You’ve hired a professional photographer for your wedding day so that you will have every moment captured beautifully. Your friends are also bringing along their little point and shoots, iPhones, even iPads, and you can guarantee that your friend’s photos will make it to the web faster than your photographer’s. Even though your photographer should know how to correctly use flash photography and make corrections to the photos in post production to be sure you look your most flattering, we’ve still got your friend’s chintzy and hard to control flashes to deal with. Your best bet (besides banning all cameras from your wedding) is to apply makeup that will help diminish the horrid shiny spots and ghost face effects that can potentially hit Facebook faster than you can even get to your getaway car.

Here are some tips for wedding day makeup that is flash friendly:

• STAY AWAY FROM THE TRANSLUCENT FACE POWDER! This is one of the biggest no-no’s I can give you if you want to avoid looking like a zombified bride. Translucent powders tend to look white when the flash goes off. Instead, reach for a powder with yellow tint to bring back some of that color. And make sure your foundation is very close to your natural skin tone for better more natural blending.

• Don’t keep reapplying your powder! A little after dancing might be okay, but the more you add, the more ghostly you will appear on Facebook, and you do not want that! Instead, keep blotting papers in your arsenal and BLOT, do not WIPE.

• Natural light is always the best light. Whoever is doing your makeup, be it you, a friend, or a hired makeup artist, should set up by a window in your bridal room. This will give you the best results for the most important makeup application of your life.

• Glitter and shimmer sure do look pretty, but know that flash is just going to make it look like big washed out splotches, making you even look greasy and sweaty. Stick to mattes for your eyeshadows and blushes.

• There is a myth about SPF and camera flash. SPF is important to apply if you’re having a wedding on a sunny day, especially if you’re having an outdoor wedding. As much as you think you’ll be able to stick to the shade or duck inside, truth is you will be standing in the same place for at least an hour while every single person you invited and your guests invited will reintroduce themselves to you and demand a photograph. Nobody wants to be a sunburned bride, not to mention it’s probably worse to be a lobster in your wedding pictures than a ghost.

• This is a tip recommended more toward making you pro photographer happy. Black and white photos are very popular these days, and some brides are opting to have everything done entirely in black and white. If you are this bride, be sure to wear a deeper shade of lipstick than you normally would so that there is more contrast between your lips and the rest of your face.

• Don’t forget to give your eyebrows some definition with a color as close to their natural color as possible. Eyebrows tend to get all swallowed up with a flash and that’s no good for pictures. Not much, just a little.

• Imperfections and blemishes on your arms, chest, or back? Be sure to cover them as well. One bride I know had a very bad case of acne on her back and chose to wear a backless gown anyway. Though she was able to clear most of it up with medicine, she still opted to have a professional airbrush her back to make it look as natural as possible while hiding the blemishes. I could hardly tell there was a problem!

• Now that you have all of these new tips, practice applying your wedding day makeup several weeks in advance, and photograph them (flash on of course!) to see how it looks. So much examination could help you catch problems early and give you another chance to make last minute corrections to coloring and application and blending techniques. Don’t feel like you’re practicing too much! We’re looking at the one day in your life where you will be photographed the most you will ever be photographed. Make sure everything is perfect!

• Pass these tips along to your wedding party as they are going to be in a lot of formal photographs and informal ones, and they’ll probably also be taking duckface photos with their cell phones in the mirror. Hey, your maid of honor may be a Duckface Donna at heart, but you care enough about her to give her such an important role in your wedding so why not give her some photography friendly beauty tips, too.

Even with all these tips and being paranoid of bad photos ending up on the internet without the slightest bit of care as to how unflattering they may be, the key to makeup is always that less is more. Let your natural beauty shine through and use the makeup to enhance your features and correct imperfections. Accentuating your high cheek bones or bright blue eyes is going to make you the most real looking and therefore most beautiful bride you can possibly be.

