This year it is a professional goal of mine to do more posts that don’t have video in them. Sounds like an oxymoron for a Wedding Cinematographer right??? Well the majority of our blog posts are pretty much a display of our work. That’s great because that is our fundamental role, to produce Wedding Films, and I love what we do but blog followers these days want to connect with who they are following. They want to learn or just feel like they can identify with the blogger they are following. It also occurred to me that I have been doing this for 5 years now and have a decent knowledge base and may be able to share with my brides some tips, advice or just some general random thoughts that might be interesting. So I am going to start out my quest with a somewhat controversial topic…. To feed or not to feed your wedding vendors….

The answer to this question is YES, YES and YES!!! Now I get it… Couples are already paying sooooo much for their wedding. They are also paying their wedding vendors to provide a service so why should they pay additionally to feed us? Well here is the why of it all…. Wedding vendors work LONG hours on the day of the wedding often times not even getting a chance to grab a sip of water let alone a bathroom break. After 6-8 hours of running around and being at the very top of our game to capture all of the memories of your wedding day the batteries begin to run low and need to be re-charged. We need a short break to get our 2nd wind and re-charge to cover the rest of the night with the same precision and creativity that we covered the first half of your day. If you do not feed your vendors these things could happen:

1. Your vendors may have to leave the property to run and grab something to eat all the while running the risk of missing an important element that you want covered.

2. Think about when you are hungry and thirsty are you at your best? If you don’t give your wedding vendors a chance to re-fuel you are not allowing them to be at their very best.

Now I am not saying that if you don’t feed your vendors your photos or video will suck. That is certainly not the case… But when you are starving to death are you doing your best work and are the creative juices flowing?

So here are a few tips on feeding your vendors…

1. When you feed your vendors you don’t have to feed them what your guests are eating. We don’t expect Surf and Turf. We’re not greedy, we’re hungry so we won’t be picky.

2. Many venues provide a box lunch with a sandwich or wrap and chips or a burger. Just a little something to get us re-fueled and re-energized to do an awesome job capturing the rest of the evening.

Just as a final thought Vendors who are fed are much more likely to go the extra mile, stay extra time or do anything that you need because they are not about to pass out from dehydration. They are so appreciative of your generosity that they want to pay you back by being the most awesome vendor ever!!