20% is the new 15.

via examiner.com

I almost aways tip at least 20% at restaurants. 

Which is mostly a result of living the following first hand:

-Most waiters make a very paltry sum hourly from their employer ($2.15 when I was working in NC), with the expectation that they will make at least minimum wage considering tips. This is the minimum requirement by the state, but most employers don't see a reason to pay more.

Employers are required to make up the difference if you don't make minimum wage, but at least for me it was a per paycheck rule and I don't think I ever saw any additional pay because of it. That means, if you worked on the slower weeknights (which most waitstaff were required to for the benefits of a weekend), you could earn only $20 or $30 (which happened a lot during slower times of the year, especially since they cut people early if we weren't busy and scheduled too many people just in case)

-Waiters may be tipping out to their bartenders and hostesses. I think ours was 3% out of our total sales, which means if someone left us no tip at all, we were losing money. If you tipped 15%, 3% of that was not ours. I don't begrudge the hostesses and bartenders making money at all, but paying the hostesses a good hourly wage and letting the restaurant handle the bartender's cut sounds okay to me as well.

-20% is now considered a standard tip. I am sure not everyone has this expectation, but where I worked, we wondered what we had done wrong when we didn't get 20%. I wondered what I did wrong when a foursome came in and spent $90 and tipped me nothing, who wrote in zeroes. I'm assuming that the man who so graciously decided to pay didn't like the way his steak was cooked, although, when I asked if everything came out right, he declined to offer up that information. I know that the internet world doesn't know me, but I am pretty even tempered with customers.

Before I started working at the restaurant (a pretty popular and nice Italian restaurant chain), my dad tipped 15% always. Within a few weeks I had asked him what he tipped and explained what working at the restaurant was like, and he changed his ways, mostly for me. He didn't know it had changed. Some people feel like 15% is standard and 20% is if they wowed you.

-You aren't teaching anyone a lesson when you tip them less than 20%. You had an awful server and you decide you are doing them a favor by leaving them a small tip. Now they will know that they did a bad job and improve in the future. Actually, they will consider you to be an asshole, and if they see you again they will pray you aren't their table. If they do think they've done a bad job they will feel bad, but probably not improve. And chances are they don't think they did a bad job. Or, it might have been the kitchen's fault. Or, this is their second job of the day and they are tired and miserable. Or, they are new. It really doesn't matter. Tipping only really means "good job" when it's not expected. Take it up with restaurant owners if you don't like it, or stop eating out. You won't, because it doesn't affect you.

-You should factor in tips before you make the decision to eat out. Restaurant owners care if you tip, but not as much as they care if you eat out. They want everyone to feel like they can afford eating out. However, if you decide to really treat yourself and end up with a $100 check, I hope you aren't thinking $10 is a good tip. That anyone would be happy with $10 whole dollars from just one table. They aren't. They are giving three of those dollars to tipshare. You were probably taking up their table for at least an hour. You might be their only table or you might have been really demanding when they had several other tables to deal with.

-Waiters come in before their shift starts and stay after. Where I worked, at the end of every night we were required to clean our tables, "vacuum" around them, refill the sweeteners and refill the olive oil. Then, we had a job to do: clean out the tea urns, polish the wine glasses, clean the bread cutter, etc. During the shift we had "running duties" such as helping the bartender restock or being responsible for starting a new batch of coffee or tea. We had to wait on someone to check us out at the end of the night. We had to wait for our last table to leave before we could do any of that. Some of us were so desperate to get out of the restaurant that we'd pay another server to do our jobs and take over our tables if they were closing. You don't get paid extra to stay late. You get paid $2.15 an hour. Closing only paid off if people preferred paying you to doing their jobs or if you got extra tables after some waiters had gone home. Opening meant that you got seated first, and usually you got a good section.

-When you come to a restaurant to catch up with old friends or just to order dessert and coffee but sit for 2 hours and tip based on the check, you are killing your waiter with a slow painful death. You are either unaware or inconsiderate. I've heard people use the excuse that it's not very busy so it doesn't matter. Where I worked you only started out with two tables until you could be trusted with three, and on weekends often we only had two anyway, because they wanted to make sure we did a good job with each table. If both of my tables were full and both parties were enjoying themselves after a meal or taking their time with the large salad they split and their two waters, I was stuck.

I've been really uncomfortable as a customer when I'm out with family or friends and we've been there a long time. I've tipped extra after covertly seeing what a friend tipped (when we hadn't stayed long after the meal). I've squirmed when someone ordered another coffee. I can't help but feel for these servers, even incompetent ones, because I've been there. I round up on tips, it makes the math easier. I never tip less than 20% to make it a whole number or tip on the pre-tax amount (which I'm not necessarily knocking).

I do feel like I could write a book on the topic, it is what waiters breathe every day, mutter to each other after every table. The amazing tips aren't as frequent as you'd like. The small tips make you feel crummy and the non-tips make you livid. The car salesman-like waiters that work with you and make great tips but also pull out photos of their children and say it's their birthday to get better tips make you sick. You worry about pushing dessert because while it ups their tab, they might be dead set on only tipping you $5 no matter what, and especially if you make them pay more on their check. You are ticked off when it takes the kitchen 30 minutes to get your order out because you know the table will be there longer which means less turnover, and will be less pleased which means less tip.

