Tips On Finding a Wedding/Reception Location In Colorado Springs

These are some wonderful tips from Melissa at Moonriver Weddings. Melissa is a local Wedding Planner here in Colorado Springs. The photo is courtesy Black Forest Photography from one of Moonriver's weddings.

1. Before looking for a location, determine your priorities and must haves for your wedding. If quality of food is on the top of your list, you need to determine your location first, set aside the budget, then allocate the remaining budget as appropriate. If where you get married is not as important as your photography and décor, set aside the bulk of your budget for those items and look for a inexpensive location you can work with.

2. Make sure you know your guests list before you go looking (and how many you'll need - depending on number of out of town guests, time of year, a certain % of those invited will not attend. 20% is a good ballpark. Obviously, if most of your guests are from out of town, that ratio will increase). The number of guests you expect will rule out many locations.

3. Know if there will be another wedding or event going on before or after your wedding. Also find out how much time you are allowed for set up/decoration and take down.

4. Make sure to ask what items are included with the site fee - are tables, chairs, linens included? Also ask about whether there is an on-site coordinator and if so, what, exactly does that person do for you and what won't/can't they do? How long will they be at the wedding?

5. Know all restrictions - music, alcohol, decoration etc. Also ensure there is adequate parking, bathrooms, coat check and security as necessary.

6. Finally, ask for a break out of all fees, including service charges and whether gratuity is included or not. Is there a deposit? Is it refundable? What is the cancellation policy?

7. Know that finding a location that fits every single one of your requirements or criteria is rare, make a decision on what feels best and what best accommodates those items that you feel are most important. Wedding Planners can help you work out any issues, such as lack of parking and so forth.

8. Hire a day-of wedding coordinator! Your wedding is the event of the lifetime - be there for it!Happy Planning!-Melissa http://www.moonriverweddings.com/

Why You Should Hire A Professional DJ

A DJ does much more than just stand back behind the table and play music. The DJ becomes your MC and ensures all the events are flowing smoothly so you do not have anything to worry about. They are constantly communicating with you, the staff and your guests about what is happening so you and your newly wed husband or wife can enjoy the evening mingling with your friends and family. A professional DJ will provide you a planning form and music request list to fill out. Some DJs go a step further and provide you a login password to their website where you can fill out the planning form and request list online and save it online. The website is very helpful with helping keep everything organized. After all, the DJ will "make or break" your special day. A professional DJ will ensure you they MAKE your special day. In addition, some DJs provide the music for the ceremony as well as the reception. The professional DJs provide a wireless lapel microphone to clip to the officiant so all of your guests can hear what is being said during the ceremony. Also, they provide a wireless handheld microphone fors omeone to use to either read a poem or scripture or perhaps sing a song. Most importantly, a professional DJ understands that they are not the only person at the wedding. A professional works closely with everyone involved to make sure everything flows together smoothly. It is extremely important for the DJ to be able to communicate with everyone especially the photographers. A professional DJ understands that your pictures are whatyou are going to look at years down the road, therefore a professional DJ will help ensure the photographer captures those memories by workingc losely with them. Overall, try not to choose your DJ solely on cost. There is that old saying out there "you get what you pay for". Besides the pictures, the last thing you will remember that day is the music and entertainment. Many brides have regretfully said "if i could do it all over, i would have chosen a more professional DJ and not based my decision on cost."

Thank you,

Bobby Sorden Sensational Sounds Try BEATS Certified 719-233-ssdj (7735) http://www.ssdj.us/ Photo provided by: Black Forest Photography

Should Digital Wedding Photography Be Less Expensive Then Film

Unfortunately, this is a common misconception. While digital capture eliminates the need for film and developing, the difference is negated when you now add the time it takes for the photographer to process all of the images. When using film, you purchased film, photographed, sent it to the lab for developing and printing where the lab took care of color correcting and analyzing. Now, the photographer is responsible for all of the work that the lab used to do. This added workload is tremendous. It results in more man hours needed to process any given wedding (about 40 hours for an average wedding) or event, as well as the extra expense of hiring people to do so. In addition, the equipment needed to efficiently produce digital photography is of considerable expense. Not only are the cameras and associated equipment to perform digital capture much more expensive than their film counterparts, but
there is a considerable amount of ancillary equipment necessary. Computers are an important part of the digital photography scenario. With files from professional digital cameras being anywhere from 25 megabytes on up, powerful computers are needed to manipulate these files. With the average wedding consisting of 600 images, this comes to a whopping 15 gigabytes of digital images. Plus, these have to be backed up several times to ensure the security of your wedding photos. Oh, and files this size won't fit on CD's... they will only fit on DVD's and physical hard drives. Add in high capacity Flash Cards (4gigbyte
capacity or more) and the devices to read them, plus having a powerful laptop computer to take to the event for backup, etc. This translates to more expense for computers with the proper disc burners and processing power in the 3+Gigahertz range with RAM minimum of 1 gigabyte or more. Software to process these images is also pricey Not to mention the necessity for high speed internet to upload files of this size to online viewing and posting sites as well as to the photo labs for prints. In reality, digital photography should probably cost triple what it does!

Photo provided by: Black Forest Photography

Why is Wedding Photography So Expensive?

Hello! This is Becky & Ryan from Black Forest Photography. We are going to answer some common questions asked about wedding photography. So lets start with this one!

Q: Quality wedding photography is more expensive than I expected. Why is that?

A: Simply put, quality wedding photography is only 'too expensive' to those who do not believe it is important. Almost everyone knows someone who has had a bad wedding photography experience. They will generally tell you that the money they saved by cutting corners on their photography was not worth it... Especially now that their memories and images of their once in a lifetime day cannot be replaced... ever...at any cost! There are plenty of money saving tips and ideas for your wedding day but, photography is not one of them. Your wedding photos are the ONLY thing that you will take with you as a permanent record of that beautiful day. Quality wedding photography requires a remarkable amount of skill, patience, and people skills. The equipment necessary to provide the quality images we produce must be extremely reliable and of top quality. This equipment must also be redundant so you have a back up in case of failure. Other factors are also involved such as liability insurance, transportation, etc. Costs vary greatly in the Colorado Springs area. However, for this market, you should budget $2,000.00 and up for quality wedding photography. We hope this was helpful and informative.

If you have any questions you would like answered on the blog please email us at: info (at)blackforestphoto.com or visit us at: http://www.blackforestphoto.com/

Thanks!