The Albums

In case you aren’t familiar with the wedding albums I make, they are flushmount wedding albums. What that means is that once the prints of the album pages are made on photographic paper, they are mounted such that they are flush against the pages of the album. The result? Gorgeous, panoramic pages that lie flat

This photo shows a parent album (the linen album) on top of the leather album (which is the album that the couple typically gets, though parents can get leather albums too!)

The wedding albums come in a variety of cover colors and sizes. I typically recommend 10×10 or 12×12 albums

A 10×10 navy blue leather album on top of 2 more 12×12 albums inside their cloth covers

From top to bottom: a brown 10×10 parent album, a navy blue 10×10 leather album,  a brown 12×12 leather album

Two 12×12 parent albums (one black, one navy blue) on top of a 12×12 leather wedding album

The Inside

Check out some photos of the designs in action

The Design

I keep my designs simple, modern, and true to a story telling nature. Here are some more examples of designs I’ve made over the past year

The Canvas

Gorgeous, large, and modern photo canvases are also increasingly a popular option for clients who want to decorate their home

Shown here: a 20×30″, a 16×24″, and a 12×18″ canvas

These luxurious canvases are 1.5″ thick and come ready to hang or display on a cabinet

Hope you guys enjoyed this glimpse at all the wonderful products I’ve made. I can’t wait to deliver more albums and memories this year!

Shang is a jetsetting wedding photographer for dynamic couples. She captures imagery that pops with color, personality, and energy.
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Spread the love, Happy Valentine’s Day!

And to my man: I miss you, Happy Valentine’s Day! One more month!

Shang is a jetsetting wedding photographer for dynamic couples. She captures imagery that pops with color, personality, and energy.
hear the news first - like her work on facebook . follow her thoughts on twitter

Typical of Chicago winters, it was cold and windy. And Amman had just gotten off a super long plane ride, so I really applaud them for toughing it out for this shoot!

We took some time to go inside Lightology as well. These are some really cool light displays. Yes, those are Christian Louboutin platform pumps, too cute!

We found the coolest place to show off her bling

I really loved the light up on the roof terrace though, so back we go. Stephanie likes to give back hugs, she says =)

There is one word to describe these two: Silly. They oscillate between making funny faces and laughing at each other. In fact, you will often find Stephanie squeezing our friends’ faces

Amman told me that he really likes Stephanie’s beautiful eyes. I completely agree

Sometimes.. they might break into dance

My favorite

Thank you guys so much for spending your afternoon laughing with me!

Shang is a jetsetting wedding photographer for dynamic couples. She captures imagery that pops with color, personality, and energy.
hear the news first - like her work on facebook . follow her thoughts on twitter

[Emotional return on this vendor] + [time savings compared to your next best alternative * your wage] – [vendor price] = X
If X is positive, buy

Did that sound like gibberish? Here’s the translation: at the end of the day, the couple wants to be married, with as little stress as possible, getting the most value for their investment, at the lowest cost.

(hanging with the super-fun ladies of Gracie Lou Events at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center)

Wedding planning – If you are two working adults both earning $20 an hour or higher, you can likely afford a wedding planner. Or at the very least, a day of coordinator (the name is misleading, they act more like month-of-coordinators). For most reasons given by people as to not having a wedding planner, Every Last Detail has a great blog that gives a good answer. If I ever get married, I will be hiring a wedding planner, just so I can enjoy being engaged and never get to the point of saying, “I wish I could elope”. My boyfriend and I had the silliest fight a couple months ago over how we viewed weddings and their ROI. Bottom line, we are never talking about weddings again until that time comes, we’re focusing our time on developing our relationship. Can you imagine spending your entire year of engagement getting into fights over the small details of your wedding? How much damage does that do to your relationship?

I’m not saying that you aren’t talented, or that you’re bad at logistics, I’m arguing for giving you a good mental break and giving you the most bang for your buck, that a wedding planner can be positive ROI financially, physically, and emotionally. Here’s how a wedding MBA will think about a wedding planner:

I’m using a bride and groom who are each earning a salary of $48K a year at 50-hour work weeks (because most people I talk to don’t work 40-hour weeks anymore!), 48 work weeks a year (assuming you get ~3 weeks paid vacation). That amounts to, pre-tax, $20 an hour. See what that amounts to if each of you earn even more than that.

