Post Wedding Report Part 7: The End - Or - The Beginning

Welcome to the 7th and final part of my Post Wedding Report. This has been a project that was in the works for a long time, but I'm glad to have finally completed it. Enjoy!

Before you read this post, don't forget to check out parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6!

Dancing was intense and very fun. I say intense for two reasons – my friends were really, really into it, and because I had eaten a little too much in the yichud room, so I was very focused on not having my delicious break-the-fast meal revisit me on the dance floor. I had listened to the advice of an older married friend who suggested we request the caterer to serve real food in the yichud room and not just cake and soda. This was great advice, but I will add to it that despite how hungry you, as the chosson or kallah might be (and generally the chosson is the more likely of the two to actually eat anything significant) don’t push yourself. Aside from the usual stomach shrinkage due to fasting, you’ve also been on pins and needles all day with excitement, anticipation, and a healthy dose of nervousness, so your stomach really can’t handle so much, and it certainly can’t handle a lot of spinning around in circles afterward. Thus, during the first set, I had to ask those dancing with me to slow down or not spin as much to prevent any messy scenarios.

The band was fantastic, and really did a great job getting everyone present into a simcha-mindset with their energetic performance.

During our engagement, I did my very best to keep to my rebbe’s advice that he imparted to ASoG and I when we first met with him after we got engaged, which was to “be cool” throughout the engagement process and let our parents do as much of the planning as possible. However, the band wasn’t something that I could just leave to my parents or future in-laws to take care of. In fact, this was pretty much the only thing I had any desire to be involved with vis-à-vis planning the wedding, and I had to make sure that the band we had was a good one.

I’m a big fan of Jewish music (as evidenced by a number of posts on this blog), and I had debated with myself for a while what style of band I wanted at our wedding: either the very standard orchestra type, with the blaring brass instruments and loud, pounding sound, or the more laid-back 4-5 member band set up with the focus on acoustic/electric guitars. Think Neshama Orchestra versus The Moshav Band. My dilemma was to go with the stereotypical wedding band sound, which, despite its tendency to burst eardrums, honestly infuses a lot of energy into the dancing, or the more b’nachas approach, which although lacking the oomph of the big-band approach, is far more leibedig. In the end, I decided to go with the non-orchestral approach, and I don’t regret it for a moment.

The dancing was a big deal for me, since it was the part of our wedding where all the different people in attendance, who represented all the different time periods of my life joined with each other in one big mixture to celebrate together. I had friends there from pre-school/middle school, high school/NCSY, my yeshiva in Israel, and Yeshiva University – aside from all the relatives and friends who came in from my hometown. It was truly wonderful to see all the diverse elements of my life come together in such a beautiful mosaic of simcha.

The shtick was amazing, and turned out to be almost as good as, if not as good as it would have been had I planned it all myself. I had dropped a few hints here and there regarding some things that I wanted to see, such as my request for one pair of friends who randomly did the Macarena in a hilarious fashion at another mutual friend’s wedding to do a repeat performance at mine. However, some guys totally surprised me, knowing exactly what in-jokes to play off of even without my suggestions. Even the bits of shtick that I did request were done better than I had imagined. There was also a lot of shtick that I had no clue was coming, but was executed very well and drew many laughs and smiles from ASoG and I.

As a result of all of this wedding related merriment, I’ve heard dozens and dozens of comments from those that were there that our wedding was one of the best they’ve ever been to. We didn’t go overboard with excessive frills that are often found at weddings nowadays, but we managed to have an amazing simcha – largely in part to all of my friends who came. Even the disparate groups, such as my hometown friends and my YU friends, all worked together very cohesively, instead of the “take turns” method I’ve seen at other weddings where the different groups share the chosson back and forth because they don’t want to have anything to do with each other. I really can’t take any credit for how wonderful everything was, because the guys really outdid themselves with the dancing, shtick, and celebrating – it seemed like everyone had their simcha-meter dial cranked up past the maximum limit. My family also really got into the shtick performances when they brought ASoG over to sit with me. Even my less-religious relatives got in on the game and seemingly had a great time.

