Congratulations to Kate and Fred who tied the knot on Saturday in beautiful downtown Grand Rapids! The First Park Congregational Church ceremony was followed by a fabulous reception at the JW Marriot. Kudos to whoever picked out desert. Check back soon for a featured gallery on our website as soon as the proofs are finished.

If anyone talks to Bill Gates this week, please let him know he can have his Vista back. For any of you who have talked or emailed with me in the past week-and-half, you probably already know that my computer crashed for no terribly good reason. Back in February, in need of either buying new systems or seriously upgrading our existing ones, we opted to buy brand new Windows machines, and it seems that most come installed with Windows Vista… my advice if you’re thinking of making the leap from XP to Vista anytime soon is don’t! We decided to purchase new computers 2 months before wedding season really took off in order to hopefully have everything up and running very smoothly in time for the rush, but I apparently get to start over now.

That’s all for my rant on Microsoft for now, but this does lead me to a very important related subject that I am rarely asked about by couples getting ready to tie the knot and that is data back-ups. The number one, most important thing we do at the studio, and I will admit it is probably the most tedious, boring part of our jobs, is backing up data. And when we’re done backing up the data, we back it up again. And when we’re done backing up the back-ups, we check all the back-ups to make sure they backed up correctly. It’s time consuming, and it’s expensive, but it is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF MY JOB. I suppose with portrait photography, it may not be as critical, but I cannot ask someone to redo their wedding should something go wrong and we lose their image files. Well, I guess I could, but I’m guessing they might ask me to foot the bill for throwing another expensive party. Consequently, I consider our back-up procedure to be a worthwhile investment.

So when you’re considering which wedding photographer to hire to document your once-in-a-lifetime event, remember to ask if and how your photographer backs up your images. Keep in mind when considering cost, too, that back-ups when done thoroughly, can be a time-intensive operation that is likely figured into your package cost.

No detail was spared for Lissa and Clay Bill’s fabulous wedding in downtown South Bend, Indiana. The reception was set at the historic Palais Royale, and while we’ve photographed events there on a number of occasions, the attention to detail for this particular wedding was spectacular. The flowers, the cake, the lighting design… everything was perfect. Kudos to Lissa’s mother Gwen and event planner Anne Landis for helping Lissa to make this July 2008 evening one she’ll never forget.

To read the full Wedding Day Magazine story, click here.

Baby Madilyn turned 1 in December, but it took us until late February to get her into the studio for her one year tutu session. Everytime we scheduled her sitting, previously, there seemed to be a blizzard. But we finally got her in and it was well worth it. She’s such a cutie. Happy birthday Madilyn!