Here are some simple calculations to show you why a wedding planner is worth it:

Take 7 days prior to your wedding off to plan full-time and run errands = 70 hours

Spend 10 hours researching your venues, then visit 5 wedding venues at 1-hour visits + 1-hour transportation time each = 20 hours

Meet with 3 photographers, 3 DJs, and 3 florists each for initial consultation  = 1 hour in meeting and 1 hour in transportation each = 18 hours

We just spent 108 hours on the wedding!! 108 hours x 2 people x $20 = $4,320. The cost of a wedding planner.

It is not unusual for a couple to take a week off before their wedding. And the above 108 hours still don’t include all the online research, emailing vendors, negotiating, reviewing contracts, calculations, and designing you have for other details. This doesn’t include the time making seating charts, folding together invitations, choosing gifts, coordinating bridesmaid dress shopping trips.

I’ve seen friends take up to 3 weeks in unpaid vacation to plan a wedding, that’s a lot of lost salary! Remember that $4,500 will get you a pretty good wedding planner in Boston, and $1,500 will probably get you started on a Day of Coordination package. Let’s not forget how much farther a wedding planner can usually take your creative vision. And how smoothly your wedding will run on the day of. Almost every wedding I’ve shot with a capable planner, I’ve called perfect, because they take care of so many of the logistics so that the couple can focus on getting married and mingling with family and friends, and I can focus on photography.

Some people argue – “oh but we spent that time planning outside of work hours”. Well, what else do you use that time for? What could your parents and friends – the people you’ll be asking to help you with wedding planning –  be doing with that time? You all could be spending that time studying or working towards a promotion (more $$$!), sleep (longer life!), care for family (more memories!), spend more time with your future spouse to develop your relationship prior to marriage (more love!). How much are wealth, health, family, and love worth to you? To your loved ones?

Be smart. Think like a wedding MBA. In many cases, a wedding planner can be a super smart decision.

(with the fabulous Emilie of Pink Orchid Weddings at a Gibbet Hill wedding last year)

Wedding photography – The couples who choose to hire me, truly value photography, because it’s one of the few things that remain, and I’m not going to take up an entire post explaining why I think my job is justified. Some people won’t care about photos, and this paragraph is not for you. For those who do care: the aim of a good photographer is to help you remember your wedding with the same positive emotions, years down the road. When I hear all these sad stories from my friends who did not invest in their photographer, I feel like something got stolen from their day. A bad photographer who messes things up, gives you spoiled memories for a lifetime. There is no way of getting that back, no amount of money can really fix it.

Go with a professional for this one, up to what you can reasonably afford. Go with the one who has the most beautiful photos, not the most amount of products (even if it means to get the one with the most beautiful photos, you have to forego albums or digital files for a year), and go with one who moves your heart.

(Yay for Brits! With Nicole and Jonathan at their State Room wedding last year)

Videography, music, floral and event design, paper design - You can pretty much apply this equation to any other fixed investment vendor, and sometimes, it might mean, you don’t care enough about this vendor to hire one. Sometimes you have to cut a vendor due to affordability, as there are a couple more thousand dollars that we can put back in your wallet.

A lot of people look at the weddings I shoot and think that I did better on a wedding that had more expensive venue, design, and decor – even though my own photography technique did not change! To the untrained eye, most people perceive a wedding as “beautiful” because of the way it looks. If (and only if) you care about the way your wedding looks, here’s a money saving tip: Go with a less expensive venue (that hopefully still includes tables and chairs), but go with high-end florals, decor, and paper design. A less expensive venue saves you on the scale of thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. The difference between DIYing design vs hiring a professional is in the hundreds to low thousands.

Below: various inspiration boards I pulled from weddings that used mainly professional design vendors:

Florist: Bumble Bee Landing

Florist: Orchids N’ Blooms

Cake: Konditor Meister; Florist: Jody Roffi; Invitations: Exclusively Weddings; Venue lighting: Boston Seaport Hotel

To date, one of my favorite bridal bouquets. Florist: Flou(-e)r

Rented linen and candelabras complimented the florals

A note about using friendors: Asking a friend or family member to do something for your wedding can sometimes work out awesome, and sometimes it can be a liability. This is part of the reason why I typically don’t shoot weddings for friends unless they are completely in sync with my style, and yes, I do charge my full rate. The risks I have to take on include the fact that I won’t enjoy my friend’s wedding, and if something goes wrong, we’ll have messed up a friendship for a long time. If a friendor isn’t a professional with no liability insurance, it might not even be allowed by a wedding venue. However, if you can swing a friendor, it could work out really well!

