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Quote: Originally Posted by kerid Thanks so much Morgan! This is great to have all the info in one place. Elena finally confirmed our date!! Jan. 16 2009. I'll post 2009 prices as soon as I get them from her. Woo Hoo! Getting the date confirmed is definitly the hardest part. I promise to give you all the details I can so the rest of the planning will be much simpler.

Quote: Originally Posted by jreule How did you get Elena to confirm you this far in advance?? My wedding is in Feb and she said not til Oct!!! Are you doing legal or symbolic?? What do I need to say to get her to confirm?? =) symbolic. that is why I was able to get it on the books sooner. I still get worried we are not really confirmed. There was never any official email. Just an email saying, "OK, we wrote you down." I don't know what I expect. I don't know when I pay either. maybe I should email her again. I try not to email too much. I was pretty persistant to get on the books in July when I did. I just wanted that set ASAP.

OMG! The ferret pictures never end. I can not get over the supply of crazy ferret pictures on the internet. A ferret doing upward facing ferret, laying on a cot, dressed like a tootsie roll. Wow, ferret owners rock.

i put my template on here. but, the way I did mine was too complicated. the template is hard to use. Do you have MS publisher? It's much easier. Or maybe there is a better brochure template than mine on the forum. If you want to keep it simple you can always just make a newsletter, not a brochure.

Quote: Originally Posted by becks Yay!!! I'm so glad you like it!! It was great fun to do for you. I can see the rose picture, are you still unable? If so, it's here: http://i.pbase.com/u41/gkp/upload/26...ndtherose3.jpg I"m supposed to be at a networking event (boo!), but I found an unattended computer and thought I'd check to see if you had seen it. YAY! And, many, many congratulations! still can't see the flowers, but I see it's called "ferret & the rose." That alone is funny. I wish I would have seen it sooner, but I was standing on a countertop changing the fuse in a lab machine. I told mike, my mom, and my friend amy but all three just though I was weird. Non-BDWers just don't understand

Quote: Originally Posted by Hartyt509 How about well how did you think you were made lmao not sure what you've been told but that's not where babies come from

I like cartmans, "your my best friend, b b b best friend." OK that was dumb especially if you don't watch southpark. I bought a quote stack of friend sayings. one I really liked had an oak tree & it said "it takes a long time to grow an old friend."

Quote: Originally Posted by Hartyt509 Ahh don't cut out the banana one it's funny lmao I'll keep a copy for myself, but for the wedding album that my future hypothetical kids will look at I should remove it. I don't want them saying, "mommy what is that ferret doing to that banana and what does that have to do with daddy?"

I agree. You don't want to be bossed around, but the B&G do often turn to the photographer for guidance. I've been a BM many times & a good photographer really makes the evening run smoothly. maybe it's just having someone around who totally knows how a wedding runs to help you out. I have only been in one wedding with a day of WC & she did that.

ahhh, I'm tearing up again. I just reread it uninterupted by e. coli stink. what is the flowers picture?

OK, back from stinkville. Becks I LOVE the story. I'm laughing & crying. it brought back all the memories of the day we got engaged. You are so awesome! So to catch everyone up, rebecca is getting my starfish after my wedding. i told her I'd mail it to her long before all this ferret business started up. I addressed the package already so it would be ready to go as soon as I got back. I stuck in a story called "the legend of the traveling starfish." That story will not do anymore. You deserve so much more! Just wait, your day is coming. Thanks again. You have no idea how much I loved it. I'm printing it out for my wedding album. I might remove the banana picture though

I LOVE it! I was 1/2 way though & my eyes were full of tears & then someone came & got me to throw out my stinky e. coli I just killed. I'll post more in just a sec....

Hotel en México - Catalonia Riviera Maya - Habitaciones Hoteles Catalonia I'll add this to the first post. Sorry! I wrote this thread kind of late when I was tired. I'm putting the contact info for the WC on there too.

sounds like it wasn't a boat in bad shape though. it was new & not above capacity.

