Tell Your Love Story with a Photo Montage

If you've been to a wedding lately, chances are good that you saw a slide show or multimedia presentation of the bride and groom. These shows are typically called photo montages or love stories. Now that it's your turn to have the spotlight, you may be wondering what's involved in telling your own love story.

First, you'll need to find a professional to create the montage and another to present it at your wedding or engagement party. In many cases, the creator also can provide you with the equipment for displaying it. Other times, the reception facilities may provide you with these services.

Wedding videographers are an excellent choice when choosing someone to create the photo montage. Not only will you be working with them on recording your special day, they are well-equipped at taking your photos and putting them on video or DVD complete with music or narration. Many offer special "Love Story" packages as part of their overall wedding videography services. In addition, they have contacts with various wedding and reception venues and can assist you with the presentation.

Once you have hired the right professional for the job, you will need to gather your photographs. Be picky! Your goal is to leave everyone satisfied yet wanting more. You don't want to bore them to tears. With that in mind, you'll need to move through your love story quickly and limit the overall length to about ten minutes. Each photo should be displayed for about seven seconds each - long enough to enjoy but not so long as to elicit yawns. At seven seconds per photo and a ten minute goal, you can display about eighty five photos.

A typical love story structure starts with baby pictures of the bride and groom as they grow up then moves to a segment of the bride and groom together and then concludes with an engagement photo or a wedding invitation. Whether you alternate the baby pictures (boy, girl, boy, girl, etc) or show the girl growing up and then the boy growing up is up to you.

As you select your photos, shoot for pictures that reflect your personality or profession. For example, if the groom is currently a firefighter, try to find a photo of him as a child wearing a fire hat. Look for images that illustrate a time period and move on. For example, you don't need twenty images of the baby phase. Pick a baby picture, a toddler picture, kindergarten-aged picture and progress through the various stages.

Keep in mind that you can zoom in on faces. Use sticky notes to instruct the videographer if you want to focus on a particular portion of the photo.

Assemble your photos in order and deliver them to your videographer along with a CD of any special music you want the photos set to. If you are going to show the love story at your reception, make sure you give the videographer the photos well in advance.