Photography Suggestions

valdagalcoffman

Hi Ladies!I am getting married 10-10-10 and would like to book a photographer soon since it is such a popular date.  I live in the DC area and am getting married in Chicago.  I am sure as many of you know, finding the right photographer takes time, since you want to make sure your personality matches that of the photographer.At any rate, I would appreciate any thoughts or recommendations you might have.  We would especially appreciate affordable photographers since they can usually run you a pretty penny.  We are looking at a budget of no more than $1400 for pictures - even then we would love to find something that is somewhat less expensive.  While we do not want to skimp on quality, we do not want to exceed our budget.Thanks!!  Val

kthame

I would HIGHLY recommend Danielle Aquiline. http://danielleaquilinephoto.smugmug.com/I am in LOVE with photography and she captures everything that I am looking for in wedding photography. She is incredibly sweet and very open. Her prices are GREAT for everything that you get. I met with her while I still had other appointments with photographers, and booked her once I got home and showed my FI the details. So excited to work with her.

mandybear7

Tasha at redwallphotography.comOne of her packages is under $1400 and she will customize stuff for her. We just had our e-pics with her and are so excited for the wedding!

valdagalcoffman

Thanks for the suggestion - but she is booked for all of 2009 & 2010.  POOP!

jacki_sue

I will sing the praises of Wes Craft from Modern Image Studios in Downers Grove until the day I die.  I actually know Wes personally, and he's shooting our wedding.  I am in LOVE with his work.J

TheDohertys

We booked with Heather Parker. Similar photographers we looked at were Life on Prints and Pen Carlson.

Browneyes19826

We're getting married 10/9/10, and we booked with GeorgeStreet.  They are great, my girlfriend just got married in August, and she used them, she just loves how her photos turned out. She can not say anything bad about them. They have some good deals going on right now, since they were picked for WGN's Dream Wedding!

NetWed3

I second George street.  I just got my engagement pictures back and absolutely love them! I had to pay a little extra to get the engagement session out of studio, but it was worth it to me.

lish_tish

Without a doubt- Steve Koo!  He did our engagement photos earlier this year, and our wedding just last Saturday.  He is amazing!

principessareale

heather parker is ours, and gets a lot of high marks here but she might be over your budget. its worth checking though.

AubsAndSean

We used Dale Jewell. He's budget friendly and we love our pictures!

dubiousscruples

We're using Justin of Beau Vaughn (he is the owner). I believe he's local, but will travel anywhere without charge. His rates start at $1800. http://www.beauvaughn.com

runenyc

Have you considered Zulufoto? I learned about him recently and I like his style. He told me that he'd do free engagement session or bridal portrait session and seemed pretty flexible with his packages. I'm going to be meeting with him this weekend to discuss some optiosn but like his work alot and his price seemed reasonable ($1500 ballpark depending on what you want). His site is www.zulufoto.com. Just another option.

marissamaier

If you would like any sort of quality photographs you are going to want to have a much larger budget. I worked in the wedding photography business and have seen too many horrible photographers. A lot of photographers that would fit in your budget don't include an album in their price and just hand you a CD of about 1000 unedited images. It's completely overwhelming to edit them down yourself and let alone have to design an album by yourself. We worked with an amazing album company that only dealt with professional photographers and they said brides would call them all the time trying to use their services because there aren't many QUALITY albums you can make on your own, plus most brides don't have the slightest clue on how to design a creative album. I'm just trying to say you get what you pay for. You can pay very little and get mediocre photographs, but I would look into moving your budget around to allow more photography. Do you really want to look back in 10 years at your Walmart made album?

AubsAndSean

I completely disagree with the last post. yes there are some amazing photographers out there for a higher budget. But for less than 1400 our photographer includes a photo album and the disk with all the EDITED photos. And I could not have been happier with his work. There are tons of budget friendly photographers out there who are not of "wal-mart" quality.  True, there are some out there... but this is why you research your vendors. Not just randomly pick who ever has the best deal.....

claire33

Hi Val,I don't have a recommendation for you, but I will warn you to stay as far away from Park Avenue Weddings / Roger Meucci as possible!  This company is a complete SCAM!  We got married in May 2007, and we never got our album.  Paid approx. $1300, up front.  We went through several album design sessions, approved a final PDF, and it was supposed to have been sent off to final print almost a year ago.Now all our emails / calls are ignored, and it seems they've dropped off the face of the earth - yet, the website is still active and I see they've shot weddings through last month.  It makes me sick to my stomach to think that we will never have a wedding album.So good luck picking your photographer, but I would go with an established company rather than some fly-by-night fraud to save a few bucks.  Please learn from our mistake, and be very careful about the company you choose.