Picking a photographer was not an easy task for Zack and I. It was probably my highest priority and possibly the lowest for him. We went home in May to look at venues and met up with
Jaci Clark which helped him understand how much work a photographer actually puts into the big day. I loved Jaci, she is as fabulous as her work but we ultimately didn't end up working with her. Although, I have no doubts that she would be amazing to work with. If you are planning in Northeast Ohio - you should at the minimum give her a call.
When we came back from Ohio with a fresh perspective on our budget knowing what our venue and catering would cost. We also had decided to cut our budget for various personal reasons and some of things I thought would be shoe in's didn't turn out that way. I knew that I had to "break up" with Jaci and go back to the drawing board for photographers. This is of course the very polite blog friendly version of this story... I actually was a bridezilla. I fought with Zack and offered several bribes to try and get my way.
Anyway, back to the story ... I ruled out a few vendors based on their blogs and observing their styles. One person I thought had more of a love affair with
the color yellow than I did, others each wedding looked the same, a few vendors were unresponsive, and lastly a few of them were too expensive.
With my new narrowed down list I started collecting information such as pricing and packages. From there I conducting phone interviews, as our wedding is in Ohio and we are in New York it was really the only way to do it. I talked to one vendor who's pricing was very reasonable- but I didn't feel a connection to her. We talked for slightly over an hour without "clicking" and I wasn't too keen on her second shooter being her less experienced husband. Another potential photographer was more experienced and within our budget, however there was too much lag time in editing and they charged for disks of images.
I finally found someone who met our requirements: second shooter, length of time shooting, right to print images, album design, and most importantly we clicked... {to be continued}
editor's note: while we have much love for Jaci - our photographer also knows how much we love her. This is just meant to be an accurate recap of our search for a photographer.
