How to include guests who can’t attend your wedding

More often than not, when organising your guest list for your wedding, you’ll find out that some guests you have a deep connection with cannot make it due to any number of reasons. These guests are people who perhaps are too old and frail to venture out to your wedding venue, or perhaps they are living overseas. I thought I might make a bit of a list of ideas I’ve seen when covering weddings as a wedding photographer of how to include guests who can’t attend your wedding.

Ideas for how to include guests who can’t attend your wedding

Mobile phone

Live stream your ceremony

Providing of course that your wedding venue has good mobile phone coverage, you could opt to live stream your wedding ceremony via your mobile device. Modern smartphones with cameras all have this ability whereby you can set up a face to face call with the guest that could not make it and instead of facing the camera towards yourself, simply turn it around so that it’s facing the altar. In this way your guest can participate in the wedding ceremony in real time.

If you’re a little more tech minded one could also set up a live streaming event with a service such as livestream, where you’re able to hook up a camera with a PC with an internet connection. Using this kind of service more than just one guest could watch the stream at once.

Since writing this article in 2016, I have started offering not only live streaming services, but also Virtual reality recording services so let me know if you’d like to make use of what I offer! 🙂

Record a video message to play at your reception

One wedding that I fondly remember was the wedding of Michaela & Paddy at the SC Pannell Winery where the reception featured a video of well wishes from guests all around the world who could not make it. The reactions from Michaela seeing the faces of loved ones talking to her via video was a beautiful addition to the day.

Videographer

Make use of a Videographer

As a wedding photographer, I’m often working alongside a videographer, and I will be soon expanding into this area as a new service. The best use of a wedding videographer is of course having a full video documenting your wedding day in ways that still photography cannot. A great idea for how to include guests who cannot attend your wedding is to hold a viewing party at some point after your wedding where you can take your video to the guests who couldn’t make it. You can also opt to send a copy of your video to guests abroad, or even use the internet.

Guests pictures

Represent guests not present with their photo

Having guests who could not make it represented by framed photos is a wonderful idea to remember those who could not make it for one reason or another. This idea is often used for those guests who would have loved to attend but who had passed on before the wedding date.

Many brides often have a family member that is so important that they carry a photo charm of them attached to their bridal bouquet – whch is a lovely gesture for guests who have touched the heart of the bride.

Grandpa ion bouquet

These are just some of the ideas I’ve picked up throughout the dozens of weddings I’ve covered. If you have another idea to perhaps add to this list I’d love to hear about it!

October 30, 2016

ideas, Wedding

List of things to do after your wedding

After the stress of planning your wedding, and your wedding day is a fond memory, there is a list of things to do after your wedding that not many people remember. Some of the things on the list can be as important as some of the things you planned for the wedding when you consider the fact that the entire reason why you spent so much energy planning your perfect day was not only for you, but also for your friends and family. It’s best to get these out of the way sooner rather than later too, as many of them require the memory of the day to remain fresh in your mind. So don’t forget about this list of things to do after your wedding, as in some cases you might set yourself up for disaster!

Kuitpo Forest wedding

List of things to do after your wedding

Send out your thankyou cards

One sure-fire way to have guests complaining about your wedding day is to not show gratitude for them making the effort for being there. They’d also probably left you a generous gift, in addition to possibly giving you a gift for your engagement and spending a small fortune to get to your wedding day – if they live some distance away. A small token in the form of a thankyou card goes a long way to make everyone feel loved. Often you can ask your wedding photographer to quickly edit up an image or two to use for this occasion. Particularly if you plan the shot and bring along a sign, or banner that says ‘thank you’ or something similar.

Change your name

For those brides out there that are planning on changing their name as per tradition, I hope you’re aware that it doesnt automatically change? You need to go through a bit of a process to have your name changed, and your marriage certificate is only the start of the process. You will need to visit your bank, insurance brokers, immigration office, etc in order to actually change it!

Choose your photos

Once your wedding photographer has completed editing your photos, nows the time to select those precious few to create a timeless piece of art from. As a photographer, there is nothing better than seeing beautiful imagery framed professionally and printed on beautiful paper stock or canvass. This would also be the best time to select a larger number for your wedding album, the book that will be within arms reach for years to come in order for you to reach over and reminisce about your big day. It’s no use keeping your images on the USB, or your computer’s hard drive where no one will appreciate them, please PLEASE invest in producing proper heirlooms from your photography. You won’t regret it.

Bride and groom on Glenelgs Jetty

The Legal stuff

Ok, this bit is boring, but you must, for your new family’s sake, visit a lawyer and make sure everything is in order. Consider your finances, are you going to combine incomes and bank accounts? Have your sorted out any life insurance and executors of estates? Definitely sort out a will, and if there are any children involved, ensure their future. Make sure you add any new items such as engagement rings, or expensive gifts to your insurance. Possibly also consider family health insurance to save money?

Review your wedding suppliers

Many wedding vendors are small businesses that rely heavily on your testimonials after the fact. As a wedding photographer most of my business comes from people surfing the internet or hearing about my work from friends. Many couples will read reviews I’ve received from previous clients to gain an insight on how good I am. Leaving a favourable review on places like Facebook, Google and ABIA go a long way in supporting the business that made your day so memorable and will help any new couples with selecting the very best.

Head to the dry cleaners

Of all the things on this list of things to do after your wedding, this one may well be one of the first you’ll do before heading out on that honeymoon. Go and get that expensive dress dry cleaned! Unless of course you’re planning on having a ‘destroy the dress’ photoshoot. Same goes for the men’s suits if you bought them and not rented.

Wedding dress

I’m sorry if you think I’ve just given you so much more to do on top of the stress of planning your perfect wedding, but going through this list is pretty important! Many newly weds forget about some of these and can be worse off for it. If you can think of any other items to add to this list of things to do after your wedding please feel free to comment below and I’ll add them!

October 24, 2016

Engagement

Kuitpo Forest Couple Shoot – Bethan & Alex

Couple walking through forest

Bethan and Alex were waiting with baited breath whether or not that recent bout of bad weather in Adelaide was to pass before their scheduled Kuitpo Forest couple shoot. Thankfully, despite the cold temperature, the weather cleared just in time to make use of the spectacular Kuitpo forest for their couple shoot. Bethan and Alex made use of my offer of a discount couple shoot made to all those who voted on my yearly wedding photo of the year contest, and I’m so glad they did.

The atmosphere given to the forest after such bad weather made for some fantastic scenes, and it was all done within an hour! My job was made easy of course by the fun loving attitude of Bethan and Alex who were keen to playfully run about in front of the camera to create some ‘loveydovey’ photos. Which was fantastic as I love doing things like this!

Kuitpo forest was the first of many forest plantations in the Mount Lofty Ranges, established in 1898 to ensure a sustainable timber supply for South Australia. Today it serves as both a stunning place to go for a walk, in in this case, a Kuitpo Forest couple shoot and a commercial logging area. The area also plays host to one of the most popular hiking trails throughout SA, being the Heysen Trail.