Based on my experience of personally photographing over 50 weddings, I can give you a few thoughts. So, congratulations, and now let’s get to work.

Tara and Eric Morehead

The first decision is whether to hire a wedding planner. If this is your first wedding, then YIKES! You’ve never done this before and, if your dreams come true, the only other wedding you will be involved in planning will be your son or daughter’s.

There is a thing that is true of pretty much everything I can think of, which is people that do things for a living are almost always going to do it better than those who only do it sometimes. This is going to be true of pretty much every part of your wedding so why not leave the planning to a professional. She or he will be experienced in every detail. Whether you ultimately choose to hire a planner or do it yourself, I recommend you at least talk to a few planners. Get an idea of what services they provide and how much they charge.

And that brings up maybe the most important thing I have to tell you. Interview people. Today when we all have Zoom or similar services, there is no reason to avoid this. Here is a potential list of vendors, and you want to have a good working relationship with all of these professionals.

Planner Venue Manager Photographer Videographer Caterer Baker Florist Officiant Bartender DJ or Musicians

Who’d I leave out? Add them to the list. But here’s the thing, you are going to have to trust all of these people to do their jobs professionally and make your life as easy as possible. Looking at their website, reading their testimonials, looking at the list of services and comparing prices will not tell you the most important thing - will they do their job in a pleasant and professional way? In a way that you feel comfortable with and will enjoy being involved with.

How will you know that without talking with them? References help. Testimonials help. Body of work helps. But none of these will tell you what you will know from just a few minutes of talking with someone.

So meet in person or via video call, but definitely interview your vendors. Even if you have a planner.

So, there a simple step by step guide for hiring your wedding vendors.

1) Decide what you want. Make a list. Pick some or all from my list above and add anything you think I missed. This is your wedding. I have found that modern weddings in America have a set of common elements that couples choose to have, delete or add to. For sure you’re going to have a ceremony but how long? How elaborate? Where? My point is that there is considerable room for customization, to make your wedding your own.

2) Shop vendors. Ask a friend who’s wedding you attended who she used for something you particularly liked, Google search for others. Attend wedding shows. There are various websites that are wedding portals. You have essentially entered the front door of a mall full of wedding shops. Some are on their own streets and some are inside the mall. The wedding industrial complex shows up in a variety of places.

3) Start interviewing the venues first. There seem to be more venues every year but it’s still a limited supply of real estate. Your date is going to be dictated by when you get the venue you want. But don’t let the short supply of venues push you into a place you don’t like or work with a manager you don’t like. The venue is going to be one of the most important decisions you make. Go visit the places and talk with the managers. Ask them how involved they will be on the day of your wedding.

4) Then pick a photographer. Until you have your venue booked, you really can’t book the rest of your vendors because you aren’t yet certain of your date. But now that is done and you should start booking vendors. Why pick your photographer first? Mostly because we’re the most important vendor. Decades from now you will have a hard time remembering how the food tasted. My wife and I were married over 4 decades ago and I cannot even remember what we ate. But we have our photos. And we might not look like that anymore, but even now it’s heart touching to see ourselves, our friends and family on that day so many years ago.

5) Pick a photographer Part II. The most common first question I get from brides is, “How much are your packages?” It’s the wrong first question. Of course you have a budget but price is not the most important part of your decision to hire a photographer. Quality and style are. The first question should be, “Can I look at your portfolio?” You are going to have these photos on your walls, on your phone and in your home for decades to come. Please hire a photographer who’s photos you absolutely love. Find that photographer and then talk price with them.

6) Complete and repeat. Sign contracts. Read the contracts. What happens if your vendor has to back out? In the case of a photographer, how soon can you expect your photos after your wedding?

Finally, a word about pressure. This is especially for the perfectionist but everyone experiences some of this. A wedding is a complex event involving many different people that all have to do their part on time. They might not all do that. Things might be forgotten, people might be late, etc, etc, etc. The bride is the center of it all. If you let it, the pressure can get to you. If you start to feel that way, please, take a deep breath or 3, hug someone near to you, and remember, everyone is there because they love you. They are on your side every minute no matter what happens. They will rejoice in the day and anything that goes wrong will be small in their minds and quickly forgotten. Your happiness is all they really care about. Relax and LIVE your moment!