I've gone on for too long, and I don't expect anyone to actually read all of it, but hopefully the bolded text sticks out to some people. I want people to be informed when they vote and when they eat out.

Wedding Dresses that aren't

So, French Connection is one of my new favorite dress brands (I've known about FCUK but just recently started trying on their clothes & buying on sale at Belk). Weddings are a favorite pastime of mine.  This post was born.

Wedding dresses that aren't are pretty great, and I admire the folks that go the non traditional route of buying a dress not designated as a wedding gown. You can some luxury brands you may usually feel too thrifty for and spend less than you would have at a bridal shop.

So, here's a French Connection dress for $248 that I could most definitely see as a wedding gown. I haven't tried it on (I would say yet but I don't see any chance for a vow renewal in the near future and I think I've passed the opportunity for a deb ball), but it does look pretty amazing on the model.

What do you think? Have you seen any wedding worthy gowns lately?

Also, as far as a recommendation for FCUK:   French Connection dresses tend to fit me pretty well (I'm really petite and I can rarely find dresses that really fit) and in my opinion the silhouettes are typically interesting and flattering.

Digital Negatives (oxymoron?)

Disclaimer: Skip to the end if the length of this entry is scaring you off. I will add a photo to distract you from the text.

I've been reworking my website and branding a little bit lately which is both really amazing and really frustrating, because I want everything to be perfect immediately. And it's not, of course. I'm impatient and I think that can be a strength, especially since I deal with wedding clients all the time and thus I can empathize with their impatience!

Anywho, I'm in the middle of reworking pricing and offerings for next year, and after some recent client meetings I'm figuring out that (duh), prospective clients aren't in the photography industry and they have no idea why we do the things we do. Or why different people offer different things. And so, I want to hear your opinion, and I want to say my two cents here.

Having a photography blog and a wedding/personal blog makes it difficult for me to share anything really personal on the business one, I feel like it'll turn people off to hear a photographer complain (not that that is my intention) about the industry when they are just seeking out someone to hire. So feel free to comment on that as well.

(Christmas gift idea, a photo session, comes with this lovely gift certificate!)

So, as far as "digital negatives" go... Here are the various thoughts on the matter:

• In days of yore, photographers used film. They had the film developed, and then they made proof sheets from the negatives. You selected your favorites, the photographer made enlargements, and the photographer kept the negatives so that if you wanted to order more later, you could.

You could sometimes buy the negatives, but it would be very expensive, because the photographer would no longer be able to make prints of their images.

• In days of yore, photographers made most of their money off of prints.

• Along came digital. Photographers slowly made the transition into digital for wedding photography because it offered more flexibility, it was cheaper than rolls of film, you could be sure you got "the shot", and you could back up your images in a way that you couldn't with film.

• The same photographers that were shooting film created the setup for Digital Wedding Photography. So, the emphasis was still on prints, and giving the clients the "negatives" felt problematic.

• Now, in 2010, clients know that most photography is digital, and in the age of the internet and facebook, and shutterfly, clients want to take control of the photography. They want to own the images and broadcast them to their friends and family. They are in the images, they feel like they own them (and I don't disagree).

• Another dilemma with digital photography is that when you feel like you, the client, own your images, you don't think it should cost extra, you want to order the prints yourself from whomever is cheapest, and if you post your images, you don't think to credit your photographer, because, they are your images.

Enough with the bullet points, I think. I believe I feel the weight of this issue more than most clients and photographers just because last year I was both a client and a photographer. The photography world is competitive and full of peer pressure.

I've been criticized by a fellow photographer for posting images of an engagement (of one of my friends even) on facebook, I was told it was "unprofessional", and I have heard horror stories passed around about clients who take an image and add some creative color techniques and words, post on facebook, and say "look at the wonderful image by Blank Photography!" I've heard that argument not to give clients their images, and then I have heard people like Matt Sloan (via his formspring/facebook) say he doesn't watermark because he doesn't care what happens to the images afterwards. I applaud that attitude. I also have a huge problem making the decision about digital negatives for myself.

I'm still fairly new to the business side of wedding photography, and a recession is not a great time to figure out pricing for a new business. I currently charge an additional fee for a disc of high resolution images but include it for free with album purchases. The philosophy behind that decision for me is that I want clients to have a physical product. Partly because I want my work displayed from the mountaintops, but mostly because I tend to think everyone is at least somewhat like me, and that without the obligation to order something physical, you may never get around to ordering prints or an album and feel shorthanded a year later when you remember that your images only exist on a computer somewhere.


I myself am a very bad bride, and have yet to order my own album. Our wedding was complicated with the multiple parts, and while I LOVE my images, I was pretty burnt out post-wedding. I'm hoping to kick it into gear and order for Christmas.

I am not good at staying on task with my essays. I should've probably failed my college classes. So, for those of you who can't follow 10 trains of thought, here is a summary:

• Photographers charge a lot for high resolution digital images because giving them to you ensures you will most likely not order images from them, and the way wedding photography pricing is set up across the board, they don't want to scare you off by just raising their package price to accommodate for that loss of money.

• Some photographers will not give you the digital images at all because they are afraid you will use them in a way that negatively reflects their brand. Plus, they know that if you love their photography enough you'll probably make do with that fact and just order prints instead.