The girls’ side, from what I heard/saw (and witnessed in the video) wasn’t quite the same as ours. ASoG tells me she enjoyed everything – with the exception of the silly umbrella breaking confetti-filled balloons thing – which I still don’t understand whatsoever.

At the end of the first set, everyone danced us over to the head table in the typical fashion (after refusing to stop dancing, as is usually seen). The photographer scuttled over and wanted to take the prerequisite hand washing pictures, even though we had already washed and begun to eat in the yichud room. We obliged, taking turns pouring water over each other’s hands and me posing with the big challah and knife – though I don’t think anyone ever ate any of it.

Of course, as I had been forewarned, we didn’t really have a chance to eat much during the break. My mother had told me before the wedding that we should go around to eat table to greet all our guests, but I insisted that we weren’t going to do that for two reasons 1) We were going to be exhausted from the fasting and dancing (which we were) and 2) If we’re the king and queen for the day and it’s everyone’s job to entertain us, then they should come to us and not vice versa – which is basically what happened. There were guests who wanted to say hello and mazal tov, others who were leaving early wanted to say goodbye and mazal tov, and others just came by to visit. Before we knew it, we were back on the dance floor for round two.

One thing I particularly enjoyed during the dancing (all three sets) was the individual partner dancing with my friends, relatives, and rabbeim. As each one emerged from the throngs to grab my hands and begin his own personal dance – and there were many different sorts – the crowd let out a cheer and turned the dancing and singing up a notch. It was so meaningful to go one-by-one and dance with each of my friends, and even more so with all of my rabbeim who were present, which ran the spectrum of my Jewish educational career, starting from my local day school when I wasn’t really religious all the way to my rebbe at YU.

After the second set they brought out the dessert buffet, and ASoG and I made a point to cut our cake, which had been largely ignored the entire evening. Of course, I’m sure everyone was waiting for us to cut it, and take our cutesy feeding each other pieces of cake pictures, but even after that very few were willing to try some. I cut up a bunch of pieces and started calling out to people to please take. There was a large group of women huddled nearby chatting, so I got their attention and told them that they need to take a piece, since the wedding was already over and there was no need to worry about fitting in their dresses anymore. I only got a few more takers from that offer…

By the time the last set started most of the attendees had left for the evening – it was getting later after all. Nevertheless, a core group of my friends refused to let the liveliness of the celebration die down, and they yanked me back onto the dance floor once again. I remember someone once explained to me how the last dance set is really the most important, because the majority of guests have already gone, and you need to make sure the chosson and kallah aren’t left twiddling their thumbs the remainder of the time the band has on their contract. These fellows were definitely some of my closest friends, and they didn’t disappoint whatsoever. As per ASoG’s family tradition, we did jump rope with a big sparkly streamer-thing, and it turns out I was pretty good (I could leap rather high). We started off a bit rough since one of the rope-swingers was a little on the short side, which made for uneven rotations, but once we got two taller guys to take the job, we were in business.

My friends kept things going strong up until the last minute, when someone came in and said that our limousine was due to arrive shortly, and we needed to wrap things up. We semi-abruptly ran over to our table to begin sheva brachos. At this point, I had forgotten my list of kibbudim somewhere in the hall, and with my second copy, which my uncle had had at the chupa also missing in action, my shomer saved the day with my third back-up copy, which I had given him for just such a scenario. It turned out a number of the guests we had wanted to say a sheva bracha at the bentsching had already left, so we improvised for a few selections.

We finished the last sheva bracha after which ASoG and I sipped the awful tasting hall-provided wine again and passed around the leftovers for all the eager singles to get their segulah wine. Our remaining friends quickly lined up for parting words and to receive brachos from us. We had to do this in a bit of a hurry because the limousine driver had already arrive and was beginning to threaten that he’d leave without us if we didn’t get downstairs soon enough.

