Even if your dog won’t be able to be a part of your wedding day, they are still a member of your family. What better way to show that then by including your dog in your engagement session?

You can plan to have your engagement session in a dog friendly park or beach area, and your photographer can work with you to brainstorm fun ideas for including them in some of the pictures. Its important to remember that your dog will not be in ALL of the shots, so plan on having a “dog wrangler” recruited for the day of your session. This is very helpful when capturing just the two of you so there are no distractions.

Try bringing along a favorite tennis ball or other toy for your dog to play with during your session. This is also great for getting their attention.

If you dogs are smaller, try bringing a picnic blanket to sit on so you can snuggle with your furry friend.

Take a short walk with your dog during the beginning of your engagement session. This will help tire your pup out and give him or her the opportunity to get used to the camera and the sounds it makes.

Before letting your dog off leash, be sure they are trained well enough to come when called, and will not run off into the distance. Leashes will definitely not ruin a photo, so don’t be afraid to keep it on!

Most of all, be sure to have fun with your dog in your pictures-show off the happy family that you are!

THE DIY trend is so huge right now that I would be remiss to let it go unnoticed. I’ve been seeing some great examples of DIY wedding scrapbooks lately, and wanted to highlight this one in particular from Almost Never Clever.

See the entire post here for more images of the layout, and visit Almost Never Clever for more on her wedding scrapbook!

It’s no secret that technology is always changing. Cell phones, computers and TVs are always being updated and some media is left behind. Remember cassette tapes? How about floppy disks? When it comes to technology and storage, you must keep up or risk losing your files.

What does this have to do with wedding photography? Everything!

Most couples will end up with a disk of their images after the wedding, and it’s a fair bet that most of those will also upload all the images to their hard drives. But what if your hard drive crashes? Your only backup is your disk. If technology has moved fast enough, that disk of your amazing wedding pictures could be obsolete. What is to be done?

The best bet is to make sure you have prints in some form from your wedding. Think about your parents’ and grandparents’ wedding photos. They didn’t hand down a negative, they had prints, or perhaps a matted album. Even if they did have the negative, they aren’t really viewable in their raw form. Proof books, or perhaps a custom image box of 4×6 proofs, are a wonderful way to ensure that your wedding images will always be viewable, even if technology has outdated your digital format.

Another great way to preserve your memories is to purchase a wedding album from your photographer. Not only will you be utilizing your photographer’s skill and craft with the images and design, but your album will be of professional, heirloom quality that is built to last. These leather or fabric bound books are gorgeous and something you will be proud to show everyone, and to hand down to your children and grandchildren.

The final tip for making your wedding images last forever is to be sure to keep up with technology. If CDs and DVDs start becoming a thing of the past, do transfer your images over to the new medium de jour. While you’re probably not going to pull out your wedding disk to show people when they come visit, this will ensure that you always have a backup. Maybe even make a backup of your backup. Professional photographers will usually have three redundant backups in the form of hard drives, disks and online storage. This means that even in the unlikely event of a major disaster or catastrophe, your wedding images will still be safe. These images are once in a lifetime and can never be replaced, so take care of them.