We have an awesome giveaway planned with some Diamond Candles, all which contain a ring that can be valued at $10, $100, $1000, or $10,000.  We will also have a show special but the only way to take part is to get a brochure at our booth and talk with one of our wedding photography consultants.  So if you’re looking to save some money on luxury wedding photography, be sure to get one of our brochures.

 When it comes to wedding day preparations, do you pay any attention at all to the space in which it will all actually happen? A lot happens there in a short period of time and whether you choose to get ready at a private home, a hotel or at the venue, even though you have little or no control over the environment, there are some things you can keep in mind when selecting your space. This is just one of many details that will all come together to make a difference in your wedding day.

 I have enlisted the help of some professionals to provide a valuable glimpse of the room through their eyes so we can gain some insight from their experiences and to give you some valuable information to add to your checklists.

 Every wedding album has shots of brides, grooms, guys and gals, family members getting ready for the wedding. Every photographer has ideas on how to set those up. Some are of the toasts, the tears and the reflections of what is taking place. Over the years, photographers develop kind of a routine of what they think will work the best for your particular wedding and with what you have. However, these types of shots do not just randomly or candidly present themselves to be photographed. Great photographers will always take extra time (next blog watch for wedding day timelines) to make sure that those once-in-a-lifetime shots happen and are captured, and they will work hard to tell the story of your day in that very magical way.

 LISA CRANE: Crane Studio Imaging (http://www.cranestudioimaging.com/), Boise, Idaho. Lisa will be a featured vendor at the Nampa Wedding Show on February 4, 2012. Please come and check out her booth, visit her website, email, or call us at 208-779-0183. “The light is going to vary because of the time of day. I mean, there are some times when the light is harsh and other times the light is perfect. Like 2:00 p.m. light is harsh, but 8 a.m. an 6 p.m. the light is very nice.   I try to tell my brides to check out their venues a 2 weeks before the wedding at the time of their wedding to know where the sun light is going to be. This will help in placement of the ceremony.  You don’t want the ceremony to be in blinding sunlight or half light and half shade.  One other piece of advice of where you decide to get changed if your venue doesn’t have a big enough changing area.  I would suggest the Anniversary Inn in Boise.  Their suites are gorgeous and make an excellent background for your photos.  They are also downtown so they are close to many venues.”

 “Here is some advice for wedding venues. Changing rooms with track lighting with the yellow bulbs are the worst I have ever had to photograph.  The bulbs should be soft white lights and not the standard bulbs that give off a yellow glow. Those LED lights are pretty nice and give off a soft white glow, making great photos. On some girls the wrong lighting makes their cover-up appear to have a green tinge in photos. Venues thinking of adding some natural light in the bride’s changing area by adding a window is a great idea and the placement of the window should be towards sunset since most of your weddings happen in the afternoon.  Just make sure they have a curtain to be able to block the light if needed too. Natural light always makes the best for photos.  As far as wall colors, I like neutrals or light pastels.”

 CANDICE COSSEL, Serendipity Studios (http://beyondordinary.net/ ), Miami, Florida (previously Meridian, Idaho). Please check out their web site if you are not familiar with their photography. “The most important thing is natural light. Getting ready in a bathroom or under other lights not only looks horrible in photos (i.e. orange) but also can give a false appearance of the makeup. Natural light is essential. Number two is space. If you have a bride, her mother and 5 bridesmaids trying to get ready in a regular hotel room — it’s not going work! There is no room to maneuver and it feels stressful. The last thing about the space is clutter-free. I typically think homes are not a good idea because there is just so much stuff around. Clutter is a stressor. Also, it can make beautiful photos suddenly not so beautiful.”

 Candice also provided a short list of items that you might want to have on hand for those pictures of the small details that make your wedding albums special. These items should be on your checklist and with you in the room (wedding day timeline again).

 Here are her suggestions: “As far as what to have with you…Dress on a pretty hanger, rings (both bride and groom), jewelry, vein and/or hairpiece, shoes, garter, perfume, gifts (if bride/groom gifts are being exchanged), invitation, programs and any other special items.”

 Barbara Zubizarreta, who is a local stylist from Boise, Idaho, had done her share of weddings and always welcomes the ladies to come either to the salon (The Electric Chair downtown) or she will make herself available on site. Please call her at 208-440-1418. She now offers this piece of information for us: Plenty of electrical outlets, tablets for products and irons near the outlets and, of course, chairs. As stylists we tend to be very adaptable. Mirrors are a must – the bigger the better – and more than one. With more than a few girls getting their hair done and doing makeup or having it done, this is a must. Wedding parties sometimes get very large, add a few stylists into the mix and it can get crowded, so a fair amount of space would be great.”

 From my perspective as a wedding planner, I look at a few more items when helping a bride get her space ready. It is interesting to see these from a different perspective and now we can add a few more items to our own checklist.