In my previous wedding attendance experience, I’ve seen the chosson either give generic brachos to the guys that they learn a lot and find their kallah, or actually make an effort to be more personal and formulate a bracha that is direct and more meaningful. I did my best to opt for the latter, which always made a lot more sense and made me feel far more appreciative when I was the on the receiving end of those brachos.

We managed to collect almost all of the wedding shtick we had, though a few semi-important/expensive things ended up missing and were never found. ASoG and I ran to the yichud room to gather our belongings and grab our prepared food to take with us. I handed off my kitel and a few other things to my mother to take back home, and we dashed down the stairs to catch our ride.

The photographer was long gone at this point, so we don’t have any official pictures of us leaving/getting in the limo. The driver was particularly determined to leave at the appointed time, so we ended up running out without even saying goodbye to our fathers, who were left behind to deal with paying the hall manager and the band leader. A small group escorted us with our things into the limo, we said our goodbyes and headed off to our hotel.

The limousine ride had a sort of magical quality to it, since this was the first time we truly were totally alone as husband and wife. All the ceremonies and celebrations were over, and we finally had a chance to relax and take a deep breath as Mr. and Mrs. Shades of Grey, without worrying about that bothersome knock on the door to the yichud room. We made it! We survived the engagement and the wedding, and although a lot more lay ahead for us, we were ecstatic over the new life we were beginning.

I won’t divulge anything further about that evening, for obvious reasons, other than that it turned out the hotel we stayed at was hosting several weddings that night. As we pulled up to the front driveway, dozens of drunken men and women were milling about, clearly continuing to party long after the wedding they attended had ended. A number of them saw the white limo, ran over and thumped the car with their fits, cheering us on – I think they may have mistaken us for their own recently wedded friends. At any rate, we successfully managed to avoid the unwelcome visitors and enter the hotel, quite exhausted, but filled with joy at the life we were beginning together.

So ends my series of Post Wedding Reports detailing all the ins-and-outs of our special day. I’m glad I was able to complete them, despite many delays, and hope I can look back on this record, along with our video, to help me recall the funny, bizarre, meaningful, and happy goings-on that we experienced.

Was everything absolutely perfect, just the way I envisioned it? Nope – see my post about the pictures as one example. However, the amount of things that went right far outweighed the issues and incongruities that popped up. Life isn’t perfect, and weddings certainly aren’t perfect. The main thing is to focus on the most important aspect of the wedding; namely, the fact that you are marrying the one person you want to spend the rest of your life with. All the other mishugas simply falls away when viewed from that proper perspective.

The wedding is truly only a start to life together, but it encapsulates a level of simcha as of yet unparalleled in one’s life. However, as Rav Reichman told us at Chana and Heshy’s sheva brachos, this elevated intensity of simcha does not last, and does in fact fade away as normal life sets in following the week of sheva brachos. The key for any married couple is to understand that this is but a taste of the true simcha that can be attained in marriage – a realistic goal that can be attained through hard work, dedication, mutual giving, and lots of love.

Someone recently told us that he’s been married for 24 years and it only gets better and better. I hope that we can strive to embody Rav Reichman’s lesson, and use our wedding as a model for the happiness we want to achieve and maintain throughout our lives. May everyone who is married take this lesson to heart and focus their attention on working together to ascend spiritual heights together, and may everyone not yet married soon experience this great joy and begin their own journey to recapture and relive the elation of their wedding day.

Post Wedding Report - Part 6

I know it's been a while since part 5 (and several months since our wedding), but I will finish up this series! Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Don't forget parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5!

