Vera Wang’s climb to the top was not an easy one. She explained in her acceptance speech, “The ongoing, unmitigating truth is I would have done anything to be in fashion. I would have swept floors, which I did at Vogue, swept up hair from a model’s haircut, pack up clothes, stay on a Friday night after the store closed to get it ready for the next day, which I did at Ralph (Lauren)”.

Vera did not begin her life with the intention of being a fashion designer. She actually spent her childhood dreaming of becoming a figure skater. Vera Wang trained for several years with pairs partner, James Stuart, who competed at the 1968 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. It wasn’t until Vera Wang failed to make the US Olympics team that she began to work in fashion. She still continues to ice skate and she even creates competition dresses for elite female ice skaters.

Vera Wang is most well known for her work on celebrities walking the red carpet and her bridal collection. Fashion photographers always find Vera Wang’s garments worn by iconic celebrities, like Sharon Stone, who paired Vera Wang’s lavender skirt with a simple gap shirt at the 1998 Academy Awards. Vera started her venture into wedding dresses when she opened her bridal brand with a shop at the Carlyle Hotel on Madison Avenue in 1990. Her wedding brand is now one of the most desired labels by brides-to-be.

Today, Vera Wang has an affordable line at Kohl’s and at David’s Bridal. She also has her own fragrance business and home-goods collection. Vera Wang still pushes the envelope in the realm of haute couture and caused a great buzz in the fashion world for her recent line of black wedding gowns. Vera Wang finished her acceptance speech by saying “To all the women and men I have dressed, thank you for your trust” and advises others that “I was always taught that anyone should be able to pursue their dream and that the biggest crime is not to try. That made me motivated, and I didn’t want to wonder what could have happened”. Vera Wang is a great inspiration to all those chasing their dreams, not just fashion designers. She truly deserves this great honor by the CFDA and we can’t wait to see what else she creates.

Cheap wedding dress retailers have existed for years, but now, stores that are known for their great design are also entering the world of affordable wedding dresses. Anthropologie, a whimsical and boutique themed ready to wear store is known for its girly designs and great quality. Starting this year, the clothing retailer has launched, BHLDN, or “beholden”, a wedding line that produces wedding dresses with an Anthropologie aesthetic. Their dresses range in price from $300-$4,000, a very affordable price range for the majority of brides in the midst of wedding planning. BHLDN has two stores in the US, in Houston and Chicago, with another store coming soon to Beverly Hills.

Retailing giant, Target, has also dived into the world of wedding dresses with its newest bridal line, Tevolio. The line gets its name inspiration from the Italian phrase, “ti voglio” which means, “I love you”. Target has a long history of pairing great design for cheaper prices with its designer collaborations. Target’s designer collaborations have included partnerships with luxury fashion brands, such as, Rodarte, Missoni, Prabal Gurung and coming soon, Phillip Lim 3.1 this September. Tevolio is even cheaper than BHLDN in price range with its wedding dressing costing between $69.99-$129.99.  Many of the dresses for the target line feature silhouettes that are more traditional so this line may be a bust for the more modern bride.

Ready to wear fashion retailers are continuing to rise to even greater levels of prominence, especially in the genre of wedding dresses.  It will be interesting to see if other notable fashion stores like H&M and Zara’s will become part of this trend too. H&M, like Target, has also had a history of offering fashion designer collaborations for less. Budgeting weddings can be difficult but with this trend of well-designed wedding dresses for less, brides can look forward to some savings on their upcoming wedding ceremony.

1. Include Film Photography with the Regular Digital Wedding Photography- Although you may choose to shoot your wedding ceremony and reception with digital cameras, have some Polaroid cameras around for some great vintage wedding photos. Your wedding photographer can use the Polaroid camera occasionally for some vintage looking photos and your guests can take their own personal snaps during the wedding reception.  This is a really fun way to give your wedding photography a vintage look and wedding guests love being amateur wedding photographer too!
2. Consider Shooting Using Black and White Wedding Photography- If film photography is too much for your budget, you can still use digital photography for your wedding but have the wedding photographer change the images to black and white when they retouch it. Simply changing the colors to black and white will not give the photo a real film look, so make sure you chose a wedding photography company that is very skilled at balancing out the tones and lighting of the wedding photos on Photoshop. Our New York Wedding photographers often shoot weddings in color and then show the bride and groom what the wedding photos would look like if they were changed to a black and white film photography look. So don’t feel like you have to be definite on shooting the wedding in black and white during the wedding planning stages, it’s an aesthetic that can be investigated after your wedding.
3. Mix Tradition with Contemporary- If you do plan on using a vintage aesthetic with your wedding photography, don’t worry about stressing a retro theme in other areas of your wedding or it will appear more like a costume instead of vintage inspiration. What makes using vintage wedding photography look fresh is the mix of the old with the new. In New York, many of the wedding venues are very old and coupled with a vintage wedding photo look, the photos already have the perfect amount of tradition without needing the bride and groomed to be dressed in vintage wedding outfits. With vintage wedding photography that old saying, “less is more”, definitely applies.

