How to book your photographer like a crazy bride

By far, the most important expense on our wedding day for us is photography. The cake will be eaten, the invitations hopefully admired for least 1 minute (please!) but then tossed aside… my dress carefully stuffed away only to be pulled out when I am feeling nostalgic. But, the photos will remain. I promise to pinch every penny for everything else, but I have to absolutely have photos that knock my socks off.

This past summer, I was working on the major components of the wedding. I met with my first-pick wedding photographer with my mom and to-be mom. I knew going into the meeting that she was outside of our photography budget. But, I love love love her photos. I figured I would try and see if she would come down a little and she did based on that were adding a few extra goodies to our package. The moms also very much liked her photos. Her photos are crisp while still being romantic. I probably would have booked her right away, but a few things gave me pause. 1. She was very friendly! However, she wasn’t overly zealous and all warm and fuzzy – more business-like. Which is good but not what I was expecting. 2: I felt like many of the weddings she photographed all looked a little bit alike. I think it is because her customers have beautiful weddings but they lack personalization… in my opinion. So, my big question is: Can I get her to shoot my wedding with a bit more creativity?

It seemed like I had to definitely meet with another photographer in order to make a decision. I had an appointment booked with another photographer for July 3. However, the goal was to meet with three photographers, so I could feel like I was making an educated decision before spending tons of money. I found a few more photographers whose photos were also fabulous, but one by one they all got back to me saying that they were booked already! WHAT! We were still 1 year away…..how can they be booked!?!! Sad face. All those stupid wedding checklists in books, magazines and online say to book your photograph 9 months to go. Lies. All lies.

Naturally, I freaked out. All I could think was WHAT IF MY FIRST-PICK PHOTOGRAPHER GETS BOOKED BEFORE I MAKE A FREAKIN’ DECISION?! One part of me was telling me that I needed to wait until July 3^rd to meet with another photographer to ease my concerns about creativity before making a rash decision. But the other part (the crazy part) was telling me to but a deposit on that photographer NOW. What to do!?

Sigh. I gave into my craziness and emailed the 1^st-pick photographer to book her before I had met with the other photographer. Whatever. I know that I am ridiculous, but I also knew that I would be happy with her photos and she is (sort of) close to our budget.

The good news is that because we had to work out a contract I still had time to meet with the July 3^rd photographer.  (I did feel slightly guilty for meeting with another photographer even though I had told photographer #1 I would book her.) Wes and I went to the second meeting and it gave us a lot of think about, but we still felt that we had made the best decision going with photographer #1.

So without further ado… Kristen Taylor of Birmingham, MI will be shooting our wedding!

All photos from Kristen Taylor Photography Blog

Swoon.

I feel that if I make our wedding fun and unique, then Kristen will respond to that. Now, I have to make all of you promise to smile and not be talking on your cell phone in all my photos!

What do you think should be the most important thing to spend money on? Would you book somebody without meeting with anyone else?