Bobbie Blanque

I don’t know Bobbie, the woman in the above photo, very well. But I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t normally do her makeup and hair before she works out and sweats. No, Bobbie got ready for her photo shoot! I don’t know how long it might take you to get ready for a shoot. I have seen women get ready in a few minutes or a few hours. Neither of those are exaggerations. But if you want truly extraordinary portraits that you will be proud to show for decades to come, then I advise you to put a lot of effort into preparation. It really makes a difference.

And the difference is not just in how your face and hair look. The difference is in your confidence and that shows not only in your face but in your body language.

When I photograph a wedding I am sometimes photographing the bride on the day that she will be the most beautiful she has ever been in her life - because of all the preparation! Many of the brides in my weddings have their hair and makeup professionally done for their wedding. And I’m going to suggest that you consider doing the same before you step in front of a professional photographer. It’s just a suggestion. Many women are very good with their own hair and makeup, but we pay professionals because they do it for a living.

Caitlyn had her hair done for this shoot.

Caitlyn Nystrom

2) Have Fun!

It’s fairly normal to be self conscious, nervous, anxious, all of the above. You don’t get in front of a camera for a professional photo session very often.

it’s not easy to overcome this, but there is one sure fire way I’ve learned over the years. Have fun. And there’s a big bonus here. The camera picks it up and you will look great! I promise.

Sergio Scharf family photos

Can you imagine how boring this would have been if they had just stood in a row in front of me, all nervous and rigid? Instead they have this photo, this moment, to cherish for a lifetime. A fun time was had by all - me too. So yes, I understand, it’s nerve wracking in front of the camera. I really get it. Please, just trust me on this. If you have some fun, it will pay off big.

Lorena and Hector having fun

3) Leave Plenty of Time

Things go wrong. Not always, but if you or the photographer end up having problems, you don’t want to feel pressured to rush and finish this. If you followed what I’ve written here, you’ve taken time to prepare. You’re spending money on the photographer. Maybe you spent money on new clothes and/or accessories. Maybe you paid to have your hair and makeup done. The last thing you want to do after all of that is feel pressure because you have to leave.

4) Go Old School and Get Prints For Your Wall

Prints are pretty old fashioned. Everyone does everything online. Me too. And I’ve noticed something. Those photos that I have had made into prints and hung on my walls are there, in my eye, every day. Maybe my mind doesn’t always notice them, but because they are there, sometimes they catch my attention and make me remember the time my son and I climbed thousands of steps to get to a fantastic lake in Argentina, or the time I caught the perfect sunset over a lake, and on and on. After you have done everything you could to get fantastic photos, take the last step and pick out the best one, two, three or even four photos and get them made into high quality prints for your walls. You will never regret it.

5) Look At The Photographer’s Work Before You Hire Him or Her

Make sure you love the photographer’s style and that their work looks professional. If you do everything I have said here, you will have invested a good deal of time and money. Don’t hire a photographer based on their rate. Hire them based on their work. Remember, you don’t do this very often, so when you do it, do it right.

Self Portrait

For artistic photography there are basically three elements.

1) The set up. This can take many different forms but as simple as getting in the right position at the right time for the landscape you are photographing, to creating costumes and special effects. For me, it almost always involves setting my lights where and how I want them.

These clients sewed their own costumes. I brought the smoke and set the lighting. We went to a location where we would have the sun on the horizon to simulate the Aaron Burr/Alexander Hamilton duel at dawn. These clients wowed me with their attention to detail, wearing period costumes, period spectacles and bringing period weapons.

2) Taking the photo. This involves getting in the right position, testing the lights and then taking many different photos from different angles. If you have gone to a lot of effort in step 1, there is no way you want to take one or two photos and be done. One of my teachers told me, “Never assume you have the shot. Keep shooting.” Excellent advice.

3) The last step is finishing the photo. Some photos come straight out of the camera nearly perfect, but that’s very unusual. On the computer you can reframe a photo with cropping, you can remove things in the photo that you didn’t see at the time you took the picture, you can change exposure levels to get more or less contrast, and on and on and on.

