Exit survey, part 3

Final post on the survey, I promise. Just thought I would display the candid and anonymous statements that our clients had to say in response to my question: "What was the best thing about your experience with [us]?"

"rae and chris were absolutely flawless in enthusiasm, effort, talent and spirit, and the results are stunning."

"I am overall very happy with the photographs and the service. I feel Rae and Chris are dedicated and treat your event as special as if it where their own. I have received many compliments on my wedding pictures and have already referred to a few people."

"Rae kept up wonderful communication, and still does... she has a beautiful artistic touch to her work, making it stand out in wedding photography."

"The pictures & the unobtrusiveness of Chris & Rae during the wedding. Many people who have seen the pictures are still wondering when she took that shot!"

"Rae and Chris are so easier to work with. They are unobtrusive and very pleasant to have around. Plus - they take FABULOUS pictures."

"Besides the amazing pictures and albums, Rae is very personable and friendly."

"Rae is very friendly and very relaxed, she lets you pick the pictures you want and does an overall fabulous job!!"

"Being able to give my friends our photo website so they could see our pictures at their leisure."

"Rae and Chris were wonderful! The pictures truly capture how wonderful the day was and the personalities of all involved. Rae and Chris were always a pleasure to work with and we loved having them there."

"We were extremely pleased with the pictures taken! They turned out fantastic, and most importantly help us remember both the special and the impromptu moments. Rae and Chris also made me fee extremely comfortable."

"It truly was Rae herself."

"Amazing pictures, friendly service and she was always a professional."

"Rae and Chris were amazing and made every moment comfortable. I heard so many people tell me, 'Your photographer was EVERYWHERE!'"

"Creative, photojournalistic pictures, engagement session."

When given the opportunity to state any additional comments to help us better our business and make the process easier for future brides, we were given the following comments.

"i would like to find a way to tell more people about you. i also wish the photos could stay up for longer on Pictage so people could see your amazing work. you were outstanding."

"Please put the album layouts up on the new website! I loved how they look, and give a bride a good idea of what you can do!"

"Just keep doing what you are doing."

"I would highly recommend using Rae Barnes. Her pictures are the best I have seen out of the many, many weddings I have attended and participated in. She is professional, friendly and very attentive. She always responded to me promptly and was just a joy to work with!"

"Wish you both the best of luck. I would encourage any bride to use Photography by Rae. She is not only very talented, but has a presence about her that makes you feel so good. I think its important for Rae and the bride to discuss any important shots... The day of the wedding you are so excited and there is so much going on, its easy to miss some."

"To all future brides Rae is the total package when it comes to photography for your special day."

"I was extremely happy with Rae's services and amazed by her talent. I look forward to working with her for other events soon."

I would like to state, for the record, that we did ask our brides to be very candid about their disappointments (if they had any). And, we REALLY appreciate the responses we received. Though few were stated, it will help us greatly improve our business. Thank you to everyone who participated!!

Exit survey, part 2

I hope everyone had a very happy Thanksgiving!! Sorry for not posting yesterday- some sort of virus got to me, and I was mostly sleeping and watching the America's Next Top Model marathon in my in-laws' bed. Anyways... I really don't want to bore you, but I have really found our survey fascinating. To make this a little shorter (maybe even sweeter), I will stop with the bar graphs. Here are more stats on our couples from this year...

Percentages of how couples found us:
15%- Bridal Show/s
21%- Internet Search
7%- Pictage.com
36%- Event Coordinator Reccomendation
21%- Referral from a friend

Percentages of how far in advance couples booked:
36% booked more than 10 months in advance
29% booked between 7 and 9 months before the big day
29% booked between 4 and 6 months prior
and only 6% booked less than 3 months in advance

Where my brides come from... (all over clearly!)
Only about half of our '06 brides currently live in New York state
(with a mere 7% of those living local to Saranac Lake)
More than 15% came from Boston, MA
We had 8% from the West Coast and also 8% from the (other) Northeast
And the remaining whopping 18% came from the Southeast (of course, 2 of those we traveled down there for).

Okay, tomorrow, the goods will be dished. I am going to post our brides most candid comments of our services, so be on the lookout for those. I hope everyone is having a great time with family!

Exit survey, part 1

Okay... well, everyone in the Barnes household is STILL asleep (aside from the in-laws that are busy getting everything going and my husband who is out playing football), so I am going to go ahead and post the first part of the survey I conducted in order to better our business. There were 8 questions total that I sent to all of our couples from 2006, and only 3 couples did not respond (yet). I really wanted to get a sense for why people hired us (aside from the ideas in my head) as well as get a good sense of what people would say about us if they didn't have to put their name next-to their response- as this was an anonymous survey online.

So, the first question asked our clients to select the most important component/s to our biz that made them want to hire me/us for their wedding day. The responses to this question are in the bar graph.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Chris and I are finally in Maple Glen, PA (just north of Philadelphia)- getting ready to stuff our faces, but we just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!! May you be truly blessed by the company of your friends and family today.

We will have updates from our web survey in the next few days.

