Shay and Kurt :: Sneak Peek

Get ready, because these two are on fire...

Happy Monday!

what would you save?

People and pets out of the equation, we're talking things, tangible items... "If your house was burning, what would you try to save?" Family heirlooms are always the answer when asked this hypothetical (but pretty awful) question. But what are those treasured items? A piece of jewelry that's been passed down? A tattered childhood toy or blanket? Photos? Your wedding album... yes usually the wedding album makes the cut, as well it should.

We asked each other this question. Here are our answers...

Betty said, "I would grab the safety deposit box full of vital records and important documents. Right next to it is my jewelry box full of my Grandmother's jewelry. That's my second thing. Then I'd run down to the bookshelf and grab every single photo album I can carry." As you can tell she's the accountant in this partnership. Of course she has a safety deposit box stored in an easily accessible place. Of course she does. And yes, she has strategically placed the family jewelry box right next to it. She's also the planner and worst case thinker. Can you tell?

Maggie said, "First thing to bring would be the box of baby stuff from when Sweet Cheeks was born. You know, his hospital bracelet, blanket, going home outfit, birth certificate, umbilical cord. Then I'd start grabbing photo albums. If I had to pick just a few I'd grab our wedding album, my box of vintage family prints, and the framed photo of Sweet Cheeks and I from the day he was born. I guess the last thing I'd bring is my camera, because that puppy was expensive." Less logical and thought out, Maggie brings her son's dried umbilical cord. Oh yes, she kept it. We know... we know.

So let us get to our point (for crying out loud). Our point is that wedding photos deserve to be printed. They belong in an album, and that album belongs on a shelf in your living room where you can see it every day, look through it often, and grab it in a fire. Let's be honest. Most of us will (God willing) never have to run back into our burning home to save these special items. But for many couples out there, they don't even have an album to put on their list! What... you'd save your computer? You'd save your cherished wedding photo DVD? How often do you pop that baby in and sit in front of the computer looking at your photos? Nope... not very often. So again we say, wedding photos belong in an album.

Here's the funny part: We don't (currently) include albums in our pricing. We never force our couples to purchase high end albums when booking us. We do this because we believe the ability to afford quality photography outweighs the need for a fancy album, especially if that fancy album would be full of photos you don't really enjoy because you had to settle for a photographer you weren't thrilled with. So no, we don't force the album issue, and by doing so we make our work attainable to couples who (like most) have a photography budget to work within. Does that mean we want couples to stop there, and do nothing with their DVD of images once they receive it? Um... no.

We give print rights to our clients with the hope they will use our recommended public album providers to design and print their own albums. Yes! It can be done! You do NOT have to spend upwards of $1,000 for a decent album. The vast majority of our clients do not purchase packages with albums, but they do flock to My Publisher when their DVD arrives to create their own. And guess what, it will cost them under $100 for a beautiful, layflat, coffee table book packed full of their wedding photos. My Publisher has an outstanding, easy to use design software program that is free to download. We know because we've used it ourselves, and we love it. In fact, we have used My Publisher to create quick and inexpensive albums to use when showcasing our latest work.

In the long, drawn out, over hyped debate among wedding photographers, we stand firm in our stance that wedding photos should be printed and belong in albums. But... we know a beautifully hand crafted, flush mount album is just not within reach for everyone. So we promise to always make our work available without the pressure to purchase a designer album, and we promise to always provide all of our clients with the rights to their wedding photos.

In the coming months, we will be working hard to give this company a fresh coat of paint as we do a little rebranding. In those efforts we will address the demands of our new couples and the changing market. We plan on bringing the best of both worlds to our product line next year, by offering collections that include high end albums for those who demand the best, as well as coverage only collections that leave the album design up to the happy couple. So look for big news in a few months! Change is good, and responding to the needs and requests of our clients is even better. So we will evolve.

Now before we go, promise us if you don't have your wedding photos in an album that you will have one made. Online providers or through a professional... you deserve to have your memories preserved and displayed.

Have a great weekend!

We're getting ready for...

...Bridal Show season! Our fellow wedding photographers think we've completely lost our minds. While this is a possibility, we don't care, we L-O-V-E bridal show season!

Many photographers make bridal shows or wedding expos a huge part of their marketing, and many don't. The past year we've booked the majority of weddings based on word of mouth advertising, and through a couple of online ad spaces. Then, we were lucky enough to find a couple of last minute opportunities to do some local bridal shows this past Spring, and we gave them a shot. As it turns out, we're the type of photographers who really enjoy bridal shows. And that's nice and all... we get to spend time together, we're not in front of our computers, we get to wear nice clothes and network with other vendors. But what's even better, and frankly the whole reason we go to such shows? They were successful for us, and led to us meeting several delightful couples who we're getting to know more and more as they welcome us into their wedding circle and plan their photography.

