FAQs

Scroll further down this page for information on what to wear for an engagement session and a list of my favorite Birmingham area vendors!

When is the final balance due for the wedding?
Three weeks before your wedding date, and don’t forget the sales tax! Checks should be made out to Spindle Photography, and can be sent to or dropped by my office at 1665 28th Ave. South, Homewood, AL 35209. If you aren’t sure what your balance is, email or call me and I’m happy to look it up!

How long will will we have to wait after the wedding to receive the images?

I currently post a gallery with around 50 of my favorite images a week and a half to two weeks after the wedding as a preview, to help with the wait! After that it may take up to 60 days to receive the full wedding set, as guaranteed in your contract. During slower times of year the full set of images may be ready sooner!

Can we post images from our disc/usb thumbdrive to facebook?
Absolutely! Your print release allows you to use the images for personal use and prints which includes Facebook. I’d love for you to mention Spindle Photography in your post or album (if you are a fan on facebook and you type @Spindle Photography it should give you the option to tag my page), but please don’t feel the need to tag me in every photo you post.

I’m interested in having my wedding published on a blog or in a magazine, how can we make that happen?

This question is a tough one! First of all, I have to say that despite the wedding saturation that you’ve been subjected to throughout your planning process that may make you question whether the wedding you are planning is “blog-worthy”, being featured or not featured in a blog or magazine does not make your wedding any more or less awesome. While I am always excited to see a couple’s hard work at accomplishing a beautiful personalized wedding featured somewhere, I am also aware of the disappointment that comes along with rejection from what may be your favorite blog. I’ve been there. I’ve had my work rejected in blogs I really love and I felt like my own wedding wasn’t good enough at times. I must emphasize that weddings are NOT about throwing a party that Gatsby himself would be envious of, they are a celebration of the marriage that begins that day. It is easy to get bogged down in creating a perfect wedding, especially if you are drowning in pins on Pinterest. All that being said, here are some tips to increase the likelihood that a blog or magazine will be interested in your wedding:

-Bring along a full stationery suite on the wedding day to be photographed, or mail one to me in advance (mail in a flat mailer so that I won’t have to tear open your lovely envelope to get to the invitation!). I recommend having the calligrapher address the outer envelope to a fictional character from a book or movie you love or to a famous address such as The President of the United States or Prince William and Princess Kate.

-Blogs and magazines enjoy unique details, but be aware that ‘nothing new under the sun’ applies to weddings as well. Aim for personalized rather than unique for the sake of being unique. Some unique ideas I’ve seen that felt very personalized to the couple and thus unique include: an Italian cookbook as a guestbook for a couple honeymooning in Italy, Coffee table books of a meaningful place as a guestbook, Records from artists that the couple loves signed by guests to be framed and hung on the wall after the wedding, a “bouquet” made of family heirloom and collected brooches added to a silk pillow, a short reception/send-off dress for the bride made from her mom’s wedding gown.

-Details are important, but simple is still best. I love love love details, but too many might feel overwhelming or cluttered. A recent wedding I loved had beautiful calligraphy as the main detail of the event, with gorgeous food markers along the buffet, a calligraphed program, and hand-lettered mirrors to lead guests to the dinner and dancing locations. Since the details all had a similar feel and colors (navy, silver, white), it all felt uniform but still fun and fancy. The cocktail hour featured a champagne “Bubbly Bar” with different purees available for guests to add to their drink which was set up in a clean, modern way. The florals were neutral but still all stunning, and the 7 layer buttercream bride’s cake was stunning but still felt elegant in the simplicity of the design. Working with an event stylist to clarify your wedding’s mood and theme can be a huge help in creating an event that feels like a magazine spread rather than a Pinterest explosion, and I am always happy to help in any way I can!

-The best case scenario for me as a photographer would be a venue with natural light (rather than colored up-lighting, for example, which can make accurate color for people and details difficult), and preferably a ceremony and reception at the same venue or very close by so that I might be able to photograph some of the details before the wedding. For this reason encouraging your vendors to have most of the details set up one hour before the ceremony is really helpful. If you aren’t seeing each other before the ceremony and I can’t get to the reception site before the ceremony it will be more difficult to capture those details before guests arrive. I do generally have my assistant go to the reception as soon as possible after the ceremony, however if it is already dark by the time they arrive the images don’t have the same depth that natural light photos have. Modern venues with unique lighting and very little natural lighting can be appealing to blogs too, so don’t get discouraged if you selected a venue where the lighting is not natural. Modern weddings are likely to appeal to a different set of blogs and magazines, so if your dream wedding blog is Southern Weddings for example, natural light is best.

-If you have a dream wedding blog or magazine get to know them in advance! Often blogs and magazines have information about submitting weddings that will help you get a feel for what they typically publish. You might find that while you love a certain blog or magazine, they require payment for features, don’t feature weddings in your wedding city, or otherwise aren’t a great fit. Have a few back-ups in mind as well. I typically submit weddings to blogs that I think are a good fit for the wedding, so I’m happy to make the choice for you, but if you have not expressed interest in being published I might not know to pursue publications, so I do appreciate getting a head’s up!

-Most publications require that the photographer submit a wedding to avoid conflicts with other publications. Based on the copyright for the images you are required to ask for permission before submitting images to any publication. Newspaper announcements are an exception, so please don’t worry about submitting your photos to a newspaper! If you need me to send a photo directly to the newspaper I can do that as well!