We hope you found this how to for vintage wedding photography helpful and we wish the best to all the couples out there busy planning their wedding.  Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!

During the 1920’s there were very strict social rules about the type of perfume a woman would wear. Respectable ladies wore floral scents that were made of one single type of garden flower, while women who were perceived as promiscuous wore a fragrance that used musk and exotic jasmine. Chanel lived a very bohemian and luxurious lifestyle in the roaring twenties and wanted to create a fragrance that would speak to the modern flapper and the liberated spirit of young women of the era and so she created her first perfume, Chanel No. 5.

Not only was the scent itself revolutionary but so was the bottling. The original design of the bottle, which is still used today, was a huge shift from what was then typical for perfumes. Most perfumes in the 1920s were very fussy and ornate and came in highly decorate crystal fragrance bottles.  Chanel No.5 was to be the antidote to that fashion aesthetic and was designed to be as minimal as possible and resemble bottles that pharmacists used to distribute medicine.

Although Coco Chanel may have died in the 1970s, her luxury brand, Chanel, continues its reign over the fashion world. Fashion photographers still vie for a chance to photograph the clothing and accessories of the brand all over the world, from New York City to Tokyo. Chanel No. 5 is one perfume that continues its allure for consumers and was forever immortalized in 1950s when actress, Marilyn Monroe, revealed that the only thing she wore to bed was “5 drops of Chanel no. 5”.

Although the fabulous “No. 5 Culture Chanel” exhibit is all the way in Paris, you can still find more information on the show online and if you are lucky enough to be in Europe, you can still buy tickets for the show. The show runs through June 5^th.

1.     Location, Location, Location- Many couples struggle to think of a location for their engagement photos. Your wedding photographer may have some ideas and favorite places but if you want to make your images more personalized, it is best that the couple chooses the location. Are you and your fiancé urban dwellers or do you dream of the countryside? Many New York couples looking to include nature in their engagement pictures go to Central Park or Prospect Park. It may be easier to brainstorm locations if you can decide on a city or rural look to your images. Some couples like to take their engagement photos at a location that is significant to their relationship. I’ve seen one example of college sweethearts who had their engagement photos taken at the university they both went to and the photos were adorable!

2.    Be Your Own Stylist-Celebrities get the luxury of having a fashion stylist choose their outfits everyday so that they look gorgeous the minute they walk out the door in the morning. The rest of us, are not that lucky. Couples do know what they look best in. If you are truly stumped on what to wear, try to simplify! Ask yourself, where are you shooting your engagement photos?  If you are shooting in the city, dress up! Ladies, that means heels and gentlemen, that means a dress shirt. If you are shooting in a more natural setting, let that inform your decisions as well.  Rain boots can make a fun and quirky accessory for an outdoor setting. Also pay attention to the seasons! If you are shooting your engagement photos in winter, don’t take photos outdoors in a strapless dress or short-sleeved shirts! Finally, make sure you and your fiancé’s outfits don’t clash! If you are nervous about the styling of the shoot, feel free to bring more than one outfit.

 3.    Check the Weather & Have a Plan B- A simple tip, but one worth bringing up. Make sure you check the weather forecast for your engagement photo shoot date. Make sure you have ideas for both indoor and outdoor settings for your photos and make sure you tell your wedding photographer how comfortable you are with shooting in the rain. Kissing under an umbrella in the rain always makes for a cute engagement photo!

 4.    Pets are Members of the Family too! – Including pets in your engagement photos are fun way to bring the couples’ personality into their photos. Having a pet around also lowers everyone’s guard, giving you a relaxed look which results in more natural poses. You may have to shoot at your home or apartment for some pets but be sure to check with your desired engagement photo venue, just in case. Many places in NYC are very dog friendly!