(This was the beginning stages of our expo display construction. Looks much better now.)



So... we're stepping up our game and giving the "big" bridal shows a shot. It's in our nature to try everything once when it comes to marketing. Word of mouth is still our best bet, the online blogs who feature our work are a lot of fun and always give us a nice ego boost, and the local bridal shows are on a pleasantly small scale which allow for a lot of one on one conversations. Next year though, we'll get our feet wet in the larger market of bridal shows and decide if they're right for us. They may be fantastic, they may be overwhelming and not worth the stress. We have no idea how they will turn out, but we'll be sure to let you know ;)

We decided to stick with just two "big" shows next year, and to start fresh in January of 2013. Our year will be kicked off with the Washington Bridal Showcase January 6th at the Washington Convention Center. This is the doosey. Pretty sure a gazillion other vendors will be there, and we will no doubt be the little guys. This does not scare us in the slightest. We much prefer to be the little fish. Being a big fish in a little pond doesn't give us much satisfaction. The show's organizers have prepared us to have thousands of hand outs and printed materials ready for the several thousand Brides they expect to host. Um... anyone know a good printer?! This is our scariest show, but we can handle it.

The second "big" show we decided to do (and trust us, we looked at several shows before narrowing down to these two) is the Lovesick Expo. Frankly, this is the coolest group of wedding vendors out there. We still can't handle the fact that they allowed us sit at their table. This show is the anti bridal show, bridal show. It's seriously amazing. They even do this awesome spin on how door prizes work, with the money going to charity. Charity! How wonderful is that?! Simply put, if there's a bridal show out there for us, this is it. It's smaller scale, meant to feel almost like a cocktail party at an art gallery with some vendors on hand to chat with. So if you're still in need of anything wedding related come January 27th... make sure you're at this expo.

(Lots and lots and lots of albums to look through. This is just one.)

Needless to say, we'll spend the next 5 months pulling ourselves together and preparing for these two shows. We'll keep you posted, no doubt. We like to go big or go home (although we hate that saying), so don't be shocked if you see Birds of a Feather Photography take on a completely new look and feel. We'll have sneak peeks into our brand overhaul over the next several months. Stay tuned!

But before all of this hoopla really gets going, we're going to be setting up shop with one last local (but far from small) bridal show this year. Our dear friend Monique Melton, who does beautiful makeup is organizing a fun, new bridal show. The Sealed with a Kiss Bridal Expo is going on this August 26th at the Hilton Garden Inn Solomons. For all you Maryland Brides, this is the fall expo to go to. Seriously... Monique's connections in the wedding industry have turned this into the who's who of bridal shows. Since we know not everyone gets engaged in December, the late summer/fall bridal show season is the perfect time for recently engaged couples to start planning their big day. We'll be there along with several other wedding vendors. Come on out and see us! Admission is FREE for this one! Take full advantage, that doesn't happen very often with bridal shows of this standard.

(Let's be honest, the free food at these things is our favorite part.)

Have a great day!

wedding wear

During our consultations we spend about two hours just talking; learning everything we can about the couple we're getting to know. We ask lots of questions, and encourage our couples to ask us lots of questions as well. Finally we get around to looking through albums, and discussing coverage... eventually. We love these meetings, and so far every couple we've met with has welcomed us into their wedding circle. Earlier in the week we got together with a FANTASTIC couple, and we are thrilled to be a part of their wedding next year. During our meeting, they asked us "what do you wear when you shoot a wedding?"

Great question! In fact, we thought it would be neat to share on the blog some examples of what you might see us wearing on a wedding day. When it comes to how we choose our wedding wear there are a few rules we follow. The first, our clothes must be easy to move in. We're talking, running, squatting, climbing, standing on chairs, lying on the ground, and possibly doing the splits. So easy mobility is key. The second rule is our shoes must be comfortable. Our feet usually require several hours of icing after a wedding, so we make sure we give them a fighting chance with the shoes we decide to wear. Plus we have to be able to run in them. Finally, we make sure to be professional and formally appropriate, while maintaining our own sense of style. That's the hard part. But we always seem to make it work. Plus, no one is looking at us anyway.

Here are two examples of what Betty might wear when photographing a wedding. The first would work for a semi-formal to more casual wedding. The second outfit would be best for a formal wedding event.

Maggie's outfits would look something like this...