Above: the bride and groom used a family friend who was a professional florist for their bouquets and bouts, DIYed their centerpieces, and the bride’s mom baked the pie buffet

A note about DIY: DIY when you are GOOD at something. Otherwise, you could DYI (do yourself in… cuts on fingers, burnt mistakes, over-purchasing supplies). The time lost on the DIY may cost more than hiring a professional. However, I have seen SPECTACULAR DIY from very talented, creative brides, which I’m featuring below. I… also have seen DIY that might have been better trusted to a professional. Again, it is up to you to determine what level of appearance you’re happy with.

Below: Talented DIY examples

Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to check out other posts in the past:

1. Why most wedding budget tools are incorrect

2. The budget buster: the wedding guest

(photo of me shooting a wedding, by Amie Fedora Photography)

Let’s create a wedding budget for a $60K wedding for 100 people and 4 bridesmaids and 4 groomsmen. I pulled $60K as an assumption because you can have a wedding of that size with that budget in downtown Boston, at a pretty nice venue, with your pick of some of the better high-end vendors, but don’t get tied to this number! Don’t have a heart attack, don’t bite my head off, most people in Boston do with a lot less, but weddings are expensive especially in an expensive city like Boston, and I just picked a big number to show the power of variable pricing. (Those people who brag about $5K weddings for 100 people? Check to see if any of them were held in downtown Boston – most likely it was in some barn in the middle of nowhere – which is nice, but again, most of my audience lives in cities, and a city budget unfortunately will have to be in the tens of thousands). And some of my numbers are likely wrong, so, think about the principle of how I’m doing things. Remember, unless you’re a wedding planner or unless you work in the wedding industry, when you first put together a wedding budget, you don’t know these prices either! A lot of your wedding planning time will be spent in researching your options

1. Put down your fixed costs FIRST. This is because couples often overspend on the venue and then leave too little room for the other stuff that was supposed to be important but don’t depend on guest count. Fixed costs are harder to negotiate, that’s why you have to know what they are. These will be different based on where you’re located and how much things typically go for.

I’ve plugged in fixed costs based on the following assumptions:

- You’re going to hire me or someone like me as your photographer in the year 2012. (There are plenty of awesome photogs for a little less, I’m just saying, you want me, right? :D)
- All of the major vendors you are hiring are full-time professionals with great reputations, backup and insurance (we’ll talk about using part-time and friendors in a future post)
- You are hiring a full-service wedding planner. Most couples who are working median full-time jobs should be getting a wedding planner and I’ll explain again in a future post as to why it economically works out and gives you more bang for your buck
- Though venue rental is a fixed item, let’s leave that out for now because I want to include that into the venue item

2. Add in variable costs and multiply by the guest count or wedding party count, depending on the item. Again, I’m simply plugging in numbers that I think are representative of a $60K wedding in Boston, MA

- Catering costs are a lot more complicated than the way I’m displaying them. Often, venues can and will slap on 15% service fees and 7% admin fees, so again, I’m just assuming an all-in cost at this point, but when you actually do your venue research, read carefully for all those extra costs, they are annoying and add up (which is why I think venue pricing can get pretty absurd after a certain point). Some venues include rentals, others don’t, so I threw in another $15 on top just as a start (chiavari chairs alone often cost $6 – $7 to rent)
- I assumed that the couple would pay for hair and makeup for the 4 bridesmaids. (This doesn’t always happen, it’s a nice gift)
- My venue rental might be low. I’m assuming you’re using the same room for ceremony and reception
- For florals, I assumed a $115 bridesmaid bouquet and a $10 bout, and multiplied by a wedding party of 8. I assumed a couple of altar arrangements totaling $500. I assumed that you’ll add about 10 more bouts for other familiy members. I assumed that your tables will seat 10 each with $200 centerpieces
- For stationery and paper, I went on WeddingPaperDivas and priced out some midrange options
- I’m not as clear on costs like favors, gifts, or transportation and lodging costs, so I put in wild estimates, don’t take them at face value
- I plugged in a $6,000 overflow item. You could set it to $0 if you’d like, but you need breathing room in your budget

Now we’re at around a ~$60,000 budget. Keep breathing

The Excel works in that if you change the guest count on the top cell, it will feed through the model and you can see how your total budget will change.

