Friday, August 14, 2009

Wedding recap 3: The Photographer and Music

After the dress saga was over, I started the search for a photographer. I looked for photographers on theknot.com, pictage.com, asked for recommendations on weddingbee.com and on Craigslist. Most of the photographers on theknot.com and pictage.com were out of my price range. The weddingbee members had some good suggestions but I was not impressed with some of the online portfolios and one that really, really liked was located too far away. In the end, I was able to make appointments for 4 photographers and we chose the last one for reasons I'll explain in a bit.

The first photographer we met with was Anna. She was very sweet and we really liked her. I totally loved the vibrant colors, contrast and depth in her photos. She was very good with the traditional group shots and seemed very experienced. When we met with her, she definitely sounded like she knew what she was doing.

The next photographer we met with was Dreamlife. The photos here were a bit more artsy than Anna's and they provide their own transportation. The guy also does very nice work, but we felt more comfortable and more connected with Anna. My honey bear actually thought the guy seemed a bit nervous when he met with us, but I think it was because it was so hot in his studio!

The third photographer we met with, I won't mention because we ruled him out as soon as we met him. His work simply wasn't as good as the other two and when we met with him, I just felt like we had no connection with him and he wasn't even very willing to make one. I guess you can say there was no chemistry there and add in the fact that we weren't very impressed with his work after seeing the previous two, it was easy to cross him off our list of potentials.

Then a friend of mine recommended Jimmy Dee Music and Fantasy Flash Photography. They are listed as separate businesses, but are really the same place. They do photography, videography, DJ and music. We had not even begun to audition for music yet, but we were excited to think we can end up crossing two things off our list with one company. We met with the sales rep and we were hooked! They were super professional, VERY organized and really friendly. We were shown short video clips of their DJs in action and an album of their photography. We were really happy with the photographer's work and we thought our sales rep would make a great DJ for us. We skipped having a wedding video cause I just can't imagine us spending a thousand dollars on something we're only going to view a handful of times. I will say that in terms of photography they are on the pricey side and more expensive than the first two photographers we met, but they have a very professional set up and I really felt like I was in good hands with them. In the end, even though they may not be the best deal for a bride on a tight budget, they seem to do great work and they were convenient in that they do both photo and music. So that's two crossed off our list of todos!

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