We always take into consideration the colors of the wedding party and overall theme of each wedding we photograph. It's better for us to blend in this way, rather than wearing all black which screams "wedding photographer!" Of course if our couples make special requests, we'll always do our best to work within their preferences.

So there's a little insight into how we dress for a wedding. We really like getting dressed up when we work, because most days of the week we never get out of our yoga pants. Don't judge.

Have a good one,

rain on your wedding day

The morning of my wedding was perfect. Sun shining, a few passing clouds of the puffy white variety... all was well. Nothing to worry about. No rain on my wedding day! The frenzy set in, makeup and hair arrived to doll everyone up then I got into my dress and made my way to the beautiful chapel at Mt. St. Mary's University where our family and friends waited. I made it down the aisle without crying, we said our vows and ran out of the church while guests waved handmade streamers. It was wonderful! Then it was time for photos...

We made it through the family portraits and once everyone left to go to cocktails, it was just me, my new husband and our photographers. Time to get busy and take lots of amazing, natural light shots at all of the locations on campus I had strategically mapped out. Right? Nope. Then the sky got dark, and we watched a rain cloud race towards us. We managed to get two shots outside before it started to pour. I had set aside two whole hours for portraits, making sure to give our photographers lots of time to do their thing. Of course, the only time it rained on my wedding day was during those two hours. We went inside the church, took some standard stuff and then joined our guests at cocktail hour. I wasn't worried, and I didn't stress. I knew I had Mom, and I knew I could still have my sunset portraits. But I still can't believe it to this day. Rain, during only the time set aside for photos, on a wedding photographer's wedding day. Go figure.

I'm a lucky girl. My partner and fellow photographer is my Mom, and I knew I had nothing to worry about. I'd get my great wedding photos... just not on my wedding day. A few weeks later, after the Hubby and I returned from our honeymoon we played dress up again. I stepped back into my dress and did my own hair and makeup, while he got back into his tux and promised to stand still. I stopped by Whole Foods and picked up some fresh, gorgeous white hydrangea and tied them to make my bouquet. Then we went to my late Grandfather's old cornfield for a "Newlywed" photo shoot. Mom did beautiful work as usual, and these wedding portraits are my favorite.

Rain on a wedding day can actually be an opportunity to take some amazing wedding photographs, if you have the right photographer. Don't be afraid of rain, but if your big day doesn't go as planned then a Newlywed Session is a way to give you even more portraits to be happy with. Even if your wedding does go as planned and you love your portraits, but you want to do something really unique, artistic, funky, or funny... a Newlywed. Session can be your way to play with photos. If you're willing, we could even go the "Trash the Dress" route.

So consider what a Newlywed Session could do for your collection of wedding photos. For me it allowed me to have sunny, warm, outdoor photos in my wedding dress even though it was dark and rainy on my wedding day. Plus, we had the chance to take the photos in a place that's near and dear to me. Here are some of my favorite shots from that session.

Congrats to our door prize winners at yesterday's shows! We hope you'll enjoy your Newlywed Sessions!

Happy Monday,

Giveaway Finalists

When we decided 2012 was going to be the year we launched our photography business, we knew three things were going to create a foundation for how we worked. Of course we want to give our couples the best photographs we can possibly produce along with great customer service. That goes without saying, and there was no need to focus on those things because to us they're kind of "duh" aspects to any wedding photographer or photography team. No we needed a way to set ourselves apart, all while exposing our true nature to our potential clients and especially those couples who chose us to be a part of their wedding day. So here are three things we realized were important to us.

1. We will never refer to ourselves as "rock stars". Sorry, but this whole fascination with wedding photographers somehow turning into celebrities drives us crazy. It's one big marketing campaign in the wedding photography industry, and we just can't buy into it. No, we are not rock stars. We're good at what we do, but that shouldn't make us celebrities. In short, we'll always be humble, and we'll never forget how special it is to be invited into the most intimate moments of a wedding day.

2. No matter what, we will show kindness. When we think about the type of person we want our son/grandson to become, simple kindness is the thing that matters most. Don't be a bully, be aware of the needs of others and when possible put theirs before yours, smile at everyone, hold the door for the old man more than a few steps away, say thank you and mean it, and treat people with love even when it may be difficult to do so. Sometimes it's so easy to forget to be kind to people. We never want to forget. So we will always speak warmly, smile often, and remember that life can be tough. There's no sense in making it tougher.

3. The 3rd rule we knew we wanted to build this business on, is the act of giving back. You can call it what you like... blessings, fate, luck, karma. We have a lot of it. No, life isn't perfect, but every night we get to close our eyes with something to say thank you for. So we've decided to make it mandatory for ourselves to give back to charities and organizations who support people who could use some of the good stuff we've got. We're working on adding a huge charity effort to our business model, and we'll be talking about this effort a lot more in the days to come, but today we're starting with a free wedding.

