To DJ or not to DJ at your wedding

With all the wedding professionals out there, each one has a purpose and each one is uniquely important. The wedding planner, often the brains of the wedding, taking the pressure off the bride and making it all come together. The cake maker, bring you that taste treat that is a beautiful ending to a fun evening. And to have that fun evening you’ll need that DJ, which is the heart of any good wedding.

I bring up the DJ because as a photographer I’m often relying on the DJ for information on how the evening will go. I know with a good DJ, the dance floor will be hoping, and keeping the evening events moving in a forward motion. Many of my friends are DJ’s and I wanted to say a few words on their behalf to thank them for making my job easier and bringing me to fun photos and videos I have to for the brides and grooms out there.

The Disc Jockey:
What I have come to realize is a commanding person. They are often confident in their abilities and will control the rhythm of the party to suit the needs of the wedding couple. Without a good DJ, events often spiral out of control and before long, its 11pm and you haven’t even cut your cake yet. The DJ often is fun and entertaining, as they will often be the focus of attention when on the microphone, and bringing the spotlight onto the newly wedded couple. As the lights are dimmed and the music is playing the new husband and wife will enjoy that special song that they will remember forever as “their Song”. More often than not, the DJ will bring tears to your eyes as you are on the dance floor dancing to that special song and you glide along with your parents, the daughter with her father, or the son with his mother. I have seen the father get choked up with tears dancing with this daughter or the mother’s face buried in her son’s chest, probably thinking back to when their kids where just babies. It’s the DJ that helps bring those feelings to the surface and lets it all show on this one special day.

“Hey Mr. DJ keep playing that Song”, it’s those songs that bring out the craziest dancers out on dance floor and allows me to get the coolest dance pictures. And with the right DJ you’ll even have the groom out there on the dance floor cutting a rug, as they say. There are a lot times when I need to steal the bride and groom away for pictures and it will be the DJ watching my back keeping the dance floor going and the rest of the party entertained while I’m out taking the photos.

Without a doubt a DJ for a wedding is your wedding reception life blood and to have things go smoothly you’ll need said DJ. When looking for a DJ keep some of the following things in mind:
1. Ask for references, names and numbers of people who they have done weddings for. Testimonials are ok, but they could be fabricated.
2. Meet with the DJ before you wedding, you want to meet the person who will be at your wedding and see if personalities click. And make sure who you are speaking with is the person who will actually be the one showing up.
3. Inquire about the DJ Equipment: Do they have backups? Any kind of lighting? Are they using Discs (they can skip in players) or laptops (who library of MP3s)?
4. Do they travel to your venue? If the DJ is not local find out if there is a travel fee, sometimes that gets sneaked in and you don’t want an unexpected bill.
5. Also check to see how much it costs for an extra hour or two, I’ve been to a lot of weddings where the party just isn’t done yet, people are still having a good time and they don’t want the DJ to leave.

If you are in and around the Eastern Shore area, like Ocean City, Maryland or Rehoboth Beach, Delaware I have a few suggestions of DJ’s that I have worked with on several occasions and found their performance to be outstanding. The following DJs are in order based on their names and not listed by who is better than whom.
Justin Darling – 443-527-1778 - thatdjguy@comcast.net
Justin Mac – 410-726-7936 - keep.livin@gmail.com
Leo Weigand – 800-439-6600 – leosometimes@gmail.com
Jason Williams – 410-845-9425 - jawzhouse@yahoo.com

Jason and Stacy Wedding in Ocean City

My good buddy Jason and Stacy recently got married, and they asked us to photograph it as well as video the event. This is a sample video by my video editor Zack, who continously does an awesome fast job and great work.

Doreen and Dan Wedding

I had a great time on Saturday with Dan and Doreen and their wedding in Rehoboth at the Atlantic Sands. This was a small wedding only really and hour but we had a lot of fun with the photos. One of the coolest things I found when I was there was a runner that ran from the boardwalk to the wedding arch and it was made in such a way that the bride could walk on it easily in heels. And any thing that makes the bride’s life easier is always a good thing.

The wedding minister was my good buddy Leo Weigand, and he did an awesome job making sure the couple got what they wanted. After words I had beautiful weather, a lovely sky and a fun group of people to photograph. This particular wedding with it only being an hour and with my living only a mile from the wedding location, I was back home and done editing the images by the end of the night. It took all night to upload them all but after everything it was nice to have the photos captured, edited and up online all in the same day.

Back to back photo shoots at the Studio

We recently had two photo shoots back to back. One on Easter Sunday, a lovely couple from Dover, Lisa and Joe, and the other was on Monday, Dasha and Corey from the Rehoboth Beach, Lewes area.
Lisa and Joe made an interesting couple and a unique challenge. The unique and interesting part was with Joe being so tall in comparison to Lisa, and with Lisa being such a darker completion then Joe. Joe was pretty funny and goofy, in some cases it was difficult to get him serious, but he gave me a wide range of emotion that I really liked. I really got into and enjoyed photographing Lisa, with her special beauty; it is truly rare to photograph someone like her. Lisa was born in Bangladesh and has that India beauty about her. She has already invited us to fly out to her county to photograph their wedding there.