 Thank you ladies for your contributions. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know on my FB page (An Extraordinary Affair) or you can email me, or check out the website http://www.extraordinaryaffair.com/ . Happy Planning.

Honalee Farm Event Center on site visit Friday 01/13/2012

This is their first season as an event venue and I decided to check them out for my clients.  Decidedly, not every venue will work for every wedding, so it is important to match the venue to the style of your wedding.  On this winter afternoon, it is hard to imagine the lush green lawns, the water in the pond with the summer sun reflecting off the fountain spray and refracting into a thousand little bits of color, pots of colored blooms scattered throughout with the large shade trees giving off just the right balance of shade for guests as they enjoy the outdoor ceremonies beside the pond.  That is what your summer ceremony will be like. 

The guests will enter through their own gate, with the drive looping directly around the pond and parking tucked away out of view.  There is a drop off area immediately adjacent to the building for any special needs guests.  The guests will walk down a winding path, over the bridge that reveals a small creek cascading into the pond, to see the building where the reception is going to take place.  This building has windows on east and west exposure that roll up, garage-door style, to bring guests that welcome breeze on a summer evening.  The double doors on the east side of the building open onto a large patio, which can be utilized as reception space, dancing under the stars, or a tent pad.  The owners are having a tent custom made to attach directly onto the building, so you could enter the tent directly from the building.  On the south entrance, there is a small porch at present, but there are plans to expand this out over the pond a ways for small intimate ceremonies or dinners with your guests. 

Toward the rear of the building is a commercial kitchen and the drive actually loops up almost to the door for access by your catering team.  There is a beverage area with a large ice sink and a lot of working area.  One of the large windows is positioned in this area and opens up wide for service out onto the patio.  There is a trend now to offer nonalcoholic choices or to go completely nonalcoholic, and there are two large garden carts which would be perfect for cool lemonade, punch or artesian water for your guests.  The sound system is state of the art, with speakers outside and in the building, and wireless capability for your officiant.  Plans are underway for a separate building for the ladies to get ready, with all conveniences kept in mind for that day. 

As with many venues, cost is a big factor and careful attention to budget is needed here.  It is very clear after speaking to the owners and taking a tour of the venue that they have really tried to approach their planning from every side – what works for the area, what works for the guests and what works for them.  Please visit their website for more details at www.honaleefarm.com or call them at 208-286-0533.  The property is located at 7010 Moon Valley Rd., Eagle, ID 83616.

Don’t forget to choose Crane Studio Imaging for your wedding photography, you can use our 5 minute wedding planning guide to tell us about your day and we can send you a personalized collection made just for you. For your wedding planning needs check out An Extraordinary Affair for planning your wedding and take the stress off you and your maid of honor.  They also offer a MOM package which is they have developed for our DIY brides.  We know those hours before the wedding are moments that can never be recreated and so precious for any mother.  We step in and take care of all the details, coordinate the vendors and ensure that mom can spend that time with you.  This is the best gift to show appreciation for all she has done to help make your day so special for you.   You can also call them at 208-861-2279 for more details.

We have more reviews of other Treasure Valley venues properties click here and here to see more.

We had an amazing 2011 and hope for an even better 2012 season.  I am so geared up for this year as I have some pretty amazing women who are tying the knot and I am so excited for them.  We will also be at the Wedding Affair bridal show at the Nampa Civic Center on February 4^th 2012. 

We will have some wedding show specials and amazing giveaway of a few Diamond Candles.  Not only do they smell terrific they also have a ring that can be valued between $5 and $5000.  All you have to do is visit our table and talk to one of our collection consultants about your photography needs for your wedding.  We are booth 22 on the show map. 

Also please like us on our facebook page and follow us on twitter.

I purchased two citysmart.com deals for 2 hours of cleaning for $50 from the Boise Cleaning Service back on Mother’s Day of 2011.  The coupon was good for 1 year and I planned on using the coupons in the month of the December just prior to my big Christmas party I have every year.  Turns out the company has gone under and just closed the doors after two months since the deal was live.  So now I was not notified by citysmart.com or by the vendor of this happening.  So after spending a few hours researching that they were actually out of business I contacted citysmart.com and they said they had lots of complaints and they were going to send me a check in the mail in 7-10 days.

Now I do buy quite a few of these cheap deal sites coupons and I tend to sit on them but my suggestion if you are going to buy one from a local vendor you might want to check them out first and use the coupon right away instead of waiting.   I am impressed with most of these site they do offer a money back guarantee if the company goes out of business.

My second scenario happened last year about this time.  I won a photo contest drawing on facebook and got a bunch of great prizes.  One of them was a leather bound printed album and a year’s worth of online proofing and fulfillment from www.digilabspro.com.  Now I didn’t need the proofing lab part because I self host my own proofing gallery.  I still had to sign up though to get the album so I put in all my info and my credit card and received the information on how to redeem my album. 