3. Now it’s time to prioritize. Ask yourself, your spouse-to-be, and people who are paying for the wedding how much you can afford for the wedding (a function of your existing savings rate, your willingness to save going forward, and amount of time you have for wedding planning). Count up the people you definitely want at the wedding (don’t forget about +1s – those add up!) and ask yourself how big you want the wedding to be. Then each of you – pick your top 2 or 3 considerations. For many people at this stage, after they’ve priced out their dream venues, unless they’re made of money, they’ll realize that there are things they cannot afford.

People usually start by cutting the small stuff that don’t fall on the top priority list. For example, let’s take out the ceremony decor, decrease emergency bump to $3000, move rings down to $1000, change favors to $4 per person. Okay, that’s $5,000 back in your pocket.

$5,000 is no chump change, and these will be little changes you have to do down the road to adjust your budget, but remember how many variables there are in your costs? You will have the most power by changing your variable costs.

4. Make big changes. Let’s say you plan a wedding outside of the city of Boston – there are SO many beautiful outdoor venues, in fact, these are probably some of my favorite places to photograph. You can probably expect your food and service costs to come down by $50. Maybe your venue is made for weddings and table and chair rentals are included. Then let’s invite 80 people (10 fewer couples). Boom, that’s $10K saved. Combine that with cutting back on some non-priority things that I mentioned above, and you just saved yourself $15K and now, you’re a $45K wedding.

There is no right or wrong wedding budget. Your budget is how much you’re willing to spend. The point of this post was to show you the power of how much wedding guests and venue/food/drink costs control your wedding budget. You should plan a wedding keeping in mind your own affordability and preferences. The bottom line is, you will have to adjust your tastes accordingly. If you can’t cut the number of guests due to certain expectations, then you should either save and wait another year to have your wedding, or maybe understand that there are a lot of things you will need to cut back on. Having an Excel sheet like this with you will help you easily visualize what the relative impact items have on your budget.

The next post: How to prioritize and justify fixed budget vendors.

Some of these things are not accurate because it doesn’t account that some wedding items don’t depend on how big or small your wedding is. Speaking personally as a photographer, I don’t change my pricing just because you have a 40-person wedding versus a 150-person wedding, it’s about the same amount of work. A wedding planner isn’t necessarily going to discount for planning a small wedding versus a large one, they still have to meet with you, go with you to venue visits, and be there on the day of. However, other things DO depend on how big your wedding is. Your venue/catering is a huge cost, as it’s driven by the number of people you plan on inviting. This is why the #1 way to cut down wedding costs is to invite fewer people (but I know for a lot of people this probably isn’t the option). This is why I love the blog Intimate Weddings. It’s one of the most practical blogs out there when it comes to not breaking the bank on a wedding.

If you are using a percentage-based budget calculation system, you can easily underbudget or overbudget for some items. The number one money-related regret I hear (again, I know I’m biased) is that people did not spend enough on photography, followed by not hiring a videographer.

I’m kicking off a series of posts in wedding finances, called the Wedding MBA. The intent is to give you a smart, practical viewpoint on wedding planning and wedding financing. My first suggestion is to create a budget that has fixed and variable inputs. I’ve taken some of the most common wedding items and laid it out in fixed or variable terms. See the screenshot of my Excel sheet below:

I’m going to go through this line by line. What do I mean by fixed vs. variable? Fixed means – this is a cost that isn’t calculated as % of your budget, because this item typically comes at a market cost irrespective of your guest count. Variable means that this is a guest count-dependent item.

Reception  - Most items in your reception budget will be variable based on the # of guests you have. More guests = more food, more plates and cups to wash, bigger room, more bartenders and servers, a bigger cake, and more tables which translates to more linen and chair and rental pieces. People typically experience wedding price sticker shock when they go venue shopping, and granted, there are some venues that I think charge more unnecessary fees than others, but cold hard truth, this is where most of your money is going to go.

