9 Proven Tips To Enhace Your Wedding Slideshow

Did you know that nearly 80% of all wedding guests are bored out of their minds while watching a wedding slide show? Perhaps you’ve been to a wedding reception where the slide show went on and on and on and on……  Well lucky for you we’ve compiled 9 proven tips that will help enhance your wedding photo montage. Here they are listed below in no particular order.

1. Keep it Short: The ideal length of a slide show should be no longer than 3 songs or 8 minutes in length. During this time you can generally show 75-100 different pictures. Most guests will have an attention span of 5 minutes top. Anything longer than 8 minutes should be presented as presentation. Longer slide shows will work better if you keep them running in the background. Placing a small plasma screen or digital photo frame by the bar generally works best.
2. Audience: Be sure to know who your intended audience will be. Since you’ll be showing your presentation at a wedding reception it would be a good idea to include pictures of your guests and not just images of you and your husband or wife.
3. Choose Quality Images:  When projecting images with a projector you’ll want to make sure you have good quality images. Older images that have to be scanned should be scanned at the highest resolution possible. Anything less and you’ll loose a good chunk of the quality during projection.
4. Trigger a Response: Each photo in your slide show should try to trigger an emotional response.  Whether it’s a photo of the groom’s funny haircut in 8thgrade or a photo of a grandmother who is no longer with us, they image should each make your guests happy, laugh or tear up. Now that doesn’t mean each picture has to be a tear-jerker but they should try to invoke an emotion response.
5. Chronological Order: Avoid too much artistic depth or complicated narrative structures. Chronological from birth to present generally works best.
6. Avoid Descriptions: Try to avoid using  a lot of text. Dates and places are ok, but ditch the goofy captions. Captions will cause your guests to read and they may miss the actual image you’re trying to present.
7. Add Video Clips: Do you have any home videos sitting around?  If possible, try to add a few 15-20 second clips into the show. It’s a great way to spice up your presentation and your guests will also enjoy it.
8. Add Motion: If you’re using PowerPoint to develop your slide show you probably won’t be able to do this, but adding subtle motion to your image can add depth and character to the image. It also brings focus to the important things in the photo.  A movie editing program like Sony Vegas or Animoto can do these things for you.
9. TEST! This is definitely the most important tip. Do you remember the days when your math teacher used to struggle with the overhead projector? Don’t create a moment like that at your wedding reception! Be sure to have everything setup and tested before any of your guests arrive.