We didn't start our business by spending big bucks on advertising efforts, or fancy business cards. We didn't hire anyone to design our website. We started our efforts by offering a free wedding giveaway. After we announced this giveaway contest, we had a TON of couples enter by sending in their love story. Let's just say we needed a few tissues to get through reading them all. We chose our favorite 3 couples and now it's up to you to support the couple you want to see win a free wedding. After we decided on our finalists, we asked each couple to send in a photo, and a short blurb about who they are and why you should vote for them. Let us introduce them now...

Couple #1: Jessica and Jan

"Jessica is a Chicago/NYC city girl, who adores bikram yoga, manages events for rock stars, and is desperately learning Dutch to speak to her mother-in-law. Jan is a Belgian country boy who, of course, loves french fries, building huge stages for rock stars, and dreams of moving to an island. We’re quite a match. Pick us! And we promise photos full of strange, delightful, adventures."

Couple #2: Kristin and Shawn

"Six years ago, Shawn witnessed the loss of his best friendwhile serving as a Marine in Iraq.  Not long after, he lost both his parents in two tragic, separate circumstances. Despite these hardships, he is a loving brother, godparent, friend, and fiancé to Kristin. They lookforward to spending their lives together!"

Couple #3: Priyanka and Seth

"As college sweethearts about to graduate from McDanielCollege, our greatest choice was to become best friends during our first classtogether.  Almost four years later, we areexcited to become even better friends with every passing day and continuemaking memories as we take this wonderful step into marriage."

Now it's time to cast your vote for the couple you want to see win our Free Wedding Giveaway!

The contest will run for one week, starting today and ending next Saturday, May 5th. Each person can vote just once, so make sure to share this post with everyone you know to give your couple the most support and votes possible. The couple who wins, will receive a completely free day of wedding photography. Pretty cool huh? We think so. And we wish we could do this for everyone who entered, but that would make us a little crazy.

So on the count of 3, go vote!

1.. 2.. 3..

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!

Good luck everyone!

Vendor Spotlight :: LV Creative Designs

Peonies, hydrangea, garden roses, ranunculus... when it comes to flowers we're snobs. So much so, that when Maggie got married we had hundreds of white hydrangea and yellow garden roses delivered to the venue 3 days early. We had to book an extra hotel room just to have enough space to keep these beautiful buds cool while they opened. We cut hundreds of flowers then stuck them in buckets, trash cans, and bathtubs until we were ready to create our centerpieces. The morning before the big day we set up shop in the reception space with the other vendors and got to work, arranging those fluffy white hydrangeas into perfectly cloud like centerpieces. The morning of the wedding we were up at 6am to wire roses and hand tie 7 bouquets. Were we crazy? Yes. Couldn't we have just hired someone? Yes. Was it worth it to do ourselves, giving us these memories and personal connection to the wedding day? You betcha.

We thought about doing the flowers for our styled shoot ourselves for quite some time, but as we became more and more involved we realized there just wasn't going to be enough time for us to dedicate to the flowers. Throwing something together last minute was not an option, so we enlisted the help of our new friends at LV Creative Designs.

Linda lives locally and was willing to help right away. When she asked for inspiration, we told her the story of our little vintage elopement. We told her we wanted the flowers to be simple, minimal, and look like the had Groom picked them himself from his Mother's garden. We described the flowers as looking "handpicked and hurried", since we wanted the entire look of the shoot to seem thrown together by our Groom. Linda understood where we wanted to go, jumped on board and got to work.

Linda must be able to read minds, because she was able to give us exactly what we wanted based on just a conversation or two. The yellow tulips starting to open, the heavenly white ranunculus with curved stems bending in just the right places, the delightful little craspedia, the delicate lace that tied the bouquet together... so many elements to her work made it exactly right, and perfect for our shoot. She even used twine around the milk jug vase, just like our couple's wedding bands! Linda nailed it. We were so happy with her work, we may never do our own flowers again.

If you're a flower snob too, and you appreciate the art and craft of floral design, you are going to enjoy this post. For some, flowers are somewhere in the middle of their wedding to do list. For us they came in 3rd, only falling behind setting a date and finding a photographer. If you're like us, you're searching high and low for a high quality, reasonable florist for your wedding. Well we found them... learn more about LV Creative Designs here.

Thanks again to Linda for all of her hard work, and for always having such a bright and happy demeanor. It was a true pleasure to work with you.