Attire and beauty  - Attire is one great place where I think people don’t need to overspend if they don’t have to. Set a budget for how much you’d like to spend on attire and stick to it. If you don’t find a dress you love, try buying something used on something like PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com. You can also sell your dress afterwards. Or you can choose have your dress made in China. Hair and makeup is variable – if you decide to have your bridesmaids + moms included in hair and makeup, then the cost will depend on how many people you tack on

Ceremony rental - Ceremony rental prices are typically set by the venue

Flower & decor  - The more people in your bridal party, the more flowers will cost. The more tables you need to have centerpieces for, the more you want to decorate your ceremony aisle, that’s more floral and decor costs. I love flowers / decor and they make a huge difference in photography, I disagree when people say that a venue will look lovely with no dressing up, it’s not entirely true. Flowers add that crucial POP of color to a lot of my photography. Flower and decor costs are variable based on materials, so you can try to use more in-season items or even, non-floral pieces. The service markeup on florals + decor will be more fixed – your florist/designer’s time is worth the same whether they’re making a bouquet out of peonies or a bouquet out of weeds (ok, I kid a little on weeds part). That being said, there are some practical non-floral decor ideas that can make your wedding look like a million dollars. Fruit. Paper garlands. Balloons. Check out my “Modern Wedding” board on Pinterest for more ideas

Photography, music, videography, planner/coordinator - These costs are mainly fixed. For some photographers you can negotiate for less time especially if you’re not on a Saturday (not with me – the Shang Chen Photography experience comes with standard full coverage on the wedding day), for DJs you can have them for fewer hours, you can hire smaller bands. However, at the end of the day, as I’ve explained before, most of the costs for these vendors are fixed – they very much fall under the “you get what you pay for” category

Wedding rings  - I’ve never shopped for rings in my life, but again, your wedding ring won’t depend on guest count. Let’s move on

Transportation and lodging - This item is a bit mixed. If we’re talking about providing lodging or transportation for people other than the bride & groom, it’ll add up

Gifts – Gifts are hugely variable, and my clients have found very creative ways to keep this practical. Many people are opting for candy buffets or photobooths in lieu of traditional favors placed on the table.

Taxes - You can’t avoid taxes, sorry, and if your vendors aren’t charging tax for certain items, you should be suspicious especially in the state of MA (there are exceptions, but know that wedding photography in MA is taxed for SURE). Take your ENTIRE wedding budget and either slap your local tax rate on top, OR divide it by 1 + tax rate. A $60,000 budget in MA assuming a 6.025% tax rate will actually be $63,750 after tax, or you should be looking at $56,470 before tax

Tips - Leave a little room for tips, especially for service professionals such as your hair&makeup, bartenders, delivery people, photog/videography assistants

Other items and overflow - Don’t fully lay out your budget so tightly that you don’t have overflow. Overflow and budget-busting items and emergencies will happen.

As a rule of thumb, take your expectations for how much something should cost, and multiply it by two. I’m not saying this to give you a heart attack, but it is what I’ve heard from many of the people who I chat with when they go through wedding planning. Part of the reason is because you’re expecting a high-touch, highly personalized service where you demand perfection – florists often have to chuck half the flowers they order to create the perfect bridal bouquet. However, what you’ve seen most of your life as a proxy (bouquet prices from supermarkets, food costs at a restaurant, a drink from a bar) come from businesses that count on high turnover and last minute inventory to have lower prices. They’re not the same.

There are going to be two pieces of advice I will be repeating often through Wedding MBA. 1) Hire a wedding planner. 2) Don’t regret your photographer choice. A smart wedding MBA invests their money where there is the greatest return, and these two things provide you with a return whereas a lot of other things do not. You’ll hear this from me often. I’ll explain why in later posts.

Did you enjoy this post? Next up on the blog will be how to use this Excel tool to set your budget and expectations.