Having the Right Chemistry with the Vendor You’ll Be Around More Than Your Spouse On Your Special Day

The best friend you could ever have is your wedding photographer. No, really, I’m completely serious. Your wedding photographer records your day from start to finish, is crammed into small spaces with you, sees more behind the scenes bulge-tucking and repinning and hears every complaint you have about the flower vendor who has you in a rage on your wedding day.

Your photographer is not the person you want to be angry with.

After all, any scowling in the general direction of the photographer has the potential of being captured and becoming a part of your family history. And though there is no perfect photographer out there, regardless of who claims to be, every bride and every photographer is different, and therefore pairing together with a photographer you totally clash with can be a disaster just as it can be in dating.

Let’s put aside the technicalities and technologies that draw you in to your photographer. Forget that she has 12 years experience and gives you copyright, forget that he’s shooting with the biggest baddest camera in your area and has rubbed elbows with the guys who did the Kardashian wedding. None of that will matter if you can’t stand the person behind the lens.

Ask yourself whether you would be friends with this person if they were not your wedding photographer. As professional as they are in your business dealings, are they the type of person you can get along with on a totally unrelated to wedding photography level? Are you uncomfortable at all around your photographer, and when they crack a joke is it an uncomfortable smile or a genuinely happy and fun smile?

Take the time to read between the lines. A photographer who is nothing but business and has to ask you to smile every time is most likely going to produce flat staged photographs. Wedding photography is about your story. Is your story full of fake forced smiles? On the other hand, if their jokes are mildly offensive (not in a fun way) and you cringe when you think of what your mother might say, the level of professionalism is something to consider.

Perhaps the best photographer is a mixture of the starched business-all-the-way style and the wildly offensive show of silliness. Serious when it comes to signing paperwork and silly when it comes to getting those fresh genuine smiles out of you. So how do you find this person?

• Many photographers ask you out on a “coffee date” to plan your photography needs. This is a great opportunity to see what type of person they are without camera in hand. If your photographer books everything over the phone or internet, perhaps ask them if they would agree to a meet-and-greet.
• Engagement sessions are a fun way of taking your photographer out on a test drive. Perhaps if you’re not sure that this photographer will work well with you on your wedding day, schedule an e-shoot. The bonus is that you get photos that can be used on your Save The Dates and if you don’t end up liking the photographer, you’re not locked in to a contract for their services on your big day.
• Zodiac signs, if you’re into astrology, are something to look at. I personally cross check my brides for compatible zodiac signs to mine, and if I feel things aren’t going well or may not go well in the future, I will pass the job on to another photographer who might work out for them better. Remember that the Sagittarius photographer will be super creative and excited, but may wander away from finishing your final product (which is why I am thankful to be born on the Sagittarius/Capricorn cusp, so I stay creative yet focused enough to finish my job.)
• Consider whether the photographer is trying to be the boss of you, and whether that is a good thing. Remember that at the end of the day you’re the boss, but that the photographer has a job to do, and they (hopefully) know how to do it well. If you feel uncomfortable, this is a bad sign, but if your photographer is very reassuring they may just have a plan that will jump out later in the pictures and you’ll scream with joy.

A few tips you may want to consider for not bridezilla-ing your way into an unhappy photographer:

• Don’t micromanage the photographer’s work. There is a workflow, and there is a way things are done that have proven to be beneficial and produce the best results in their experience as a photographer. Let them handle it, and only step in if you feel that something is being truly mismanaged.
• Ask questions, but try to comprehend the answers and refer to your photographer’s website or the paperwork you signed. Every minute spent answering the phone to answer a question you went over at contract signing is another minute the photographer isn’t working on someone’s photos. This may mean very little to you, except that when the time comes to edit yours they still may be on that job.
• Realize that your photographer probably has other clients. You are most likely not the only paying job the photographer has at the moment, so stalking their Facebook and asking why another client’s pictures went up before yours isn’t going to get anything done any faster.

