Frequently Asked Questions

What are some of our options for locations to take our engagement photos or senior photos?
Some places that we have found work well are Chester Woods, Downtown Rochester, Central Park, the Art Center/Civic Center park, Silver Lake, the Historical Society and by the river, as well as a private home with woods, flower gardens, a wooden swing and gazebo, as well as indoor locations with fireplaces ect.


What should I wear to our photo session?
The first suggestion is to make sure that your clothing choices complement each other in color and style (either dressy or casual, that sort of thing). Also, wear something comfortable, that won’t restrict your movement. We tend to discourage matching identically, for example, identical white shirts and tan pants. While this sometimes works, it tends to draw attention to your clothing and can look a bit contrived. Also, you are free to bring a change of clothes if you want to do some more dressy and some more casual
shots.



Once the wedding is done, how long will it take to get my photos?
The normal time for wedding photography image processing is 6-8 weeks. We fine tune your photos individually, by hand, for color correction and re-touching. We spend on average, 15-25 hours of photoshop time per wedding, to ensure that each image the client receives is of the highest possible quality. It's sort of like getting a burger from Dairy Queen...it may take a little longer, but the quality is well worth the wait. We do not want to rush the image processing time, as we do our absolute best to do outstanding photoshop work and processing on every single wedding we shoot.

How long should we allow for photography on the wedding day?
We recommend one hour for portraits of the bride and groom, one hour for the bridal party, and one hour for family portraits. You can subtract 15 minutes to a half hour if you have two attendants or less on each side. Add 15 minutes if there are several children in the bridal party, if you would like extended family groupings, or if there will be several different locations where photos will be done. You also want to plan to be done at least a half an hour before the ceremony is set to start, so you aren't still taking formals while guests are arriving.

Here is a sample schedule for a 4:30 wedding~ 12:00 bridal party arrives at location, 12:30 bride gets into dress/final touches of hair and makeup. 1:00 bride and groom meet. 1:00-2:00 portraits of bride, groom, and couple together. 2:00-3:00 photos of bridesmaids, groomsmen, whole bridal party. 3:00-4:00 family portraits. 4:00-4:30 Everyone relaxes, 4:30 ceremony starts.

Here is a sample for a 2:30 wedding where some photos will be taken before and some afterwards at a second location~ As some churches have early start times if there is a service there in the evening it often works well to break the photography up before and after the ceremony. 11:00 bridal party arrives at location, 11:30-12:00 bride gets into dress/final touches of hair and makeup. 12:00-12:30 portraits of bride, groom, and couple together at church, 12:30-1:00 photos of bridesmaids, groomsmen, whole bridal party at church, 1:00-2:00 family portraits, 2:00-2:30 everyone relaxes. 2:30-3:30 Ceremony and ushering out of guests by couple. 3:30-4:00 drive to second location such as a park, downtown, or the reception site if it offers good outdoor photography locations. 4:00-5:00 photos of couple and bridal party at second location, 5:00 head to reception.

This is just a sample, but gives some ideas of how a typical wedding day schedule goes.

What order should we take photos in?
It works well to start with the bride and groom's portraits first, then the bridal party, then family members. That way the bridal party and family members don't have to spend so time much waiting. We arrive at the ceremony site about an hour before the formals are set to start so we can get some dressing room type shots (buttoning the dress, putting on the veil or shoes, etc.) as well as some details of the ceremony site.

What if we don’t want to see each other before the wedding?
We strongly recommend doing formal portraits before your ceremony. Many couples choose to meet before the ceremony at the front of the church or other quite location. This will allow us to capture the look on the grooms face when he sees the bride for the first time on the wedding day. If you do plan on not seeing each other before the ceremony, time management becomes key. If there are several hours between the wedding and reception, for example a 2:00 wedding a 6:00 reception, there will be ample time for photos. The problem comes if you have a 4:00 wedding and a 6:00 reception. When you add time for make-up touch up’s after the ceremony, travel to the reception, and a half an hour if you have a receiving line, or usher guests out of the ceremony, you end up with almost no time for photos. If there is only a short time between your wedding and ceremony, a good plan is to start with photos of the bridesmaids and groomsman before the ceremony, than do family formals and portraits of the two of you after the ceremony and before the reception, than have the bridal party leave the reception towards the end of dinner and get a couple of shots of the whole group (as the bridal party is served dinner first, there is usually a time gap between them and the last of the guests). The other option is to have very few formal portraits and just have photo-journalistic style photography of the day.

Can we take photos at a second location on the wedding day?
YES! We encourage couples too! Particularly if there isn’t a nice outdoor spot at the ceremony site, it’s great to stop at a park or other location to get some more photographs.

Will I have a chance to see the photos on our website before our guests do? Yes, we e-mail you the link to the site a week or so before we send out the links to people who signed up at the reception, so you have time to take off any photos you don't like.


What is the cost for detailed photo editing or extensive retouching? For images that need small edits the charge is $25 per image. For large edits, the charge is $40 per image. Our wedding package includes color correction and basic photo editing. Things such as removing a person from a picture, or moving a hand, or removing an object out of a picture would be considered a detailed photo edit.