It is this third step that is the point of this blog. Some months ago I photographed a very pretty and charming young woman, Erica Ly. Her mother Kim Ly assisted. A week or two later I showed them the photos and they loved them. But recently I have been learning a few new things for processing photos on my computer. I went back and took one of the photos that didn’t make the cut back last year, and re-processed it.

Here is the original photo, unretouched. Yes, it’s pretty darn good, but we had a lot of very good photos from that shoot so I passed this one over back then.

Then I learned some new computer techniques and tried them on this photo. Here is the result.

And finally, this is where I got wowed. I showed the newly retouched photo to her mother. Her mother posted it on Facebook with this caption, “A Hal Masover photo portrait is more than an image - it’s an investment to treasure for a lifetime.” Kim Minh Ly

Wow

We’ll talk about you in a moment, but the first detail is who is taking the photo? How do you find an outstanding photographer to take an outstanding portrait of you? It’s not as hard as you might think.

In other blog posts I talk about the importance of hiring an experienced photographer - and it is important. When you look at my work you are looking at the result of years of study, practice, and more study, and experimentation, buying good equipment, and more study and more practice. Rinse and repeat! But all of that is meaningless if the photos don’t speak to your heart.

Please, ask your photographer about experience, but only after you have looked at their photos. This is the starting and ending point.

And one more piece of advice here. We often get requests from clients for a certain kind of look. We are capable of quite a variety of looks and are always happy to give it a go, but I suggest you will have a lot more success looking at the photographer’s website than at Pinterest. Why? Because on Pinterest you are looking at someone else’s style and hoping your photographer can get you an approximation of that. But on the photographer’s website you are only asking them to give you an approximation of something they have already done. I suggest that is much more likely to succeed.

2) Where Will The Photo Be Taken?

Sometimes an incredibly beautiful scene in the background will create synergy, such as the photo down below. And sometimes that background competes with us for attention. And because of that, most of the time, portraits look better with simple backgrounds. The term in the business is a “clean background”, as opposed to a busy background. So the location matters, but not in ways you might think!

3) Look Your Best

Women, I’m going to say something that might seem obvious but hair and makeup matter. I see so many women that don’t get their hair and makeup done before coming to me. Yes, I do know photoshop but there’s a big difference between making a good photo great and a mediocre photo good. Let’s start with a good one, OK?

Men, let’s shave and trim the facial hair.

Clothing - #1 is good fit. #2 is good color and #3 is pattern. If you are unsure about color and pattern go for dark and simple.

Dark and simple, clean background

Dark and simple

4) Have Fun

Are you someone that feels like you always look terrible at photos? Go back and look at some of your old photos. Were you nervous? Self conscious? Most of the time that’s most of the problem. If you think you’d just as soon be in the dentist chair as in front of a camera, then that’s what your photos are going to look like. I cannot emphasize this enough. Have fun. Go for it. You have nothing to lose because you’ve been looking so bad in photos up until now. Can’t be worse. Give it a try, please!

As you might guess, the stories are pretty much all disaster stories. Here's what might surprise you about them. With only one exception, they all start out like the title of this blog. "I hired my friend." I hired my cousin." "I hired my college roommate."

Certainly there are friends that are experienced and very good wedding photographers and there are friends that are inexperienced but talented enough to do a very good job. But the disaster stories all start with this phrase.

Let's continue the story of the bride that hired her college roommate. We were exhibiting at a bridal show. A bride came to our booth with her entourage. During the conversation I happened to ask one of her friends about her wedding photos.

"I don't have any."

"You didn't hire a photographer?"

"I did."

She went on to tell me the story of her college roommate. "She took amazing photos so I wanted her to photograph my wedding for me. But when she got to the end of the day she realized that she didn't have a memory card in her camera. So I don't have any wedding photos."

That was a mistake of a very inexperienced wedding photographer. I'm guessing from the story that it was this photographer's first (and probably last) wedding.

When choosing a wedding photographer brides consider many things, but sometimes leave out the experience of the photographer. A good landscape photographer might make a good wedding photographer after some training, but being good at landscapes, which don't move, is a far cry from photographing a fast moving event like a wedding.