On Monday we had Dasha and Corey join us out in the studio for some fun photography. I liked shooting Dasha with her short hair and crazy Russian personality. She was bouncy and eager to try new and poses. With Corey, he was a bit shy and after while he started to open up, but I felt like he was still holding back on some of the shots. We invited him back later into the summer for another shoot, and I think he will be more comfortable with Olga and I when that day comes.

I found these days to be fun photographing in the studio, Olga and I had a chance to experiment, and I backed off from behind the camera to let her do most of the photographing. I spent most of my time working with the lighting, adjusting and trying new things. I was also in the director mode, getting the models to strike different poses and when I ran out of ideas, Olga would come up with some new ones. We had our buddy, Zach out there videotaping the Monday session of which he will splice together a fun video I’m sure for all to enjoy. On Sunday I had the video camera on a tripod and just got some video footage of Olga and I working with Lisa and Joe.

Here are some images for those two days and stay tuned for the video as its on its way.

Bridal Shoot Video

We had a fun time taking our willing couple out to Cape Henlopen for a Bridal Shoot. With time to take these photos, we got some awesome images. Thank you to Yuliya and Rob, you both were great! It was a photo shoot iIve been wanting to organize for a while now.

Hitched Web Updates

Well I’m happy to say; today was a productive day behind the computer.
Most of the work was website related things I was putting off.
So what’s new on the website?
· New better wedding gallery on the Hitched Photography website!
· Updated the High School Seniors page with package pricing and images.
· Added a Wedding Venues page for fun wedding places around the area.
There were a lot of cool new images that I ended up editing and getting ready to spread around the website.
One of the more challenging items was editing the video from the bridal shoot the other week. With more and more people checking out videos online, I’d like to keep adding more videos for clients to enjoy. So we have that to look forward to. Keep an eye on that Hitched YouTube Channel!

What are the chances?

What are the chances of there being another "Will Vickers" in this world? With my full name being William Franklin Vickers the 4th. I prefer to go by Will Vickers. And as I was in the process of Twittering, I wanted to change my Twitter name from "HitchedPhoto" to Will Vickers, I found that it was already taken. As it turns out this other Will Vickers is in the UK also doing photography. That's what I mean by way strange and come on, weird.

Anyway, check it out: http://www.wvphotography.co.uk/index.html

Yuliya and Rob - Bridal Photo Shoot

Well I have a lot to blog about and I can see I haven’t blogged in a while. After our trip to Phoenix, AZ for the Imaging USA conference, we picked up some new techniques from the TriCoast Photography guys, Mike and Cody. Well we got a great chance to implement these new skills with a fun and willing couple, Yuliya and Rob. This lovely couple was willing to allow us the time to take these great photos. This whole shoot leads me to another blog topic but also an article I’d like to write, on “Allowing the Time for Great Photos”. But before I get into all that, allow me to go share with you what we did.

We invited Cathleen with Weddings by Cathleen out to perform the ceremony; I met Cathy at a recent wedding and had a great time working together so we’ve been chatting ever since. We invited Leo from Bridal Beginnings out to shoot with us, as we like working together; I thought he could pick up a few new tips and have fun. I had our new assistant/photographer Matt with us in a training capacity and a videographer Paul J, which when we get the video edited, you’ll get to see some footage of it. And of course there was the lovely couple, Yuliya and Rob, they were so spirited and fun to work with, Thanks!

I’d also like to give a big thanks and shout out to Julie Norwood, Master Colorist & Stylist, for providing the fabulous updo for Yuliya. She did an awesome job and not once did we have any hair problems. For you brides out there looking for a really good hair stylist check Julie with Spa by the Sea at 302-227-8640 or 302-670-6757.

I’ve wanted to organize a shoot like this for some time now. I’m hoping to get a shoot going like this at least once a month for us, photographers to come together and horn our skills.

I found that I did a lot of directing as opposed to actually shooting, I was pleasantly surprised with how much my wife took over the shooting. Shortly after the ceremony Olya became the main photographer doing most of the shooting as well as getting some fantastic shots in the process. All the images in this post were images that she had captured. I was on babysitting patrol with little Drake and assisting with the equipment, when I got a chance I’d take a snap shot and worked with our lovely couple and put them in the right places.

All in all it was a great time, a fun shoot and we plan on doing it again, so if you are bride who is getting married or already married and would like to wear your beautiful dress again and get your guy out to get some photos, give us a call.

Bride’s Dress provided by Weddings by Cathleen – Check out her wonderful brides at http://www.cathleensweddinggowns.bridalsnet.com/