When picking your wedding vendors; I feel the most important wedding vendor is your photographer.

You can buy the perfect dress and tux, the most beautiful flowers, and get the most perfectly romantic location. Even if you have the best music and the most beautiful cake in history... You can look more beautiful than you have ever looked in your whole life......

But if you don't capture it professionally, you won't have those memories to look back on for the rest of your life. And in my opinion, that just ruins absolutely EVERYTHING! All your hard work, and all that money, getting everything to look perfect, all down the drain.

Alot of people don't think about that, and it just breaks my heart when I hear someone say, "Oh we decided to just use my uncle, or; my sister just got a camera, she can take some shots". Of course everyone doesn't have the same passion for photos that I do, some people don't really care to have those memories. But what about when you have a child, and they want to see mom and dad's wedding day? And your parents ALWAYS want to have a nice wedding portrait to show off!

Even if you just get a small package where you just get the CD, (which alot of photographers offer now; for between $300-$1000, depending how long the photographer is there). At least you will have the memories captured professionally, and you print up your favorite prints, and/or make a book to look at. There are so many websites where you can create online books, (after you create it, they bind it and mail it to you). www.heritagemakers.com is a great one. Or you can have your photographer make you one later, (if your budget is a bit too stretched before the wedding to do it!)

There is alot to being a professional photographer. I have been doing it for nearly 10 years and I am still learning all the time. When I switched from film to digital I felt like I was starting all over again in some ways. But luckily I still knew alot about shooting on the beach, which is really hard if you don't have the proper camera and flash. Most photographers who are learning, will position the sun behind their back, with the subjects facing into the sun. Which will create squinting, because the sun is shining into their eyes. Big NONO! The best thing to when shooting in high sun is to put the subject with the sun at their backs, and the photographer shooting into the sun. (This requires a flash that can be adjusted to compensate for the extra light). Then the subjects aren't squinting, and don't have the hard light on their faces either. I ALWAYS look for shade when taking a portrait. It is more flattering to the skin tone, and your subject won't be squinting.