Northwood Events- Lake Placid Weddings

Second post of the day (I know- big time here)... Yesterday, I met with Cindy Byno of Northwood Events in Lake Placid to talk about the services and products I offer to brides and grooms all over New York, Vermont, and the Carolinas. I am very excited about working with her in the future. She is full of great ideas and great connections, so I would highly recommend her to anyone who is planning or thinking of planning a wedding anywhere in the Adirondacks. She certainly would take care of you!

my college roomie- Converse College

Well, I am just hours away from completing the images from Jane & J.E.B.'s wedding, and I am really excited to share that with all of their awaiting fans. In the meantime, I have two images from the wedding day that somehow slipped through the cracks and didn't make it to the first blog or the slideshow for that matter... these are images of my dear friend and former college roomie- BRANDI! isn't she just beautiful? ;-) Okay, well, these don't quite show off how beautiful she is- i mean, the first one is more of just me getting in her face to get a shot of the reflections off her glasses. but i love and miss you, brando commando!

tomorrow's blog... results of a survey of former brides (it is going to be a long one!).

southern girls

so... now that i am done with my series, and i am not ready to start the next one (the best of 2006), i just thought i would give a quick little shout out to my dearest friend becca and all the girls at granny's! congrats to you all on graduations and marriages and moving to saranac lake to heat things up around here!! ;-)

Kids do the darndest things, pt 3

Okay... last one (for those of you people that are tired of kids' pics)... I have been trying to think of a very clever title for this last segment of my kids series, but alas, all my cleverness has seeped out of me, due to all the meetings I have had this weekend. So, the title, or theme, for day is just simply "the best of kids." I sincerely hope that you get a kick out of these (or at the very least a smile on your face)!

Kids do the darndest things, pt 2

I know you all have been glued to your screens awaiting the second post in my series... well, wait no longer, my dear friends! I am here at last! Today's theme: dancing machines. Oh yes, we caught some of these minis dancing and grooving (and sometimes to nothing but the music in their heads). ;-) Okay, so maybe not all of them are "dancing," but who can blame me for putting up that shot of the girl with the butterfly glasses, and as for the boy- he's ON the dance floor... does that count for something? :-D



P.S. I just thought I would slip this in (totally unrelated)- I met with Meghan and her mom today to discuss her designs for her save-the-date cards and invitations. I am SO excited and honored to be designing these for her and Travis!!

Kids do the darndest things

As the wedding season has come to an end, I have been reviewing all the weddings from this year to compile a best of 2006 AsukaBook for many of the vendors we work with. While looking through each wedding, I came across some laughable or just downright cute kids shots from weddings. And, if you have seen a complete wedding captured by yours truly, then you know that if there are kids around, they will be caught on camera doing those little things kids do.

I found so many that I love that I couldn't narrow it down to just one day's worth of a blog, so instead of overloading this page, I will be working through a series this weekend of the "best of" children's shots from weddings... TODAY's blog features several of the little flower girls getting ready...

Sending out albums...

I am so excited to be sending out TWO albums today (along with one album order)! I just had to give you all previews of these beautiful Leather Craftsmen albums. The first one is Krisine & Brian's Fine Art Book that has 40 5x7s mounted one per page in order to give a fine art presentation of their images. The second one is obviously Erin & Damon's; it is a 10x10 flush mount album with 50 sides/25 pages, split tone cover, and imprinting on the binding. Keep an eye out for all the many albums that will be rolling through here in the next month or two!

New Cypress Digital Albums!

I am really excited to hear that Cypress has just added to their line of beautiful silk albums! They now offer the digitally designed flush mount albums that everyone loves. I have just loved every album, proof box, or folio that we have ordered from them, so I am anxiously awaiting the moment when I will be able to see the digital album in person. Since Cypress albums are so elegant and refined, the layouts for these albums will be much simpler than that we would put in a Leather Craftsmen album. These albums are handcrafted and enveloped with Japanese bookbinding fabric and bound with ribbons from Switzerland. These albums are definitely for the discerning bride!

New slideshows!

I have been working very diligently this past week on albums so that several of our newlyweds will have their albums and books by Christmas. I will be posting some samples later next week. But, for now, I want to direct your attention to our slideshows of all of our recent work.

New additions include:
Jane & J.E.B.'s wedding
Jeanne & Jason's engagement session
Rebekah's 9 month session- Baby's First Year

Coming soon...
Worsley/Seymour family portrait session

Happy viewing!

Jane & J.E.B.- Rock Hill, SC

Congratulations to my dear friends Jane & J.E.B. Wilson on their new marriage! They were married on Saturday, November 4 in Rock Hill, South Carolina. It was such an honor to be the photographer for such a special occasion... not to mention the joy in photographing so many of the people I love. Jane and I graduated from Converse College the same year, and she was one of my bridesmaids in our wedding. Because I love her so much, I am having the hardest time narrowing down the images for this post, so there goes the standard 3-7... we are posting 10-15! Happy viewing! Look for the slideshow on my site later this week.

Seymour Family Portraits- Davidson, NC

On Friday morning (EARLY), Chris and I headed up to Davidson from my dad's place in Charlotte for a family shoot with our dear friends, the Worsleys. They had a regular ole family reunion with her two sisters and parents and all the grandkids, and we had a blast capturing all the little moments between them all!