Tips and Advice: prepare photos from your hair and make-up trial for your wedding

Hair and make-up trial or practice sessions with your hair and make-up artist prior to the wedding day help tremendously to solidify your bridal look. We recommend taking photos from the trial session and bringing them with you on the day of your wedding, to best jog your hair and make-up stylist's memory so that s/he can replicate the look, or can adjust the style as you wish by referencing the photos. Some hair and make-up artists will take and bring their own photos of you from the trial for your wedding, but if not, be prepared and take some on your own to best ensure the look you're most happy with on your wedding day.

Note how well Nica Jacinto of Flaunt replicated Shirley's hair and make-up style from the trial session style on the wedding day.

Photos by Kai Photo

Tips and Advice: devise a shot list

As the saying goes, "hindsight 20-20." In retrospect, many couples after their wedding wish their photographer and/or videographer had captured, say, more images of the guests, or a shot just with grandma, or some of the key moments and special touches planned for the day. Of course, nothing can replace those memories, but documenting them through film truly helps to relive those memories and to share them with others.

For those in the process of planning their wedding, we suggest creating a photo shot list, to include things that the photographer and videographer would not intuitively know to capture. For example, it would be unnecessary to include "bride and groom together" on the shot list because naturally, your photographer and videographer will know to shoot this, but the out of the ordinary requests are those that should definitely be included. Perhaps you would like a close-up of your grandmother's handkerchief that she has shared with you for your wedding, or it could be a photo sharing a toast with the groomsmen and the fathers prior to the ceremony. What touching images these would make!

To illustrate, here are some shot requests by other brides and grooms...

The bride and groom's "first sight" shot when they see each other for the first time on their wedding day, but the groom instead being more overwhelmed to see his "true love" (his car)

Photos by Kai Photo

A photo with the littlest and dearest member of the family - their dog

Photo by Kris Labang Photography

Photos at sunset

Photo by Kris Labang Photography

Photo of the bride and groom shooting themselves with their cell phones (to tie into their "When Apple Meets Droid" theme) after being pronounced "husband and wife"

Photo by Kai Photo

Note: an overly extensive shot list will mean that your photographer and videographer may end up spending more time checking things off the list than on capturing some great candids, so review your list with your wedding planner, photographer, and videographer to ensure that the list makes sense given the timing of the day.

Happy Planning!

The Knot's 2011 Cocktails and Connections Honolulu event - Part 2

Photos by Chrissy Lambert Photography

The Knot's Cocktails and Connections 2011 Honolulu event for wedding industry professionals featured such a plethora of creative contributions by so many of O'ahu's talented vendors, that one blog entry just would not adequately sum up the many facets of the event. Here's part 2 of my recap of the August 23, 2011 event held at the YWCA.

To create much of the ambiance, particularly after the sun had set, Eggshell Light Company "worked their magic" to highlight the different areas of the space and to create a festive and dramatic mood. The playful patterns projected onto the courtyard, against the walls, and into the swimming pool effectively yet subtly broke up the space without shining into guests' eyes. Even the layers of colors created by selecting different hues for the foreground and background created lots of visual interest, not often seen at weddings with hard-and-fast color palettes.

Entertainment for the evening consisted of a slam poetry performance by Kealoha of Slam Hawai'i, a flare bartending performance by Ryan Pierce of Lift Your Spiritz, on-site painting of the night's scene by Kimi Werner, a same day edit featuring guests in attendance, and a very special presentation from The Knot.

As a parting gift, guests chose a bottle of their favorite Waialua Soda flavor (root beer, pineapple vanilla cream, mango, Kona Red, or lilikoi). Each bottle sported a favor tag from Emi Ink to match the rest of the stationery items, and the gilded frame on the table from Scene Events instructed guests to help themselves. These bottles could then be tucked into a swag bag filled with goodies including delightful chocolate dipped sweets from Big Island Candies; a gift certificate for wine tasting for two and corkscrew from Oeno Winemaking; a water bottle from The Knot; and a chocolate bar with gift card entitling the bearer to 20% off spa services from The Spa at Trump.

Before bidding each other a fond aloha and goodnight, participating vendors gathered round for a group photo, waving "shaka" (or "hang loose") signs in the air. As with any event, it amazes me to see months of hard work pass by in just a few short hours, but the good times had by all make it always well worth the effort. A sincere and heartfelt mahalo goes out to all who contributed to making the event possible, and to those who took time out of their busy schedules to join us.