Vendor Spotlight :: Michelle's Cakes

In one of our all time favorite movies, George Banks describes his daughter's wedding cake as "flour and water" as he tries to control his temper over the cost of said cake. Although a cake may be made from simple ingredients, it is by no means just "flour and water". A wedding cake is a centerpiece. It's a work of art. It's an experience. In fact it's the one element of a wedding day that we get to admire for its beauty and then devour as we attempt to talk with our mouths full about how good it is. So I hate to say it George, Annie's cake is fairly priced, so just write the check.

Can you tell we love cake? Well we do. And when we were designing the details of our styled shoot, we knew we wanted a sugary masterpiece to be its centerpiece. Enter Michelle of Michelle's cakes. This woman has been blowing us away with her tasty treats for a long time. She has been there to create beautiful cakes for several of our personal parties and events, including an adorable one for Maggie's baby shower. Every time we have made very specific requests, Michelle just says "sure, no problem" and effortlessly whips it up. We swear she must have magic cake fairies who live in her bakery. From her incredibly realistic sugar flowers, to the actual dig-in-and-eat it part of the cake, there's nothing quite like a cake from Michelle. Naturally, we begged her to work with us on the shoot, hoping she'd say yes and have the time to do it. Her response? "Yeah, sure! No problem." We may or may not have jumped up and down a little when we hung up the phone. Yay!

We sent her a ton of pictures of different cakes we thought would go with our theme, and discussed this particular shade of yellow until the word "yellow" lost its meaning. Poor Michelle... we must have driven her crazy. But in true Michelle fashion, she just said "yeah we can do that, no problem". The day before the shoot Maggie went to pick up the cake at Michelle's Cakes in Indian Head, MD. When she arrived Michelle told her she had just whipped it up that morning, and it was ready to go home. Holy cow... she just "whipped it up", and in the a.m. no less. Out of the bakery's back room came the most beautiful cake we'd ever seen. The flower looked like it had to be real, but nope... it was all sugar. The ruffled icing was stunning, and it was hard to imagine ever cutting into such a beautiful piece of art. The cake was absolutley perfect for our theme, and it was truly the centerpiece of our table top.

Michelle's Cakes is the bakery to use for your wedding. Hands down, no debating it. So if a wedding is in your future, stop what you're doing, and call Michelle now. You'll thank us later.

Thank you Michelle, for so quickly agreeing to participate in our styled shoot, and for so effortlessly creating a masterpiece we could play with. We must have taken 100 shots of just the cake alone. Oh and if you're wondering what it taste like? Heaven.

Learn more about Michelle's Cakes here.

Thanks again Michelle!

Have a sweet day! (yeah we said it)

Vendor Spotlight :: Favia's Artistry

When we decided to do our first styled shoot, we knew the one thing we couldn't live without was a hair and make up artist to doll up our model. Only problem was, we didn't really know any.

We ran into Monique of Favia's Artistry at a local bridal show a few months ago. We were just passing through but Monique had her business on display. Her booth was packed, and we were impressed with the examples of her work. Right away we noticed she had the ability to make Brides look stunning, but seem as if they're not wearing any make up at all. We also saw that she could turn on the drama and play with colors, making her clients look and feel like they are on the set of a Vogue photo shoot. We knew we needed her business card, so we took one, and got in contact with her right away.

To our delight, she was willing to help us and agreed to make over our model for the shoot. We pored over hundreds of images of vintage hair styles and make up trends from the 40's. In total, we must have sent Monique over 30 examples of what we were looking for. She kindly put up with us, was always quick to respond, and was eager to talk about different ideas. We knew we were in good hands.

As it turns out, we were. In fact, we were in great hands. Monique arrived at Maggie's home the day of the shoot with her Mary Poppins bag of magic. She got started right away, and worked right up until it was time to start shooting. Like us, she's a perfectionist... it felt good knowing she was working towards getting it just right. And she sure did. I mean look at those Victory Rolls! Come on! They're amazing. She's amazing. We couldn't be happier with Monique's work, and the final result that came through in photos.

Favia's Artistry provides beauty, makeup, hair and style design for their clients ranging from Brides and wedding parties, to professional models. Southern Maryland Brides and even those in the Washington, DC should line up for consultations with Monique, and cross their fingers she's available on their wedding date. Knowing you look beautiful, and feeling confident goes a long way on your wedding day, especially in photos. Make sure you have someone as talented as Monique of Favia's Artistry in your corner.

Check out more of Monique's work here.

Here are some images of Monique at work, and of her final product.

The shot below is one of our favorites!

Hello beautiful...

Thanks again to Monique!

And thanks for reading...