What do you want in a photographer?

samsamsam84

What are you ladies in Northern California looking for in a photographer? Is your main concern your budget or the kind of photos you want? Do you care about having a photo album? Is your photographer one of your main expenses or an after thought? What would you like to spend on a photographer? 
I am getting married in August and my photographer was probably the most important choice in my planning. I want beautiful and creative pictures that will be great memories. I didn't want just anyone taking them because I didn't want them just to be boring or horrible pictures. 
How do you feel about photography? 

cdomanta

Photography is VERY important to me, our wedding album is something that I will show my children and grandchildren one day. I love looking through my mom's album and looking at her beautiful pictures made me want to put photography high on my list. I must admit though, photography is very expensive...some people wanted like $5000 for their services!!! It was insane. Luckily, we found a photographer from our preferred vendor list from our site and after contacting her we knew she was the one.
I wanted someone who works with me personally and someone that I got along well with. I didn't want some stranger taking pictures of us so it was worth to spend the extra money from our budget on her. We are also getting a great wedding album as well and that is exactly what I wanted.

mrsamyjones

I wanted someone who was affordable, who could realize our vision for the photographs, and who knew how to shoot people in their best possible light. We wanted an artsy look to our photos and after finding very few photographers that could acheive what I wanted (literally met with over 15 photographers in person and looked at 50+ photographers online) we found our perfect match. All in all our photographer for all day on wedding day and an engagement session turned out to be $800 dollars which is pretty unheard of but he's amazing.

puokgirl

At first it seemed like all of the photographers I liked were way outside my budget.  Some of them wanted more than I make in a month for their services!  Just as it was looking like I needed to raise my budget I found a photographer on Craigslist who fit my needs.  She has since raised her prices, but I think she's worth it.

I really wanted someone who could do a mix of photojournalistic style and posed shots.  It goes without saying that the photos needed to be beautiful, but I also wanted to feel like our personalities meshed.  My mom is disabled and can act out occasionally, so I needed someone who could keep their calm.

So, that's how I picked my photographer.  She's in Sacramento, but she does SFBay area weddings too for the same price.  Check her out - http://www.focus28photo.com A sample of our e-photos is on her site.  We're Daniel and Danielle.

Aimee8314

the photographer was the second thing we booked (right after venue) because it was the most important.  We met with three and really liked two. We picked the one that had the personality that was most like ours (she liked to joke around like we do) and who was less expensive - she was very willing to work with what our style is and likes to work in photoshop to do some artistic things.  She will be doing some interesting things with our photos - but also leaving the originals in case that particular thing isn't what we wanted (like a sepia tint or whatever).  I'm very excited because our package included everything (flush mount wedding album and storybook engagement album)

licibee

Hi Aimee8314!  Did you book Stout Photography by any chance?