Quote: Originally Posted by SunBride we just have a joint account and we don't each have our own "spending money" budget. Sometimes my FH thinks we should, because I get on his case about eating out a lot and buying expensive computer games. In reality, I spent more than him but it's on house stuff and things like that that aren't only for me. I rarely spend money on fun stuff just for myself (except for clothes, and even then, I spend about as much on my clothes as I spend buying his - he hates to shop so I buy all his). I personally don't like the idea of having each our own "do whatever you want" budget. I'd rather work on a case by case basis. When we do small purchases we don't check with eachother, but when we do large ones (like over 100$) then we might run it by the other person first to see if they think it's a good idea. Although my husband says he wants his own spending budget so that I'm not "checking up" on his spending, I remind him that it would have taken him a while to save up for his 1500$ computer or the 600$ he spent on the Wii and accesorries. I personally think this works better because we don't save up for special purchases, as long as we both agree it's worthwhile we just get it right away. Then again, we have more money than we need for our current lifestyle (just dumping it all on the mortgage). If you are on a really tight budget then I can see how each person having an individual personally spending fund would be good. Sounds like we have a similar situation. Mike likes to buy computer games & computer stuff. I buy clothes & house things. I do feel like even though the house stuff is for both of us, he would be just as happy without it so it's really for me. I personally wouldn't spend the same amount on computer games, but he would also not spend what I do on clothes. He'd be happy wearing the same clothes he has from high school. I don't think we'll ever have the same values for what we'd want to spend fun money on so I don't want to have to try to make us see eye to eye on that. We probably spend about the same amount of fun money but in such a different way.

Quote: Originally Posted by Hartyt509 Thanks lol it wasn't meant as a "you shouldn't do it" but I just think you need to take a really pragmatic view if not a self preservation one. I never for one minute thought the man I married would end up screwing me for 1000s its just food for thought to keep a little reserve so that you don't end up not being able to eat like I did - and that really isn't an exageration lol Oh yeah, I didn't think you were advising against it. I agree it's really important for both people to know what's going on & protect themselves. Also, my plan is no a one-size-fits all. Everyone should work out what suites them. But, I think it really helps to have a plan of some sort.

i think people are really different about what they want. my friend has no interest at all in her digital negatives. She knows she'd never bother to do anything. So having a variety of packages is probably best so people can pick what fits them.

Quote: Originally Posted by COFPhoto LOL, you posted it here twice then! Thank you again for sharing it. It's amazing how many places that article has popped up now. You should Google "why are professional photographers so expensive" and see how many pages of links come up - pretty cool! Which brings us to another interesting topic. This thread is proving once again that digital images are the most important product these days. Most people unfortunately are perfectly happy with prints from Costco and photo books that they've made themselves. Back in the day, a Photographer would set their pricing based on the fact that the B&G would spend an average of $x on photo albums, prints, enlargements etc. Nowadays most people don't want that. We are constantly tinkering with our pricing structure, and I'm in the process of eliminating the big all day wedding package completely. For both my Wife and I to spend 8 hours shooting and directing a wedding, and the time involved to sort through about 1,500 photos, edit them, etc. people just aren't willing to spend enough to make it worth my time. Not to mention you usually meet with the B&G 5-6 times throughout the process. Give me a low key beach wedding with some candid shots and 30-45 minutes of posed photos and I'm good. I think we're going to focus in that direction moving forward. I'd rather get into the small destination type weddings, especially since I already do so many beach portraits (hence the post). Thank you all for your input! This is very true. Most brides don't have the eye for quality that a photographer has so a cheapo print looks great to them. I'm sure its hard for you to see your work printed off at costco, but it looks great to a non-pro. Also, for many of us making the coffee table books is a really great experience. it's a lot of work, but I love the finished product of something I created myself. I feel like it makes it more personal & my parents love showing off things I made for them. I am already gathering up ideas for my coffee table book. I want to include quotes from the songs we used at the wedding & from our ceremony script. I also plan on making different versions for family members. With everyone having computers & software it makes sense that more people want to go the DIY route. But, at the same time it allows us to get so much more enjoyment out of our pictures that people may now be willing to spend more on photography.

Quote: Originally Posted by lucy106 Morgan, what time are you going tomorrow? Have an awesome day! Cant wait to see pics! picking up our witnesses at 10am. I made them a "witness fajita program" badge. We head to the register of deeds first & then the clerk does weddings from 11-11:30.

This is easy for me. I want my images on a DVD & that is it. I'm a DIYer so I want to make my own coffee table book, slideshows, & do all sorts of fun stuff with my pictures. I love photo projects. I plan on printing my favorite images & the ones I will frame on Mpix to get the pro quality. I'll be filling my album from snapfish because I have 1000 penny prints. Then i'm designing coffee table books for us, our parents & grandparents. I'll be ordering at least 6 books. So digital negatives were a must. I also make calendars each year for all of our family so I want to include the wedding pictures there.

oh good answer. also you can go to More colors-->custom and see the RGB numbers for your color. so if you find the right shade to print is R=40 G=67 B=15 then you can right that down & always know what color is your color.