Most importantly, hire the professional that is right for YOU. Not your friend Jenny. Not who your mother would like. And not your cousin with a pretty good camera. Hire the one who you feel would be best for the task of recording your story into the family history books.

[box type="info"]Got something to say on this or any other topic listed in our writing guidelines? Maybe you saw something on SexIs you’d like to express your opinion on! Drop Rayne a line at rayne(at) edenfantasys [dot]com with your article attached and she’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Never written for us before? Please read the guidelines linked above before submitting and include a username and public email we can create your profile with. Can’t wait to hear your opinion![/box]

There is that moment in the bridal room, after the bridesmaids have put on their rouge and fixed that one last curl that won’t stay, when the bride is down to her unmentionables, and I as a photographer have to look for her cue as to what I should do in that moment. Does she want me to drop the camera until the dress is safely over her head and covering her lady-parts, or does she want me to keep snapping?

I look at the bride. She either has made eye contact with me and is giving me a scared deer caught in headlights look, an angry “don’t you dare” look, or an “oh yeah, she’s a photographer” look. If it’s the first two, I put up my hands and tell her I wouldn’t dream of snapping until she’s covered, and not to worry her pretty little mind. If she gives me the other look, though, I know the next words out of her mouth will be, “Can you get some sexy pictures of me really quick?”

Not that she’ll totally get down and start giving me crazed o-faces and running her hands up her legs or anything like if this were a private session, but she may just stop and take a very deep breath and give that magical exhalation of comfort, knowing, and nearly virginistic pause. Perhaps she is wearing a bustier, complete with thigh high stockings. Her hair is done in curls, pinned with a few gentile calla lillies, makeup perfectly applied.

There, in front of an ornate antique mirror, she takes a look at her beautiful form and soft womanly features and takes another deep breath. In less than 20 minutes she’ll make her grand entrance to see her groom at the altar, but she wants this moment to be frozen in time so that she may look back on herself just before she was the bride.

Give me this moment to look through my lens and catch that exhaled breath. I’m nothing but the recorder of a delicate in-between moment. Those in the room will have the memory of this bride taking pause before donning her dress. But it is the photo that will allow the bride to see the elegance that is her nearly naked form just before taking her vows.

Does the photo later become a secret gift for her groom? Does it remain tucked away and rarely looked upon? This is the part I don’t know, because I sure won’t be bringing it up again. I’ve no reason to, and some moments are too private to share. Photography brings private moments to the surface whenever they need to be rediscovered or fall naturally together in recalled memories.

To be a part of the moment in the first place is always an honor. And to know that when she gives me that look, she shows me trust with her most precious of precious intimate things: the image of herself, so delicate and vulnerable in her state of undress. Knowing that I may be the only person besides her and her husband who will ever see this photograph in this lifetime makes it all the more special.

At the same time, there is history in photographs. Eventually the bride and groom will pass on, and I the photographer will be gone too. Children born to the couple will grow and have children of their own. Memory boxes, where secrets like wedding day boudoir photos are kept will be found, and there in that box will be someone’s great grandmother, seventy five years ago. There is a stunning young bride who couldn’t possibly be old enough to have generations reflected in her gentile and innocent eyes, she is there. Thirty minutes from being kissed, twenty minutes from her walk down the aisle, ten minutes before one last prayer and kiss from mom, five minutes from fixing that damn wayward curl, one minute before putting on that long silken gown that fit so, so right in the boutique. Perhaps in that box are the dried and decayed remnants of the calla lillies she wore in her hair that day, perhaps a pearl from her dress, perhaps even her veil.

And whoever is looking through the box may pick up and examine the veil and smell her faint perfume. Careful not to damage it, the person gently lifts the veil and sees a lifetime through its tiny holes. The young woman in the photograph is even more shockingly beautiful in a way that surely she herself could never have ever seen. A photograph like that can sometimes be the kind that is like a stew that’s been cooking on the stove all day long. Seasoned.

The perspective is always different from the other side of the veil, but from this end of the lens too.

