Flash websites were big several years ago in every industry; the need to present your brand in the most stunning way possible and to impress people with your slideshows, music and extreme animation was flourishing. Interestingly enough, back then, standard html sites looked unprofessional and often shouted homemade.

Various services were developed in which utilize a flash templating and proprietary content management systems, in which I think are a great idea, and I too have used them, however, I personally think that the day of flash websites are over.

Today, information is needed quickly and your target audience’s attention span has been shortened to the most extremely limited amount of time. People are used to going to Google and typing in a search phrase and immediately having dozens of options to look through, they click on their best options and if the content doesn’t load or the information is not there, the quickly go back to the list and find what they were looking for.

The problem with flash used for entire websites (for the most part) is that they are built as essentially an entire movie file (swf) or several movie files. This makes a large file in which a user must wait for their browser to load. Then once the file is loaded the content within the file is not crawled or recognized by any search engine. Of course there are techniques used to add content in which will be crawled underneath the flash and there are techniques in which write urls for specific flash pages (swfaddress.) However, the spiders (search engine crawlers) see your flash and either jump over it, or they get blocked.

Additionally with the success of the iPhone and iPad, flash is not supported and more than likely will not ever be supported on these devices and most if not all mobile devices. So it is important to be able to reach those users. Here is a stunning statistic for you, 42% of Americans use a smartphone, 18% of which are on iphones, and guess which age demo has the most users? Yes, 24-35 years old, that is your demographic as a wedding photographer.

There are many ways to build websites for your photography business that are not flash based, or utilize flash in very minimal ways (such as a slideshow or gallery.) Currently my new site (still not 100% finished) was built from scratch utilizing html, css, javascript and php. This enables search engines to crawl the entire site and it’s contents, as well as loads almost instantly, and for the kicker (ALL OF IT LOADS ON IPHONE AND BLACKBERRY.) Additionally for you non technically saavy individuals out there, you can use wordpress and prophoto to create an entire website with slideshow and use wordpress to manage all your content. Lastly, you can do it without having to pay monthly costs for your web content management or hosting, you can do it on your own shared server solution for $5-10 a month.

Well sorry to be so technical today, I just felt I had to vent about Flash websites… If you have any question’s about how to do any of this, feel free to email or let me know.

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It is important to create a list of things and people you want photographed, although a photographer often captures most of what you had planned, there are times when he/she may not know something was as important to you as it is. Maybe you hand-crafted the centerpieces yourself or the linens on the tables had pieces of your grandmothers bedsheets (not likely but just throwing it out there.) This will help your photographer to understand things that are meaningful to you and ensure that they will capture it.

It is also important to create a list of family and friend portraits that you would like. There is nothing worse than being moments away from your reception and having to come up with configurations for your portraits, and possibly even missing out on some that you had wanted because you forgot or can’t find someone who didn’t know they had to stick around for photos.

Lastly, make sure to note important moments you want to capture. Most things are obvious, but there are things that some people do differently… One recent couple did a chest bump after their kiss on the alter… One couple smashed cake in their bridesmaid and best mans face… One bride gave her flowers to her grandmother. Things like that if you know them are important for the photographer to know.

Believe me, this little bit of effort will go along way in the satisfaction of your wedding photography.

I have created a wedding day planner that you can use to give your photographer the necessary information, Download it Here

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