Photography can be a BIG line-item cost for your budget. So, the question is this: Is it worth it?The short answer is yes. Photography is the ideal way to capture the special moments and details of the day. After you’ve obsessed over flowers, linen colors, the design of the cake and your napkin folds, you want to be able to see how everything looks. You’d be surprised how quickly your wedding day passes by and how many details you simply don’t see. A great photographer can capture all of those memories for you.

How do you pick the right photographer? Search wedding magazines and websites for photographers that you like. Examine the styles of different photographers and figure out what you like most. Do you like the fact that one photographer shoots mostly in black & white? Do you like the fact that one manages to capture the sentimental details, like a tear rolling down your father’s cheek? Or do you want someone who offers over-the-top albums?

Many people get shocked when they start shopping wedding photographers. Some photographers start their fees at $1500 and go up as high as $10,000. As a result, many brides are tempted to pay a friend or family member a couple of hundred dollars to bring their digital camera to the church. Yes, this is a cost-effective way to get wedding photos. HOWEVER….remember that this is one of the most important days of your life and probably one of the biggest parties you will ever throw. It’s important to have a professional capture the details of the day. A professional has tons of equipment to balance light and shadow. They often have assistants who can take photos at a different part of the event while the main photographer is shooting something else. They have multiple cameras and backup batteries. They have everything they need to react to emergencies, dark ceremony locations, reception locations that are too bright and zillions of other scenarios that might pop up.

Your family member who has a camera from Best Buy doesn’t have all of the equipment to make your photos to look the best that they possibly can. The flash on their point and shoot digital camera isn’t going to generate enough light to show off your intricate wedding day makeup.

I’ve seen so many brides spend $2000 or $3000 on wedding limos and $300 on wedding photography. I have yet to see a bride who wasn’t disappointed with the end results of the pictures. I always here things like, “They didn’t get a full-length photo of me in my dress,” or “Why didn’t they get a picture of me and my 95-year old grandmother?”

Again, this is one of the biggest days of your life. You hire professionals to handle other aspects of your wedding. Why wouldn’t you hire a professional to capture the images from your wedding day? Your memory will fade, but great photos will last a lifetime. It’s worth it to you to invest in the product that will last forever. You can’t get a do-over on your wedding day if your photographer misses your first kiss or the moment when you jump the broom. Why take the risk? I always suggest to brides that they spend as much as they can afford to on hiring someone who can ensure that the special moments from the day are captured.

Should You Put Your Own Ring On It?

Shaunie Dumped Her First Husband For Shaq!

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On January 18, 1958, hockey player Willie O’Ree of the Boston Bruins takes to the ice for a game against the Montreal Canadiens, becoming the first black to play in the National Hockey League (NHL).

Born in 1935 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, O’Ree was the son of a civil engineer, in one of Fredericton’s only two black families. He began skating at the age of three, and joined a nearby hockey league when he was only five. During five years playing with his older brother on teams in Fredericton, O’Ree became known as one of the best players in New Brunswick. After one season with the Quebec Frontenacs of the Quebec Junior Hockey League, he joined the Kitchener Canucks of the Ontario Hockey Association Junior “A” Hockey League, setting a career-high mark of 30 goals during the 1955-56 season. That year, a puck struck O’Ree in the right eye during a game, robbing him of 95 percent of the vision in that eye.

O’Ree managed to conceal the injury and continue his hockey career, joining the Quebec Aces of the prestigious Quebec Hockey League in 1956. During his second season with Quebec, the Boston Bruins of the NHL called up the 22-year-old O’Ree to replace an injured player. On January 18, 1958, the Bruins were playing the two-time Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens at Quebec’s Montreal Forum. O’Ree took to the ice as a forward with the Bruins’ third line, as the Bruins pulled off an upset 3-0 victory. He didn’t score, or record a penalty, and the historic event took place amid little fanfare.

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The NAACP elected a health care executive as its youngest board chairman Saturday, continuing a youth movement for the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.  Roslyn M. Brock, 44, was chosen to succeed Julian Bond. She had been vice chairman since 2001 and a member of the NAACP for 25 years.

Brock works for Bon Secours Health Systems in Maryland as vice president for advocacy and government relations, and spent 10 years working on health issues for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. She joins Benjamin Todd Jealous, the 37-year-old CEO of the NAACP, as leader of the 500,000-member organization.

Brock said she plans to focus on pushing for policy changes to eliminate inequality, strengthening the relationship between the national and local NAACP branches and holding people accountable.

“It’s not always what someone is doing to us, but what we are doing for ourselves,” Brock said in an interview.

The departure of Bond, 70, after 10 years as board chairman marks a turning point for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Pepole.

Bond came of age in the segregated South, helped found the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and was on the front lines of the protests that led to the nation’s landmark civil rights laws. He is a symbol and icon of “the movement,” which was a defining experience for older generations.

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I think too often we — whether singles, Christians, whatever — tend to “tag along” with ideas without asking any questions Certain ideas and ways of doing things have just become the status quo. We blindly adopt the “if they’re doing it, I probably should too” ideology.

I would categorize marriage as one of those things. We never really examine if it’s something that’s for us. Instead we just assume it’s the natural next step and right and we fall right in line.

Do we get married because we have legitimate, real reasons, or do we do it just because that’s what society, and especially the church, tell us that we should do? If you get down to the heart of the matter, almost everything that one could do inside a marriage, could also be done outside of a marriage, whether in a committed partnership, or in some cases, just a “regular” relationship.

Having and raising children, for example, while best done with a husband and wife, can also be carried out as long as two loving parents are equally involved in the lives of their children. And with the divorce rate being as  high as it is and single parenting being so common, the idea that you have to be married to successfully raise a child can easily be thrown out the window.

Getting married for sex is popular among Christians. While that may not be the only reason, for those Christians who have committed to abstaining from sex while they’re single, you had best believe that thought has crossed their minds as the wedding day approaches. But here again we find something that can be easily accomplished outside of a marriage. It may not be Godly, but it can be done.

These are just two aspects of married life. There’s also the love, support, and companionship that is shared between the husband and a wife. In addition there are countless other things that are crucial to having a healthy, Godly marriage. Yet, honestly, I don’t know that I can come up with one thing that can only be accomplished inside a marriage.

However, that’s a very worldly mindset to have, don’t you agree? God did create marriage. He created it in order that we might perpetuate a Godly legacy through our families and saw that the marriage would be the best means of coming to that end. He did create man and woman to be monogamous, despite what current events and common human behaviors might tell you. We know that a three stranded cord is not easily broken. When those three strands are composed of God, a man, and a woman, each committed to the other wholeheartedly, there is a bond, a covenant that is formed that cannot be broken. That bond is marriage.

There are undoubtedly many singles who have done, and are doing, great things for God. Yet there are special callings and purposes that God has given a married couple as well. They’re things that often cannot be achieved by just one person, but rather require the partnership of marriage in order to fulfill.

So here’s my question for you: why do you want to get married? What purpose or fulfillment would it add to your life that you would not otherwise have? What things do you feel can only be realized within the context of a marriage?

[Written by Stuart McDonald for Elev8.com. For more from Stuart, check out his personal blog and follow him on Twitter]

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