so he didn't take a ton of photos.

It turns out, all the 'great photos' he had taken as an amature over the years were more due to luck than skill (you take a ton of pictures eventually you accidently end up with some good ones). The best photos from their wedding that they got were from me (decidedly ammatur) but because they already had a 'photographer' I didn't do any posed shots at all and everything I got was candid. The best shots their dad got from the wedding was actually of the scenery

With everyone thinking a DSLR in their hands makes them a great photographer, you are seeing a lot of family members offering up their photography services to save a buck at a wedding. But I think the photography is the one area you don't want to skimp. $5k for everything you are getting from that photographer is a pretty good deal and you will be happy that you went with a professional.

Cad_sl said:

Haha, who the fuck looks at wedding pictures

Give cousin Jimmy a DSLR and book an extra week on your honeymoon. Fuck.

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Women.

Yup, and I sure you never spend money on things that are a "waste of money." Just shelter and subsistence amirite?

Weddings are all about women and their chance to be princess for a day. It is something they look forward to all of their lives, and if done right, is something that they will be happy with for the rest of their life. Don't see it as any more or less of a waste of money than your "extra week of honeymooning." And if you are going to drop that kind of coin giving your bride her once-in-a-lifetime experience you sure as hell better make sure you get good photos of it.

Deathwing_sl said:

Get the real story of your wedding from all the photos other people will be taking. They're going to throw them up on facebook or dropbox anyway.

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I would still encourage all of the "budding amature photographers" to bring their cameras and take pictures. I would ask them to try to get shots of either the process or look for things going on in the peripherals of the wedding. Have some little cousins doing kid things, get that shot. Groomsmen getting up to some debauchery while the bride and groom are getting photographed, find that shot. Don't shoot over the professional photographers shoulder, first off, it's rude, secondly the photographer is already getting that shot.

My family is full of ammatur photographers and that is what I had them do (the pro said my wedding was the most photographed wedding she had ever done). Not only did I get the pro shots but also got all of the "story" shots as well.

Noodle is surely going to be divorced in a shorter amount of time than the engagement has lasted. If only we still had FoH so you could read the stories he had from GWBYHT.

If they've been together for 3 years, why would marriage mean the end of their relationship? They must like each other at this point otherwise they wouldn't still be together.

I don't understand.

Go ask your old man, he'll explain it.

we've been living together for 5 years heh.. all the posts were on this forum BTW

lindz_sl said:

If they've been together for 3 years, why would marriage mean the end of their relationship? They must like each other at this point otherwise they wouldn't still be together.

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Sometimes the act of getting married can change people. Not just women, men too. Begin to take things for granted, become more manipulative, become lax in other areas. Just because it hasn't happened to your marriage doesn't mean it doesn't happen

disclaimer - hasn't happened in mine, but sure as fuck happened in my parents

So I am a bit stumped here. Her grandparents wanted to give us our gift before the wedding (a check/card) and he's really anal about balancing his checkbook so told us to make sure we deposited it immediately, didn't want to leave it at the place, etc. I wasn't really expecting to open it up and receive a $5000 check. They have a lot of money (lawyer/chemical engineer and they invest). I don't really know how to properly thank someone for that. We just kind of sat there for about 30 minutes speechless not really sure what just happened. I realize to some people $5000 isn't a lot, but when you just paid off your wedding and are broke it is pretty crazy.

What do you guys think? Obviously we aren't going to send them the typical thank you card the other guests will receive, we'll get them a special card probably hand delivered. I figured we could take them out to lunch or dinner, maybe spend some time with them.. but even that feels like not enough. Any ideas?

From what the rest of her family tells me, he took a real liking to me for whatever reason. When I first met him we talked for about 4 hours and he told me his literal life story while I just listened to him the entire time. They told me he had never done that before to anyone, and that he told me things that no one else even knew. Still in shock here I guess.