Shang is a jetsetting wedding photographer for dynamic couples. She captures imagery that pops with color, personality, and energy.
hear the news first - like her work on facebook . follow her thoughts on twitter

Jennifer and JP met in Costa Rica when they were exchange students in 2006. Their international long distance love story spanned from Switzerland to Arizona. From Jennifer: “In order to keep close, we continually stayed in contact via text message and Skype, and we always made plans for when we would next see each other in person, which was typically every 2-3 months. Additionally, in 2008, I spent a semester studying German at the Universität Konstanz in a German city above the northern border of Switzerland. With this six month stay, during which we spent every weekend together in Switzerland (or traveling), we had the opportunity to become even closer and had a great time exploring Europe together. When I returned to the US to finish my bachelor’s studies in Arizona, I applied for several post-graduate internships in Switzerland. In due course, I found a traineeship position at a pharmaceutical company in Basel”. So, recap: Girl from Arizona and boy from Switzerland meet in Costa Rica. Begin long distance relationship, see each other every 2-3 months. Girl gets chance to study and work in Switzerland.

Eventually, Jennifer decided to continue doctoral studies at Northwestern University right here in Chicago. JP proposed to her during holiday season, 2010, and is now living and working (!) in Chicago with Jennifer. I really admire this couple’s ability to balance their career aspirations with their desire to be with each other, even if it means making really big changes.

When it snows.. well, everything is white. So I love how Jennifer’s jacket pops!

One of Jennifer’s favorite quotes, from Francois de la Rouchefoucauld: ”Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire.”

They are super adorable together

Snuggle tight when it gets cold!

JP looked forward this part the most: an all out snowfight!

They will be married later this year in Switzerland, and I cannot be happier for these two. Though I won’t be available for their wedding, I am incredibly blessed to be able to keep in touch with them and call them as friends.

For those who have asked me whether I will run an in(SCP)ire me contest again, it is very unlikely I can run another one until I find a new job and a new city to settle down in. However, if you live in the bay area.. email your story and a photo of you and your other half to be considered for a complimentary Love Story shoot in the spring at shang[at]shangchenphoto.com. All kinds of couples (dating, engaged, married) are welcome!

Shang is a jetsetting wedding photographer for dynamic couples. She captures imagery that pops with color, personality, and energy. While snow is fun, Shang loves summer and fall more. She can’t wait until it’s warmer!
hear the news first - like her work on facebook . follow her thoughts on twitter

Do you live in the San Francisco Bay Area? Do you have an awesome love story? Are you making a difference in the world? Email your story and a photo of you and your other half to be considered for a complimentary Love Story shoot in the spring at shang[at]shangchenphoto.com. All kinds of couples (dating, engaged, married) are welcome!

Shang is a jetsetting wedding photographer for dynamic couples. She captures imagery that pops with color, personality, and energy.
hear the news first - like her work on facebook . follow her thoughts on twitter

Do you live in the San Francisco Bay Area? Do you have an awesome love story? Are you making a difference in the world? Email your story and a photo of you and your other half to be considered for a complimentary Love Story shoot in the spring at shang[at]shangchenphoto.com. All kinds of couples (dating, engaged, married) are welcome!

Shang is a jetsetting wedding photographer for dynamic couples. She captures imagery that pops with color, personality, and energy.
hear the news first - like her work on facebook . follow her thoughts on twitter

I was so happy to collaborate with them on this wintery outdoor shoot in Chicago. I picked out a beautiful, quiet, tranquil spot where we could really be ourselves. They are very comfortable with each other.

Also, the blanket? An excellent choice

I love all the texture we captured on this shoot

 I really like natural portraits where I just feel like everyone is at ease and having fun

Yeaaa profile picture :D

Isn’t this tall grass awesome? I really work hard to find stuff like this in the winter… but I can’t wait until the green comes in!

So. Cute.

And, since I had some new equipment come in, of course we had to test some night shots as well!

Thank you guys so much for braving the cold and having fun with me!

Do you live in the San Francisco Bay Area? Do you have an awesome love story? Are you making a difference in the world? Email your story and a photo of you and your other half to be considered for a complimentary Love Story shoot in the spring at shang[at]shangchenphoto.com. All kinds of couples (dating, engaged, married) are welcome!

Shang is a jetsetting wedding photographer for dynamic couples. She captures imagery that pops with color, personality, and energy. Shang believes in taking the time to cultivate a trusting bond between her as a photographer and her clients.
hear the news first - like her work on facebook . follow her thoughts on twitter