While the band began playing and my friends rushed the chuppah, everyone was hugging each other and wishing “mazal tov” over and over. After a few minutes, ASoG and I descended the little steps hand in hand. As we danced toward the yichud room, all my friends were lined up, arms around each other’s shoulders, dancing, singing, and jumping up and down. There were one or two times where someone grabbed my free hand and started dancing with me, or rather, half of me, since I refused to release my new wife’s hand. Flashes were bursting all around us as every single young woman in attendance, and a number of guys as well, took the time to capture the moment.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long to get to the yichud room. I’ve been to several weddings where the hall’s yichud room is located quite some distance away from the chuppah area, which required a long backward march for all the cheering friends, down several hallways, and a handful of turns before reaching the proper destination. One on such occasion, we danced the newlywed couple to what we thought was the yichud room, but turned out to be a broom closet once someone opened the door. Luckily, we found the right room down a nearby corridor.

When we reached the yichud room all the guys went crazy, in the usual “we don’t want to let you go just yet” fashion. Sporadic circle dancing broke out, much to the chagrin of the wedding hall planner, who tried several times, unsuccessfully, to get the guys to back off and let us proceed. After a few minutes, I was getting a little tired, not to mention that I was hungry, thirsty, and really wanted to spend some quiet time with ASoG (don’t try to read too much into the order of that list), so I stepped out of the circle and into the doorway. I totally forgot who I had wanted to be the Eidei Yichud and didn’t want to bother looking for someone who had my kibbudim list, so I grabbed two of my nearest friends and appointed them to their new job. With a few waves of our hands, ASoG and I entered the room and the door was shut behind us.

DISCLAIMER: I’m not going to go into any mushy details of what happened there for the sake of tzniyus, but I will report some of the other odd and exciting happenings.

Waiting for us was a decent sized banquet of food, which I had requested per the advice of a long-married friend of mine that there needs to be real food in the yichud room, and not just cake. The caterer had prepared servings of sushi, mini hot dogs in buns, kasha varnishkas, salad, and deli-roll (which was the appetizer served at the seudah). We washed and began to eat. I realized that the caterer had only provided us with various sodas to drink, which is really the last thing I wanted after being deprived of liquids all day. What I really needed was plain ol’ water. We poked our heads out the door to find the wedding hall coordinator standing nearby, told him what we wanted, and he quickly brought us back a pitcher of water. I thanked him profusely, and we went back to our meal.

From the Department of How to Lose Your Recently Performed Segulah for Marriage: Losing the Kallah’s jewelry that you were entrusted with.

A kallah, and the groom as well, for that matter, is not allowed to wear any jewelry under the chuppah, as a symbol that the chosson’s reasons for marrying her have nothing to do with wealth or her personal possessions. As such, the kallah normally wears her jewelry during the initial photography sessions and at the badeken, but removes them in her ready-room prior to marching down the aisle. She hands out her jewelry (necklace, earrings, bracelet, engagement ring, etc) to some close friends for safeguarding. They eagerly who clutch the jewelry during the ceremony, while hopefully davening as well, in an effort to obtain a segulah to also stand under their own chuppah in the near future.

ASoG put her best friend and shomeret in charge of distributing and collecting the jewelry before and after the chuppah, with explicit instructions to return the valuable items to the yichud room prior to our arrival. Shortly after we washed, ASoG went over to the safe and opened it up, only to discover to her horror that her jewelry wasn’t there! Frantically, she grabbed her cell phone and called her shomeret to ask where she had put it. The friend insisted that the jewelry was right there in the room, just like ASoG had instructed. After quickly tearing through the room, both ASoG and her shomeret were understandably upset about this development, though I have to admit I was busier enjoying the food, confident that something would work out. In the end, it turned out that ASoG’s shomeret had mistakenly put the jewelry in the safe located in the room next door, which she discovered and brought over to us. With that crisis concluded, we closed the door again and went back to our eating and drinking.

I’m not sure how much time we were accorded, but the photographer knocked what seemed like shortly thereafter to summon us to do another round of family pictures and all those cutesy touching pictures. We immediately dismissed him, since we wanted more time to relax and eat. I think this happened 2 or 3 times before we finally gave in and went back to the chuppah room.

