(In PNW zone 7+) Oh my God ... CONSIDER not deadheading the later season flowers! Leave a summer flower set! I made a typical pruning choice to refresh for white flowers for a couple years, before I discovered a secret hiding within this stunning hydrangea. Yes Wedding Gown has amazing double white flowers, in lacecap form, whose center keeps opening ever smaller florets, forming an stunningly elegant full flattened display. Yes one can cut the Snow White flowers for display use and be rewarded with yet more ... it does not fall into slumber. I too read about nice fall color and just assumed it was just the leaves. And our late October leaf color is now getting there. However, make no mistake, the Evil Queen is hiding there too! No written description mentioned that the white flowers turn so deep ruby red in color! I was shocked, but happily ever after. As the fully opened white flowers, now a couple months old aged, they started to spot pink. I would have normally cut them off to get more white flowers ... hey it reblooms! Over the next few weeks the spots density increased and darkened until soild stunning deep red florets were formed. The flower heads remained upright for a month display of glory hovering over green leaves, (The flower petals felt dry at this stage and I should have cut some for dry floral arrangements.) Just as the fall leaf color peaked the florets twistwd downwards and lightened into deep magenta and cranberry red colors While still in a large tub last year I got strong flower production but not much fall leaf color. In a 50% sun location this year and same tub with 3' tall plant the late fall mature leaf color is currently a deep, almost blackish plum red color. The new growth leaves on stem ends are still green, giving a festive mosaic look. I like the effect in this yard location and will plant here. The secret is out. Wedding Gown is dramatically beautiful in all stages. At a compact ~4' it is highly useful for landscape effects in front of taller bushes. It's like having cranberry bush fall color wonder, which tolerates partial sun, and lavishly provides a white floral display all summer. I'd buy Wedding Gown for the red fall performance alone. As a grower I could call call it Red (or Drama?) Queen and let buyers be totally shocked by the unexpected white Spring phase. The lable would just say red late season flowers deeping in color with age. Anybody else lured into missing this dramatic red flower phase? (Top Photo taken late October with ruby red flowers lightening towards deep magenta and cranberry red tones.)

As another wedding photographer, please consider this advice. First a little disclaimer; it would be 10X easier for me to shoot a wedding and hand you a CD of all the images. That would literally save me about 10 hours of work AFTER the wedding day processing images and also money to provide you with the proofing. I could charge you for the dig. negs and the copyright release and be done with it, moving on to the next wedding much faster. Here's why you should consider NOT buying digital negatives. Color Calibrated monitors of the photographer will give you the colors you think you're going to get. This will almost surely NOT happen by taking a CD to WalGreens or Walmart. Archival quality prints from the photographer means they'll last. ...and probably the biggest reason to order prints from the photographer is the post processing involved. This includes, aspect ratios, color-correction, sharpening, saturation, contrast, noise-reduction, dodging & burning, B&W and Sepia conversions and MUCH more. Like I said, I spend about 8-10 hours doing this processing for the average wedding. Unless you want/know how to do this yourself, digital negs may not be as good as it sounds. Few, if any, photographers are going to spend this time processing images to hand over to you on a CD. They are going to give you the untouched, unprocessed digital images. ...in short, they aren't going to look as good as you'd expect. Why would they, they haven't been 'developed' yet in the digital darkroom. The professional digital wedding photographer has skills that extend way beyond the camera into the areas mentioned above. ...just something to consider. My goal with wedding photography is to leave Brides & Grooms with a feeling of satisfaction and amazement! I feel strongly that a good portion of the "art" of digital photography is finished in the post processing. A photographer selling you unprocessed digital negs is selling you an unfinished product, in my opinion. Now, if you happen to be a whiz on the computer and are capable of and have the time to process your own digital wedding negs, then go for it! By the way, if you are a bride /groom who has purchased digital negs from your photographer and have realized that the prints don't look like you expected... I offer to process those images for you (as long as you own the copyright) for a minimal fee. Get in touch! daniel@dgmphotography.net -daniel

Beautiful..........I love her dress........seems like these days a lot of brides are wearing strapless dresses that barely contain the tata's.........You DIL looks beautiful and so appropriate for a wedding.

"I wish her parents would fade off and quit reminding us of what we are at our worst. Oh, come one. This is about Chelsea and Marc and about wishing them well. Not the time, and certainly not the place. "What I can't get over is the multi-million dollars they spent on the wedding. I guess money=being a princess. lol." It's their money and isn't coming from the taxpayers, so whay in a flying fig does anyone care how much they spend? More power to them if they absolutely adore their daughter and want to give her a beautiful and expensive wedding. And money does not = being a princess. I've seen money spent by people who have it but have absolutely no class. At least Chelsea Clinton appears to have brains, common sense, a good work ethic and good manners. Gheesh.