A Three’s Company Update, One Year Later

A year ago I wrote an article entitled Three’s Company: Living With The Ex and The New Boyfriend and How It Works For Us. Certainly, it could be assumed that such a living situation couldn’t stay healthy for long.

Rewind to when I wrote the article in September of 2010. My ex husband and boyfriend were both working for the same company, and we were making enough to get by and then some. I was trying to get my photography business off the ground, and was still getting so few jobs that I didn’t dare to claim “photographer” as my position in the article, instead choosing the tired old “Stay At Home Mom” title. The boyfriend and I were coming up on a one year anniversary, and there were issues that still needed to be hammered out between my ex and I emotionally, though the children seemed to be adjusting well to all of the changes.

Fast forward to now, as 2011 comes to a close, it’s a Wednesday night and my ex is not at home. Because it’s Wednesday. You see, not long after that article was published my boyfriend lost his job. My ex was pretty angry about it, not with my boyfriend but with the company, and decided that it was finally time to move on in life and find some kind of career to get into. We struggled for a few months there while my ex went to school. Meanwhile, my business picked up, and I was actually finally bringing in enough money to call it an income! As for my boyfriend, employment was nearly impossible to find. But it worked out, because after a few too many bullying incidents at my son’s school, we decided to homeschool him, and since I got swamped with work, my boyfriend was able to spearhead the lesson plans.

So where is my ex tonight? Out driving a big rig. Yes, he thought it all out and realized that trucking is an industry that is still booming in this recession. He won’t be home until the weekend, where the five of us will spend quality time having picnics, or going on hikes, or just hanging out and doing yummy meals at home.

One other thing, my boyfriend is no longer my boyfriend. He’s my fiance.

Things have changed for the better in time. Not that we really enjoy my ex being gone so much, not only because we love him and miss him when he’s gone, but because the children miss him too. But, he’s moved onto a career instead of a job, and he’s doing something he likes. This would have been so much harder to accomplish without my fiance. My fiance never found work, actually he stopped looking for it. He’s a professional fort-holder-downer and working with our homeschooled son—quite well I might add, as my son’s grades are phenomenal. Actually, both kids are doing remarkable in school. My fiance cooks, cleans, educates, and takes care of us all. Meanwhile, I can get a little work done, and my ex doesn’t feel bad about being gone all the time and leaving me alone with the kids unprotected and without a break.

People still don’t quite believe that any of us could possibly be happy in living all together like this. The goal has always been that the children not have to go through the stress of separate homes to see mom and dad, or have to deal with any of the hurt feelings that children get when their parents are split up. I find myself explaining it to some people who had no idea that the children weren’t my fiance’s (though he treats them as if they were his own, and they love the absolute crap out of him) and adjusting my phrasing to the looks on their faces. People who seem sort of open to it get the full on “we’re so happy, and you should come over for coffee” follow up, but the ones who seem weirded out get the “well my ex is gone all week anyway, so it’s basically just me and my fiance most of the time” response. I feel guilty about giving the second one, but I do know that some people just can NOT open their minds to something new. One word is totally banned in this household, though, and that word…well two words actually, is “baby daddy.” My ex is not a BD, he is the father of my children, and we respect him far too much to give him some kind of bad Maury Povich Show title.

A recent development is that my ex has started dating. He’d put this activity on hold, partly because he and I were still working out our strife, and partly because he had been focusing on school and his new career. But now that the dust has settled, and we’ve figured out exactly who we are to each other and what our duties fall under, dating has become a new thing for him to explore. Might I add that he and I had been together since high school, so his past experience with dating is…that he pretty much doesn’t have one. There’s nothing serious to report as of yet, certainly nothing to be notifying the children about, but should things pan out with someone, I might just be writing another installment to this story about having yet another person added to this odd living situation that feels totally natural and normal to us.

Things are going well in our little neck of the woods. And we’re looking forward to moving to a new house come 2012. So who knows where the adventures will lead us then!