The family pictures we had to take were primarily mine, since a number of my relatives characteristically came late to the hall and totally missed the first set of pictures. Some had simply forgotten they were needed at the hall early, while one actually flew in trans-Atlantic from a business conference and barely made it in time for the chuppah. However, while the previously absent relatives made sure to be there, several other formerly photographed family members couldn’t be located, having dispersed to who-knows-where. As such, we have several almost identical Grey family pictures with a few people switched around, and some relatives standing in place for others.

Once we finished those dozen or so pictures, everyone was kicked out of the room except for ASoG and I. The photographer suggested it was a good idea, because the “hold her waist and cutely kiss her forehead” pictures are awkward in the first place, and even more so when a little pre-pubescent sibling is standing there saying “ew” and making faces. However, we did get a nice couple of pictures from this set, which makes me very happy.

After the last posed picture was taken, ASoG and I went dashing back to the yichud room to change shoes. Yes, you read right, I also changed my shoes for dancing, replacing my oh-so-shiny black dress shoes with some very comfortable, slip-on, not-quite-as-shiny, black semi-athletic shoes.

Why did I do this, you may ask? First, the shoes I wore during the ceremony were brand new, and as I have learned from experience, wearing new shoes to dance at a wedding is a recipe for blisters and trouble walking for days afterward. Second, as I have also learned, shoes worn to dance at an Orthodox Jewish wedding inevitably get scuffed up, scratched, and beaten up in the extreme. Why waste the money spent on my pristine wedding shoes and ruin only to them in a few hours raucous footwork? For this reason, I have a specific pair of nice-ish shoes that I wear to weddings which are already a bit worn – though the shoes I donned then were not that particular pair.

After the quickie footwear change, we snuck back through the connecting corridor area, past a few people milling about or heading to the restroom, and into the chuppah/picture room. There was a divider connecting it to the ballroom, which the wedding hall coordinator had slid open partially so we could peek in and see all our friends eagerly waiting our arrival. The band cued up the special entrance theme I made from a particularly popular movie score (I say made, because I spent about a hour the night before cutting it down and speeding it up). The fervor of the people inside reached a crescendo along with the pumping orchestral music.

ASoG and I held hands, looked into each other’s eyes, took a deep breath and ran in as we were introduced for the first time as Rebbe and Rebbetzin* Shades of Grey!

Look for Part 7 soonish!

*Yes, the singer did announce that, funnily enough.

Wedding Pictures Part 2: Making Your Album

Ranting aside, just how the heck do you pick which pictures are considered important enough to make it into your wedding album? If you have 600+ photographs and need to cut it down to some far more miniscule number, say 50 (or if you’re lucky and/or willing to spend the money another 10 or 20).

So what do you do, dear newlywed chosson and kallah?

The first thing we did was go through all the pictures once and take out all the bad pictures or pictures we intrinsically knew were not album worthy like empty guest tables, shmorg food, or flower center pieces. That easily cut out close to a third of all the pictures, as I mentioned in the last post.

Next, we divided the remaining pictures into categories. Keep in mind that the pictures had already gone through the hands of both ASoG’s parents and mine, so they were no longer in any sort of pristine order, having undergone the examination and selection process twice by the time we got them.

So basically, we split the pictures into these categories, roughly chronological: Family pictures, pictures of us (which isn’t strictly chronological, since it included the post yichud room cutesy touching pictures), the chosson’s tisch, the badeken, my side walking down, her side walking down, the chuppah, women side dancing, men's side dancing, and pictures of us at the seuda like washing each other’s hands, cutting the cake, and sheva brachos.

Then, as we went through each stack of pictures, we decided which shots were crucial and which ones were not. For crucial pictures, we selected the best one from the multiples that existed. We made sure that we had all the “required pictures,” including a picture of us with each set of parents, each person/couple who walked down the aisle, important moments such as me veiling ASoG at the badeken, reading the tana’aim at the tisch, reading the kesuba under the chuppah, one of us with our Mesader Kiddushin, etc.