So ask about experience because preserving the precious memories of your wedding day shouldn't be at the risk of rookie mistakes.

Oh, and you were polite and didn't ask, but we've shot nearly 400 weddings so you can check that box off.

Imagine this, “I don’t have any wedding photos.” she told me. “She took pictures all day and at the end of the day she opened her camera and saw that she didn’t have a memory card in the camera.”

This is a real story told to me by the bride some three years after the wedding. A simple mistake by an inexperienced wedding photographer cost this bride her photos.

There are a lot of things that could have happened - all with the same sorry result. There could have been a memory card in the camera that was defective. Or she could have lost that card on the way home. Or the photographer could have had her computer crash shortly after loading the wedding photos. And there are others, experienced by real people all with the same tragic result. No wedding photos.

Here’s how we protect your photos.

1) I shoot every wedding with two cameras. I do this for a few reasons but one of them is - cameras fail or get dropped and break. If I have two, I can keep shooting. Professional cameras are complex. If something is wrong in the middle of a wedding, I don’t have time to figure it out. With two cameras, I can afford to figure it out later and that way, not miss a single moment of your wedding.

2) Each one of the cameras you see in the above photo is programmed in such a way that the shutter will not work if there are no memory cards in the camera. In other words, I could not possibly make the mistake that the inexperienced photographer made.

3) Each one of those cameras in the photo above has two memory cards. One backs up the other in case one of the cards fails in the middle of your wedding - and yes, I have actually had a card fail in the middle of a wedding without losing a single photo.

4) As soon as I get home from the wedding I upload your photos to my hard drive, which now gives me 3 copies of your photos. Once they are on the hard drive they are automatically backed up to the cloud. And the cloud service backs up all of their servers.

Once all of that is done, I do reuse the original memory cards, but by now the chance of losing your photos has dropped very far below 1%.

The precautions I take to preserve your memories make it as close to impossible to lose them as it is possible to do.

The chances are that if you hire a photographer that does not take these measures, everything will be fine. Wedding photos usually aren’t lost. But do you want to be the unlucky one? Or do you want to make sure nothing bad happens with your photos?

When you are considering hiring a professional photographer, make this one of your questions. What precautions do you take to make sure my photos are safe? Then compare their answer to my list above.

What’s next? There’s so many things, right? But let’s shift our attention to what’s most important.

I understand I have a bias here, but stay with me. I’m going to borrow some thoughts from Maurissa Jean McNellis, a wedding photographer from Minnesota, who made these comments on Facebook.

“Photos are the one memory you can pull out every day to see. Can you pull out the cake every day to retaste it? Can you smell the bouquet every day? When you are 80 years old are you going to pull out the wedding dress and put it on to remember the day?

You will look at the photos to evoke those memories.”

If you are looking for places to save money on your wedding, you can hire a cheap photographer. Again, borrowing from McNellis, “Take into account that the cheap photographers don’t have the experience that you need them to have. You can’t redo wedding photos… that’s a one chance deal. If the photog screws up senior photos, those can be done gain. wedding ones can’t be redone. Cheap photographers probably don’t have a backup camera and lenses in case something goes wrong with the main body. Then you get no photos. You may also get eyes that are not sharp. Do you chance blurry dark photos because your “cheap” photog does not know how to compensate for varied shooting conditions? “

She went on to talk about how she was where you are right now and she chose the less expensive photographer. She did get sharp images but not nearly what she had hoped for. So now she pays the price for trying to save money on photography, for many years to come.

For a wedding, a lot of things are essential. For the rest of your life, good photography at that wedding is a top priority.

Will you remember how the cake tastes or how the photos look?

As a photographer here are my favorite skies in order

1) Partly cloudy with blue sky and maybe the sun peaking through.

2) Partly sunny with clouds floating in the sky. Essentially any kind of broken sky is the best.

3) Rain, snow, ice - there’s interesting things going on here! Yes, it’s challenging but oh the possible photos!

4) Full overcast - it may be gloomy but the light from a cloudy sky is absolutely the most flattering for a bride.

5) Full sunshine - Yes, I can make art in full sunshine but it is by far the most challenging. We want to keep the bride out of the sun. We aren’t vampires but we’d rather have any of the above skies than this one.