 5.    Practice Makes Perfect!- Engagement photography is a great way to see how you and your wedding photographer will connect on your wedding day. Does the photographer communicate clearly and make you and your beloved feel comfortable in front of the camera? Did they capture flattering images of you and your groom/bride? Were they willing to keep shooting photos until you were happy with the pictures? Engagement photoshoots are a great way to evaluate how well you and the wedding photographer will work together on your special day.

We hope these five tips for a great engagement shoot were helpful to all you engaged couples out there. Engagement photos are great way to share the love you and your fiancé have for each other and they also get your wedding guests buzzing with exciting for your wedding ceremony! Most wedding photography studios provide engagement photo services and can show you their previous photo shoots to spark your creativity! Get excited about your engagement photo shoot, don’t dread it! Being engaged is such a lovely time for a couple, so be sure to enjoy it before the madness of your wedding day. Congratulations to all the lovely engaged couples out there!

As an award winning Brooklyn wedding photography service, Le Image has a page you can visit on the wedding wire website.  Our page provides a profile of the services our wedding photographers provide, including: wedding videos, a wedding photo gallery, and our course, customer reviews. We are so honored to have received a 5/5 from our customers for New York wedding photography. Aside from our great reviews from couples who have worked with Le Image, we have also received a great award from the Wedding Wire website for Brides’ Choice. This wedding photography award is truly meaningful to us as the winner is selected by brides and brides to be, not just by a company or website.

Le Image has also received accolades on The Knot. We were featured for their prestigious wedding photography category under their “The Best of Weddings” awards.  The awards go to best wedding photographers and wedding videographers in each region and we were honored to be featured in their NYC Outer Boroughs Wedding photography category. The greatest thing about winning all these wedding photography and wedding videographer awards is the exposure we get to all the brides and grooms to be. We truly love our job and we hope to be involved with as many weddings as possible all over the East Coast. It’s only midway through 2013 and we have already been honored with so many awards for wedding photography and wedding videography, we can’t wait to see what the rest of the year holds for Le Image Inc!

1. Pick the right wedding photographer for you!

You may have read our other wedding blog article about the Best Wedding Photographers in Brooklyn and New York so some of the advice for this first tip may sound familiar, but it’s worth repeating. Make sure you and the wedding photographer ‘click’. Don’t choose a wedding photographer whose personality doesn’t mesh with yours. They will be with you the entire day for your wedding ceremony and reception so you’ll want it to be a pleasure working together, not a chore. Rely on your gut! Finding the perfect wedding day photographer for you is like finding your true love, you’ll just know! Don’t get pressured into using the same wedding photographer as a friend or family member just because they recommended them.

2. Do your research! The internet is great place for wedding photography ideas.

Although your wedding photographer may have their own go-to ideas for wedding day photos, it’s best you also find wedding images that inspire you too. Finding inspiring wedding images is easier than ever with websites like Pinterest, Style Me Pretty, The Knot and Tumblr. Start to make a folder on your computer and put in all the pictures that inspire you. You will start to see the pattern of your aesthetic and that will make communication to your wedding photographer much easier. For example, you may have a large number of black and white photos in your folder; maybe it would be worth exploring the idea of black and white wedding photography for your special day. Also, most wedding photographers have a wedding photography gallery section on their website so you can see how they have photographed other couples’ nuptials. Wedding photography blogs can also help you with poses for wedding photos. Find poses that you would like to ‘try out’ and print them out for the day of your wedding and hand them to your wedding photographer. He can help direct you to give you the image you want.

4. Plan, plan, plan! Get as much done ahead of time as possible.

Finally, the more you can do ahead of time, the better. Although they may be a hassle because they will take up your time, get a hair trial and a bridal make up trial before your wedding so you can make sure you’ll love the way you look on your special day. It’s difficult to redo things on the day-of with the time constraints of the wedding ceremony, so it’s best to work everything out beforehand.  Also, check the weather forecast especially if you’re having an outdoor wedding or beach wedding. That way you can plan ahead for whatever Mother Nature throws at you during your wedding ceremony. If you are prone to tearing up, make sure your makeup artist will have waterproof makeup so you aren’t photographed all night with runny-mascara. Also create a timetable! New York wedding photography is often very fast paced with strict time constraints on wedding venues so we always recommend that a bride and groom (or their wedding planner) create a timeline and stick to it, to avoid any sort of late fees with wedding ceremony and reception venues.