But then things get a little tricky. The problem arises when going through the non-critical pictures, such as the multitude of pictures of just us, or all the dancing/shtick pictures, and concessions need to be made regarding what is and isn’t "album worthy."

Many of the pictures of ASoG and I feature similar poses, only perhaps from the right or left side, black and white versus color, and we had to decide which ones we thought were the best and thus album worthy. While I really liked several of the few artsy shots we have, I had to give in to make room for other pictures that were of more significance. As it turned out, we did choose a good handful of pictures of us, but not quite as many as I would have liked.

Some shtick pictures aren’t so great in terms of quality, angle etc, but feature a very unique shtick or person you are close with. Those pictures made it through the first or second round of cuts, but when it came down to the last haul to take out pictures to get our target number, those also went.

But that doesn't mean that certain cuts still don't sting a bit. Two pictures that didn’t make it which still makes me a little upset were the pictures ASoG and I took with our shomer/shomeret. They are great pictures, and for me (and ASoG too) particularly meaningful because of my close relationship with my friend who was my shomer. I fought tooth and nail (respectfully) until the last cut to keep them in, but we needed to take out two pictures, and those were the only ones that were considered expendable at that point, when all the other pictures were of the more critical variety.

So there we were, seemingly finished making all the painful decisions of who would and wouldn’t appear in our wedding album. We breathed a sigh of relief and were ready to put the pictures away and stop thinking about the whole thing when we noticed that that we were missing one of ASoG’s siblings in the set of walk-down pictures. Of course, this caused a slight panic, since that meant, to our horror, that we hadn’t finished cutting pictures.

In the end, that last, unexpected cut which had to be made was my decision. There were two pictures I had to choose from: one of ASoG and I at the Seudah posing with some shtick gifts and the other, which was a less professional shot, but featuring my parents blessing me in our ready-room just before the chuppah. I really liked both pictures, and had a hard time deciding.

Then I stopped and asked myself, “Which of these pictures am I going to care about more in 50 years?” ASoG immediately answered with the very same words I was about to say that the pictures of my parents and I, though less professional in quality, was vastly more meaningful. There were a few other pictures of ASoG and I at the meal, as I mentioned, like washing each others’ hands and cutting our cake which we did keep, so I could do without the cute picture of us.

I think that was the absolute correct decision - and that really is the bottom line.

Granted, you might think one particular picture of shtick is fantastic, or you might want umpteen pictures of you and your spouse, but what really matters are the pictures that have lasting meaning. That friend who juggled flaming torches may have been exciting in the moment and worth talking about for a few months or years afterward when recalling the dancing that took place at your wedding, but you might lose touch with him and never speak to him for 20 years.

However, that one picture of my parents blessing me, a sort of an equivalent of everyone blessing ASoG at the badeken, will always have infinite worth to me, especially one day when I show my grandchildren my wedding album when their great-grandparents might no longer be around – may my parents have long and healthy lives until 120 (at least). That picture certainly fulfills the stereotypical

So there you have it, the Shades of Grey method for wedding album selection. May everyone who has to deal with sorting through hundreds of pictures be able to figure things out in a calm and ordered fashion – and to everyone who isn’t yet engaged – may you have this to deal with “problem” soon! J

Wedding Pictures Part 1: Photographer Woes

Warning: This post is a bit of a rant, but I think people should read this as a "caveat emptor" of sorts for their own experience.

Every newlywed couple loves selecting the pictures for their album. Going through hundreds and hundreds of photographs, comparing, contrasting, and critiquing, it’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

Sarcasm aside, in reality, preparing your album is almost as excruciating as the picture taking process itself (which I detailed in my 2nd Post Wedding Report. Don't worry, the final parts are being worked on and will be posted).

From the department of helpful advice from someone who has been there before: To anyone engaged, soon-to-be-engaged, wish-you-were-engaged, etc – don’t pick a photographer just because they have a well known name and have advertisements plastered all over the place. Instead, check out the younger, less publicly famous photographers that are out there. Some let you keep the proofs instead of charging you a ridiculous amount of money for a single picture that you liked, but not enough to put in the album. Some photographers/videographers even give you the raw footage of your wedding instead of handing back a music video of your special day.

