WW: Photographers

This past weekend was spent not only completing a to do list for Laura's wedding (which holy cow is now 9 days away!) but also meeting two photographers who we're considering for our wedding.

Ages ago I fell in love with a capital region photographer named Joe Elario. His work is phenomenal. I can't even put it into words, it's just breathtaking. I contacted him to see if there was a possibility we'd ever be able to afford him...sadly we cannot.

You see, photography is the one thing I will splurge on. It is extremely important to me that we have incredible photographs from our wedding. The food should be good, but after the night is over it's gone. The photographs are with you for life, so they better be damn good.

I had a number in my head as to where my friends and my sister were budgeted with their photography and then I added a little bit more to that and decided it would be my splurge number.

The wonderful JP's lowest package (4hrs of coverage) is already over my splurge number. In fact the package I'd be interested in is nearly double my splurge number. *sadface* I've given up on that one.

I did however, have a list of other photographers whose work also struck me as something special. So Saturday we met with one woman, and Sunday we met with the other.

Saturday morning we met Keira Lemonis. It was a pretty straight forward meeting, I already had most of the information about her pricing and packages via email but I wanted to meet her in person. Her work is beautiful. She is slightly more artistic than some of the other photographers we're considering but being artsy is never a bad thing in my book.

I liked her. I liked her work. I liked her pricing. Even with adding things in like the guest photo booth, an engagement session and maybe a third session like trash the dress or something, she was still below my splurge number. That's a plus. She was actually priced just a little bit higher than what Laura is paying to have Jeff Guntert to do her wedding. (Jeff is fabulous as well and has a great personality but he might not be taking clients for next year. So I haven't spoken with him yet.)

All in all, I liked Keira.

Sunday Laura and I drove over to Saratoga Springs to meet Heather Bohm-Tallman of HBT Photography. She has a little store front next to a florist and it's adorable. Heather's work is also beautiful. She has something very special in the way she captures a lot all at once. What I loved about her is that she also photographs dogs. I know this sounds strange, but the fact that she photographs dogs and is very good at it is a plus. Dogs are very difficult to get to sit still, they move around a lot and it's hard to capture a beautiful photo while still getting the essence of the dog. Heather does this well. Her puppy shots are incredible!

If she can capture the movement of a dog, then she'd be great at capturing little quiet quick moments from our wedding day. To me, that's a plus.

Her package pricing starts a little bit higher and when we add on the additional things like an e-session and a photo booth it brings us just a little bit over my splurge number.

I sat down with my parents Sunday night and showed them both websites and both blogs. My Mom and I agree on which photographer we like better. My Dad has yet to inform me on his preference. I'm in the midst of showing Jason their work as well and seeing what he thinks either way.

By the weekend of Laura's wedding I hope to have decided on the venue (hopefully the barn), the photographer, and maybe even the church. I need to make a few calls and meet with someone from my church this week/weekend to see what the process is for getting married out of town. This might get old real fast with politics and stupid things that shouldn't matter but we'll see what happens.