As wedding photographers we have numerous goals on your day. It starts with documenting the extraordinary story of your day with every bit of technical and artistic skill we posses. The title of this blog, “Obersvations of a Flying Wedding Photographer” comes from the experience of rushing all over the place to get those photos. It makes me feel like I am flying.

To get those photos for you that you will cherish forever, we prepare our equipment starting the day before. We arrive before the time you have contracted us for so that we are ready no later than the time we have set to start shooting. And we do whatever it takes to get those photos for you.

Please try not to laugh at me laying on the ground. But those kids are really cute! And getting down to their level gave me a chance to get you a photo you will remember always and they will have the chance to cherish too when they are older.

Good wedding photographers employ a combination of artistry, technical skill, experience, athleticism, endurance, joy, exuberance, knowledge and fun in every wedding.

Brittany and Ethan Allen at Barn on the Ridge in Burlington, Iowa

Tara and Eric Wheeler at St Mary’s Catholic Church, West Point, Iowa

Felicia and Tyler Aplara in Mount Pleasant, Iowa

As a team, the couple and I, and my assistants, create stunning art. Our purpose is to create family heirlooms. Thinking of these couples’ grandchildren looking at these images on their grandparents wall or in a wedding album decades from now gives me chills.

If it excites you, then let’s do it together!

This was a fun wedding to shoot. The landmark church, Holy Family Parish in Fort Madison, Iowa was really an honor and a thrill to photograph in. The families and the bride and groom were all a delight. This is not our first Ft Madison wedding and it won't be our last.

Today in Fort Madison at the spectacular Holy Family Church I get to photograph the wedding of Natalie Cole and Josh Diton. This is like a fairy tale come true. Or it's a 21st Century love story but whatever it is, it's very romantic.

Natalie is from Alberta, Canada. Josh is from Ft. Madison Iowa. They are video gamers who met online. I don't need anything more to this story for it to be romantic, but today we will write, and photograph more romance - the next step in their love story - the marriage of Natalie and Josh. Congratulations you two!

I love these things. The ink is lab tested to last at least 60 years before fading. They are printed like a car is painted, in layers. First the aluminum surface is painted with a white primer. Then the print is heat transferred on top of that and finally a clear protective coat is applied to the top.

I suppose you can scratch one, but you'll have to work at it!

When their baby is off to college, her parents will have her high school senior photos on their wall to look at everyday. If you're looking for dramatic and different high school senior photos, we at Hal Masover Photography work at making every client's photos uniquely theirs. We shoot seniors in Fairfield, Iowa, Ottumwa, Mt. Pleasant and Burlington, Iowa.

"Over the last several months, Erica and I have had the opportunity to learn a lot more about photography and posing than we ever knew. And we still have a great deal to learn...

During that time, we have had the opportunity to meet and work with several fantastic photographers on different projects. Hal Masover has taken us on a photographic journey to the most fascinating locations, environments, and even costumes in the form of a one-of-a-kind silk 1940's parachute dress (yes, made from an actual military parachute custom-dyed and fashioned into a massive skirt and halter top). He entertains with great stories, coaches with authority and respect, architects the perfect background and lighting, and makes you as the model absolutely amazing in the finished results.

If you are looking for the most breathtaking photos of someone special in your life (or of yourself for that matter), talk to Hal.

I have shared his website below, pointing specifically to his high school seniors page. You will see that he has pages for wedding, portrait, and other photographic offerings."

I'm posting this through blurry eyes!

Here's a few photos of her daughter Erica that Kim shared in the same post.

picks up their cell phones! Really?

This photo was taken after I had gotten around a sea of cell phones to find a line of sight. And that meant that yes, I was about to get this shot, but I was now in front of the groom.

I don't think you want this grand moment interfered with by a forest of cell phones blocking the view of both your betrothed and your professional photographers. And though the phones in this photo aren't terribly obtrusive, others you cannot see are being held over people's heads, blocking the view of still other guests behind them. I agree with the groom, "Those damn cell phones."

As the professional photographer at a wedding I have absolutely no objection to guests taking photos except when they get in my way. At this wedding they were in my way, the groom's way, and ultimately in the bride's way.