5. Just smile and relax! The happiest people are the most beautiful.

We could give you all the wedding photography tips in the world but if you are scowling the whole time, the tips become quite worthless. In our experience with New York Weddings, it’s not the highest budget weddings that make the most beautiful photos but the happiest couples that do. Even if things don’t go according to plan, try to laugh it off. Tap into the positivity of the day’s meaning. You have found the person you want to spend the rest of your life with and they love you too! Anytime the wedding starts to feel to overwhelming, try to go back to the this fact and remember that best days are not those that went according to plan, but the days that you smiled and laughed the most.

We hope this list of how to get the best wedding photos was helpful and we wish all of our couples the best towards their wedding planning. Congratulations to all of you!

Our friends recommended Le Image to us after using them for their wedding, and we were absolutely delighted with them. We received a ~40 minute edited video plus almost 4 hours of “raw” (still great) footage. Nikola and Stephanie provided excellent service at all points from planning to execution. The video quality was fantastic – we opted for the “documentary style” and it was exactly what we wanted. They respected my requests for positioning during the ceremony and were generally friendly and non-intrusive during the ceremony. Above all that, my wedding took place in downtown Manhattan on the night before Hurricane Sandy hit, and not only was there no hiccup on their end, but they ended up integrated a lot of great (historic!) footage into the video as a result. Can’t recommend highly enough, and a great value!

Rebecca and Leo

1. Don’t fall into the trap of feeling forced to plan an outdoor wedding.

If you live in a more temperate climate that is free of overbearing humidity and heat, then an outdoor wedding might be a great option for you. Wedding venues are supposed to be picked because they make the couple feel special, not because they feel obliged to pick it due the season of their wedding. The last thing you want is the wedding photographer snapping away wedding photos of you as you sweat down the aisle with your makeup running and your bouquet wilting.

2. If you do get married outdoors, plan ahead!

Our advice to couples who do want to marry outdoors is to make sure you plan for the heat and sun! Keep the ceremony an adequate length that won’t punish those attending your ceremony and brides, make sure to wear make up primer under your bridal makeup so that it won’t run even if you do start to sweat. Also, keep extra flowers and an extra boutonniere on hand in case the flowers wilt from the high temperatures.  A fun way to combine utility with wedding décor is to provide parasols for your guests. They’ll shield them from the sun during the ceremony and they add a bit of whimsy for your wedding party photos. Also be sure to provide whoever is taking care of your wedding photography/filming your wedding with plenty of water. You need them to be able to focus on capturing your wedding day!

3. Enjoy your day!

As trite as it may sound, it’s important to remind couples about to wed to relax and enjoy their day. You are marrying your spouse, not the season, so don’t let summer take over your wedding plans. Include and plan your wedding day in whatever fashion will be most meaningful and memorable for you. Many New York couples end up marrying in Central Park during the summer since it’s such a tried and true New York City wedding venue but only book your wedding day there if it truly makes you happy.

We’d like to congratulate all of the couples looking to tie the knot this summer and wish them the best on their wedding day!

Ottavio Missoni had originally prepared for a career in athletics but that soon came to a halt with the outbreak of World War II. He served in the Italian army and became captured by the British after a battle in Egypt. After being held as a prisoner of war for four years in Egypt, Missoni resumed his athletic training and was chosen to go to the Olympics. Soon after, he married his wife, Rosita, in 1953. The two originally made track-suits but in 1958, they presented their first knitwear collection in Milan.

The rule-breaking Missonis first caused a stir in the fashion scene in1967 when they told their runway models to remove their bras before a major fashion show in Florence so that the colors of the undergarments would not show through the knitwear. The harsh lights of the runway ended up making the clothes transparent and soon the Missoni label became one of the most buzzed about brands in fashion with photographers shooting their apparel for the covers of Vogue and Elle.

Rosita explains that the two “…lived in very favorable times because it was the beginning of what then came to be called Pret-a-Porter”. Their dedication to ready-to-wear fashions is still apparent with their sold-out 2011 line for fashion giant, Target. The line was so highly anticipated that rabid fashionistas crashed the Target website on the day of the line’s unveiling.

The Missoni label has made headlines not only for their phenomenal fashions but also with the tragedy of the family’s oldest son, Vittorio, when he, his wife and four other were believed to be dead after their plane crashed off the Venezuela’s coast in January. Although there has been much sadness with this luxury brand, the future looks bright for Missoni. Today, several of Octtavio’s children and grandchildren manage the company and continue its reign over the fashion world.