Don’t leave home with out me! For all you planning beautiful destination weddings for ‘09, consider planning on bringing in your own video & photo talent. In the latest issue of Houston Brides (pg. 60), Jo Ann Woodward, one of Houston’s top destination wedding planners was interviewed about planning a destination wedding, “To get the most from the native flavor, Woodward suggests contracting with vendors on-site with the exception of the photographer and videographer. You can’t be too careful with whom you entrust images of a lifetime, she warns, so arrange to bring your own.”

Wow, I couldn’t have said it better myself. This has always been my belief whenever I hear somebody say how they love my work and all “but…, it’s going to be in (fill in exotic city/country)”, as if I won’t go, hey, my bags are packed! But seriously, it had always seemed commonsense to me that in a lot of all-inclusive destination packages, they just put some random photo/video people together and give you something that your uncle probably could have done for free.

True Story: I did a montage a couple of years ago with some professional photographs from my clients’ destination wedding. Although they did receive a video from the resort they were not very pleased at all, they were “embarrassed by it” and “didn’t want to show it to anybody.” Yikes.

Bottom line, if your pictures and videos are important to you, don’t settle for what’s just there.