Here's what I recommend putting in your wedding program, and if you do not have a program, then in your invitations. "The bride and groom request that no photos be taken during the ceremony. Please keep your cell phones in your pocket or purse and immerse yourself with us in this wonderful moment." or whatever wording you like.

But let's not have your groom complaining after the wedding about "Those damn cell phones."

When printed on a white substrate, they look like you expect a photo to look, except better. The photo just pops off the surface.

This is a picture of a picture that you are seeing on a screen so it's hard to get an idea of just how beautiful these prints are compared to other kinds of prints.

And aluminum prints are super durable. Our aluminum prints are made with archival ink. Essentially there are two kinds of ink, and this is important. There is cheap ink, also known as dye ink, and there is expensive ink, also known as archival ink. Cheap prints are printed with cheap ink. They are not intended to last a lifetime and I personally have seen them fade in as little as two years.

We only know how long archival ink can last through laboratory testing. The estimates based on those tests run anywhere from 60 to 300 years.

Your photos, printed with archival ink on aluminum are about the most durable way to preserver your photos.

Photos printed on paper are quite vulnerable. Not only can they tear, but moisture can destroy them. Just one very wet spring might be enough to ruin your photos. Not so with aluminum. With aluminum you can pour coffee on the print and just wipe it off. The surface is scratch resistant.

If you have us print your most precious photos on aluminum for you, there is a very high probability that your grandchildren will see them the same way they look to you see them today.

Want to see an aluminum print? Call or drop me a line and we'll make it happen.

319-217-2418 or Hal@HalMasoverPhotography.com

OK, first, congratulations to Felicia and Tyler Aplara! Two nicer people would be very hard to find. Felicia is a wedding photographer herself. But obviously she wasn't going to shoot this one! She and I have shot a wedding together before, and I was very happy to shoot her wedding for her.

With her eye as a wedding photographer Felicia had thought out what she wanted for her photos and I was very happy to follow her lead. But the weather wasn't! It started raining on Friday afternoon and the temperature held just above freezing. But as we drove the 20 or so miles to the wedding venue the highway was a little icy and a couple of cars had spun off the road.

The wedding was held in an historic chapel in a historic village on the grounds of the Old Threshers Reunion in Mt. Pleasant Iowa. On the backside of one row of historic buildings is a charming brick walkway. Felicia wanted first look photos here. So, with the wind blowing at about 20 mph, and the temperature right at about 32 and freezing rain and snow falling, oh, and Felicia in a sleeveless wedding gown, that's what we did.

Felicia and Tyler win the award for craziest wedding weather - at least among weddings I've shot. But, you have to read Part II - Lessons Learned In A Snowstorm Wedding

We missed the sunset, but this little alcove faces east anyway. We shot these in February and poor Keverly was shivering in her dress. Thank goodness for fast shutter speeds! Or is that shudder speeds?!

I think things are looking up for the beautiful bride.

In the two years that flew by life has brought many flowers to our dear Felicia. At her day job at Cambridge Investment Research in Fairfield, Iowa she has been promoted. She moved on from the boyfriend she had when I shot with her in 2016 and is now marrying Tyler Aplara and her normally sunny disposition is just simply radiant. Felicia is in love and anyone that can't see it is just completely blind.

I asked her how she met Tyler and it's an interesting story. Felicia and Tyler met at a bonfire Tyler was throwing. Felicia came with a mutual friend. Tyler felt there was something between them in the first hour. He said to his best friend, Alex, that he felt there was something there. Specifically he said to Alex that he "wanted that one!"

I've only met Tyler once and he seemed nice enough but here's how Felicia answered when I asked her what she thought of Tyler when she first met him.

"I thought he was an a__hole but a funny, very confident, persistent a__hole." And she paused and added, "I like that"

"He can be romantic." "...cocky & loud but he's fun." Oh, and she added this - "He likes to drink." OK, so could be a wild reception, right?

If you're there, you'll probably see me. I'll be the guy running around with two big cameras. If you're able to catch me flying by, introduce yourself and please make sure I get your photo!

See you Saturday!

Hal Masover