If you want those cool, artsy pictures with the funky angles that simply scream, “OMG that’s gorgeous!” DON’T PICK A BIG NAMED PHOTOGRAPHER just because they have a big name. Talk to your friends, see who they choose and what pictures they ended up with, go visit multiple photographers and have them show you their work. Also, TELL THEM what you want, so they know what sort of pictures you envision in your wedding album.

We made the mistake, or I should really say I made the mistake (since picking the photog was my job) of going with a famous named photographer. Granted, we got a large number of the traditional, typical pictures that every wedding album has, but none of the cool angles, etc that I had envisioned. Going through the pictures, of a total of around 600 pictures at 219 were garbage; either because they were out of focus, at a bad angle, had some object or person blocking ASoG or I, was a 3^rd or 4^th duplicate of the same picture, featured something stupid like the buffet, someone’s bentscher during sheva brachos, random background people during dancing, ill-timed attempts to capture creative shtick, had one or more people making unintentionally horrible facial expressions, or had bad lighting – including a circular shadow from the flashbulb or whatever hovering over our faces.

Even the good ones that we chose from sometimes were 4 or 5 of the identical picture from almost the same angle, with the people in the shot in an ever so slightly different position, forcing us to closely examine the pictures to determine if everyone was smiling properly, looking in the right direction, etc.

When we initially called our photographer after the wedding to discuss when we would receive the pictures, the photographer’s representative (the guy in charge never speaks to us) told us that they screen everything, do touch ups, etc to ensure that the pictures we would get to see and choose from were the absolute best. Well, it turns out that someone must have dropped the ball somewhere, because ASoG and I honestly wonder why in the world they’d even want us to see some of these, which were inherently bad pictures of one of us, or displayed a lack of talent on their part. We didn’t really miss any critical moment of the chuppah, badeken, or chosson’s tisch, and the family pictures were taken and retaken until good photos were produced, but some of the most creative, humorous, and memorable shtick is hardly or badly documented – for example, someone lit a hat on fire and proceded to dance, but there are 4 pictures of him wearing the hat, none of which show it on fire - which really upsets me.

On top of all that, while going through the rest of the pictures, ASoG and I made a startling discovery as we began comparing similar shots (for example, multiple variations of us with my parents) to see which one we liked best. Namely, for at least two dozen or so pictures, the photographer simply took the previous picture, enlarged and cropped it ever so slightly, so you basically have the same photograph TWICE with a little more zoom and a little less bordering material (be that people’s legs or flowers) in the image. Now THAT is lazy. Honestly, why not take an actual zoomed in picture so see if you could get a change of expression or better shot?

As mentioned previously, while some photographers are gracious enough to let you keep the proofs - ours will not. Instead, they are charging an arm and a leg for a single 4 x 6 picture. A recently married relative was given all their proofs on a CD, which allowed them to make duplicates at a local pharmacy, whereas it is illegal to do so with the actual prints that we own, so we’re kind of stuck (our parents are trying to negotiate a deal so we don’t go broke getting more of the pictures we want, so there is still some hope for my guilty feelings).

UPDATE 1/6/11 - It turns out we DO get to keep all of the proofs after the albums are made.

We haven’t seen their video yet, but they insist on “editing it” without giving us the raw footage, which I want. I have no clue what they are and aren’t going to cut. Even if they insist they only remove extraneous video of their crew waiting for something to happen, I think I might be able to do a better job myself. I definitely don’t want a music video of the wedding, but the best video documentation possible. Anyway, that’s a battle for another day…

So, lesson learned – and I hope others can benefit from our experience and not miss out on capturing the various moments of one of the most important days of their lives.

Check back on Wednesday for some advice on the actual process of creating a wedding album.