I'm trying to think of how you can fix this. I don't have wedding colors so i didn't worry too much about the true color that would print. others have put more time into colors & maybe they can help. I don't use word for design, but I'm going to check it out & see if you can pick more colors...

your monitor is most likely not calibrated. most peoples are not unless they do work where they'd be concerned with it. a monitor shows RGB color (red green blue). You print in CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow & black "key") You know how your printer has cartriges with those colors of ink. You can convert from RGB to CMYK, but you still have the issue with your monitor not being calibrated. Still, most of us DIYers don't buy the software for that. hope i'm not confusing you more.

Quote: Originally Posted by Hartyt509 I think its each to their own really. I learnt the hard way not to merge ALL the money from the first marriage. Then all my wages and his went into one pot and we took out bills etc but then he ran up 40k worth of debt that I ended up having to pay off myself when he went bankrupt and I escaped!! So this time I'm a lot tigher. We have had a joint account for years but it was mostly savings, now we live together we have a set amount each month that goes in and that covers all the bills - everything after that is our own and what we do with it is up to us. I have no interest what he spends his cash on as long as it doesn't have an impact on me and vice versa. I'm a saver but FI isn't in fact I shouted at him the other day for always being in the red in his account, took his credit cards off him and cut them up lol He's getting better and is certainly better than he was 5 years ago but he knows our cash will never be merged. I've even started a fund for if we do have kids that will cover my wages for a few months so that I can be off work, he knows I'll be starving before I ask him for anything - he never seems to have that prob tho lol So like i said its personal preference, I've been shafted mega in the past so that won't ever happen again. The house is even mine - and he's signed an agreement that if anything does happen he can't go after the house - sometimes its handy being a lawyer lmao thanks for sharing your story. I think it's so important for both people to know what is going on with their money. Although I'll be the manager, mike will have access to all account passwords & know where I keep the notebook. I've heard many stories like that (probably because I watch a lot of suze orman). I'm glad you have a plan this time around to protect yourself!

Quote: Originally Posted by Pisces That's almost exactly how we manage our money. It works extremely well, and I really like not having to feel like I have to ask for "my" splurge items. In addition to that plan though, we also have a budget for everything that is a joint expense and also a variable expense. For example, we budget $400 per month on food and do not go over. We budget a certain amount of money per year on joint gifts for others throughout the year by planning out all the birthday, xmas and special occasion gifts which are coming up. We also budget gas (although this is becoming more and more difficult- ARG). And the only other difference is that when we eat out, we pay for ourselves out of our own fun money, because that is a treat we need to budget for as well. If one of us wants to treat the other, then that person uses their fun money to do so. Let's just say, Colin usually has more treat money left to treat me than I do him! haha We don't budget. I did a budget once & I felt so confined that I went out & splurged on a bunch of junk at a shell shop. But, budgets definitly work for some people which is why plans need to suite the couple. What works for me is to total up my savings each month. I just take my bank statement & look at deposits vs withdraws & then account for money transfered to another account. I don't factor in interest or the market. I have a goal for each month. I also set an annual goal, but that takes everything in to account (interest & stock market). To figure that out I add up how much I have in each account. I set a 6 year goal, too. I am so excited to see that I reached my 6 year goal this month in only 4 years! It's great timing because I was worried about merging money & not being able to keep track of my savings goals. Now I can start over & we can set our goals together. It does make sense to take eating out from the fun money. I thought about that, but mike & I don't eat out much. If we find we need to tighten up someday we'll probably set a budget. Or maybe just tally everything up for the month & see where we are overspending. But, with our lifestyle now we are comfortably cheap so it works. If it's not working we'll reevaluate & that might be something we change. Quote: Originally Posted by kleslie5 This sounds like a good plan, Morgan. We are trying to figure out how to do this now....FI is an accountant and watches his money really closely, while I never even look at my bank or credit card statement (ignorance is bliss), so we'll have to work out something like this...how did you decide how much or what percentage to put into your fun fund? We haven't figured that out yet. We are going to try $200 each at first & see how that works. Neither of us are the type that will spend it just because it's there so if we see that is too much, we'll cut it down. The goal is to find a plan so we don't feel constricted that doesn't take a lot of work. I hope once we get things going it will be simple. I try to keep bills & stuff on autopilot so I don't have to worry about that & have more time to think about getting a better return. I love looking at my credit card & bank statement. I think that is a positive thing about how we manage money. It's very motivational & feels good instead of feeling restricting. I like seeing my credit card statement because I enjoy accumulating points. So I hope our system can keep dealing with money positive.