My plan was create an album that I won from digilabspro.com to use at the wedding show in 2012.  I was going to wait on it and use some of my weddings from my 2011 season to put into it.  So I was told I had a year to use the coupon and to renew my proofing gallery if I needed to.  So I contacted the person at www.digilabspro.com to cancel my proofing gallery so my credit card was not billed and also found out that they cannot find my coupon in the system and the three contact people at the company no longer work there.  They also have no record of the contest ever happening.  I was pretty upset and sent them all my documentation and still got an “I’m sorry we can’t help you” answer each time.  Very poor customer service and there are plenty of witnesses of this including the several thousand of people who signed up for the contest the contest coordinators with the vendors.  I would like to tell my photographer friends not to use www.digilabspro.com because they do not honor their promises and commitments.

So the bottom line is in this case if you win something on facebook, twitter, or a blog is to redeem it quickly after winning it to insure that you get it.

I wanted to mention one more thing and it’s about the cheap deal sites.  I have gotten requests and people wondering why I don’t market myself on these sites.  However before I give an explanation I want to explain how these sites work to people who may not now.  I will use an example of a local photographer who had a cheap deal for an hour session and some images on a CD for $15.  Sounds like a deal doesn’t it?  For the consumer maybe if you looking for mediocre photos.  The photographer who is offering this is only getting 50% of the price it sells for so basically the person is doing your shoot for $7.50.  

For part of this article I actually purchased one of these shoots to see what I got and if the person was actually a professional or just a person who bought a DSLR from Costco.  Well low and behold I was correct it was a Costco kit camera with the kit lens and a pop up flash.  Now I am not saying someone who wants to be a photographer cannot use this camera to make good photos but you shouldn’t be charging anyone.  A DSLR does not make a person a pro photographer.    The photographer knew nothing about light, camera settings, or how to shoot the camera off the green box settings.  I was pretty appalled over the photos I received and I got them in a couple of hours.  They were straight out of the camera and were not even edited.  Horrible that people like this are charging for work like this even for $7.50.  The photographer didn’t even try to up sell anything so they made only $7.50 off the whole deal.

Professionals like me create art and art costs.  We all set a cost on how much we charge to create art and use our skills at creating it to make a one of a kind piece of art for your family or wedding.  This is the prime reason that I do not discount my work because I am creating art and not just a photo.  I spend countless hours perfecting your photo and making memories to last a lifetime.  I also have to pay taxes, insurance, invest in more gear, pay assistants, and overhead costs.  Most of the so called professionals are doing it make an extra couple bucks on the side.  These people with their Costco DSLRs or as I like to call them the “craigslist photographers” have really cheapened the art of photography and the business of photography.   I have spent about 50K on camera gear and I realize the most expensive equipment doesn’t make you a photographer but it certainly comes in handy and you can produce better photos in all different types of scenarios.

Well I hope this article helped and educated my readers.  Thanks again.  I also urge anyone looking for a wedding photographer to research and get references that the person your dealing is a professional and has the equipment to shoot in low light situations.  Refer to my favorite Judge Joe Brown clip below.

Cheap Wedding Photographer

We are still doing senior photos so give us a call at 208-779-0183. I know a lot of the school have deadlines but fill out our contact form on the top of this page or visit our main website at www.cranestudioimaging.com and we will try to get you in and get your photo to the school in time for yearbooks.

We are still doing senior photos so give us a call at 208-779-0183. I know a lot of the school have deadlines but fill out our contact form on the top of this page or visit our main website at www.cranestudioimaging.com and we will try to get you in and get your photo to the school in time for yearbooks.

We are still doing senior photos so give us a call at 208-779-0183. I know a lot of the school have deadlines but fill out our contact form on the top of this page or visit our main website at www.cranestudioimaging.com and we will try to get you in and get your photo to the school in time for yearbooks.

All of our Boise portrait digital sessions will include the cards from October 29^th 2011 through November 30^th 2011.  All you need is to book you session in between these dates, because as we know with Boise weather it is unpredictable at times.  For more info on our other digital collections please email us. We also have a brand new referral program in which you earn $25 in studio credit for each referral booked and can be used for sessions or prints.

So for this promotion this is what is included.

• One Hour Outdoor Photo Session
• 30 Digital Photos on CD of your choice
• 24 Custom Designed 4×8 or 5×7 single sided holiday cards with envelopes
• 3 months online proofing gallery
• Custom Designed Animated Slideshow in digital format to share with family & friends.

All this for $275. Slots are limited, so book today.  You can contact us via email, contact form, or call us at 208-779-0183.  Don’t forget to like us on facebook, so you can see the previews of your awesome family photography session.