By all logic and by every story you’ve heard from your friends, experienced yourself, or have seen written into the plot of a TV drama, my ex-husband and I should not only despise each other, but certainly there should be some serious tension between him and my new boyfriend—particularly since my boyfriend was a result of our “open marriage.” What broke my husband and I up wasn’t my boyfriend though, in fact he enriched the drowning relationship in a lot of ways. We eventually figured out that we really function better as friends than as husband and wife.

And so as it stands, the ex and I are very good friends and we co-parent 100% of the time, and my boyfriend and I have been together for about a year now. Here’s the fun part: We all live together. The two men, me, and the two kids.
How does this work? How can we possibly stomach each other? How do toes not get stepped on?
Well, they do on occasion. It’s not perfect, but we do it, and we’re happy that we do it because there are plenty of benefits: the children live with both of their parents without having to go to separate houses, cost of living is shared, and we’re all in good company when we’re together.
It seems that whenever I mention the living situation to someone, their eyes get all big and they ask “and do the two of them get along?” And some people actually think that by moving the boyfriend in I’m being mean to my ex, making him suffer as he watches us frolic and close bedroom doors.
People tend to project though, and when they suggest things like this it just tells me that if they were in this situation they would be vindictive and cruel. I have no reason to be that way. When my ex and I decided to end things it was mutual and there was no hatred. Why spark up the fire now? Why when we still have our children to raise?
How we work is through a lot of respect and love and communication. There’s no reason to pick fights or talk about the things that crumbled the marriage. At the end of the day my ex is a very mellow person, and I tend to be as well. My boyfriend is fiery but in a fun way that keeps all of our energy levels up. Adding him to the mix actually helps out a lot in the sense that my ex and I had become bored over the years. He makes conversations, meals, and downtime very interesting with his boisterous interjections and random furniture jumps. (Nobody can get from the living room to the kitchen to deal with a pot that boiled over faster than he can.)
Having a third adult in the house gives everyone a break at some point. One more person to help with the children, one more person to help with cooking. If one person is sick, there are two more who can help the sick person and take care of all of the responsibilities of the house. With me being a stay at home mom, we’re still a two income household so money isn’t as tight and my ex was able to quit his night job and spend more time with his kids. Childcare is also a breeze now. If my boyfriend and I want to go out on a date, or my ex and I are doing birthday shopping for our boys, or the two of them want a guys night out, one of us is always home.
Our biggest concern is our children in all of this. My boyfriend would not be my boyfriend if he wasn’t good with my children. My kids happen to love him to death and he treats them as if they’re his own, even though he is very adamant that he is NOT their father and he’s just happy to be third in command as Step Dad. And when it comes to who my ex dates, there’s a screening process as well. Though he hasn’t been out much, there are certain things that he thinks about when it comes to dating material. Is she mature enough to accept that we live together even though we aren’t romantically involved? Could she be trusted around our children? Does she understand that the safety and well being of his children come first?
Believe me, I had to carefully consider the same things for my boyfriend when he first came onto the scene. It’s well worth it to do so because putting my kids through emotional stress is not something I’m a fan of. Not that every relationship is perfect, and not that the kids are involved in every intimate aspect of our relationships, but they do tend to pick up on a lot. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
It’s so much easier and healthier for kids to see their parents getting along with each other and their new partners instead of at each other’s throats like wild animals. When you have children, no matter what happened in the marriage, there is always a tie. We do what we need to do to make sure that we thrive so that our children can thrive as well.
And whenever there is trouble, we all sit down and take the time to talk it out. We let each other know that we appreciate one another, and that yes this is muddy and there is no instruction guide for this but we can do it. We’re all very capable and most importantly, we want to do it.
Our dynamics are completely unique. I’m not sure that I could write a guide on how to make a situation like this work for someone else because every relationship is different. My ex and my boyfriend happen to be best friends. I happen to be a better friend to my ex than a wife. We live together because it’s convenient and it’s good for the kids. How it works is really all in how you approach the situation.