Photography: Part One

Image copyright 2008, Blue World Studios, Inc.

Like many other brides, after securing the man, the date, and the location, all I cared about was finding a good photographer.  Unfortunately, everyone I had heard about and liked the style of in Atlanta was WAY out of our price range.  So one night I decided it was time to stop daydreaming and do some research.

I am sure there is a better way to do this, but I will be honest about my painstaking process.  I found the Knot Georgia Bio, and went to the Photography page.  I then researched every photographer on the list.

When I went to each photographers page, I had a mission.  First, I looked to find pricing.  Before I even looked at the pictures.  Some people might find this crazy, but I didn't want to get all excited about the pictures before discovering that packages started at $10,000.  (I had already done that.)  If pricing wasn't listed or it started over $4,000, I closed the page and moved on to the next.

If the price was right, I started looking through the albums.  I was looking for a somewhat photojournalistic style, that still spoke of the couple, their personalities, and their family and friends.  I found that much photojournalistic photography was too artistic for my taste, and looked more like a magazine than a cherished wedding album.  So I was basically looking for something artistic that also spoke to me and tugged on my heart.

Strange to say, but of the many, many websites I looked at (I estimate overall at least thirty) I only found one photographer who fit into my requirements.  I opened the page, checked the price, and moved on to the galleries.  And I just sat there with my mouth open.  My heart was definitely touched by what I saw.

I quickly moved on to the next step of my research: Actually checking to see what knotties had to say about the photographer.  When I saw that every review was good, I walked over to Ryan.  I held my laptop open.  "Look, I found our wedding photographer."

Ryan looked at the images briefly.  (I was, after all, interrupting World of Warcraft.)  "It's perfect.  It's beautiful and the focus is on the people."

I spent the next few days blogstalking Blue World Studios before I found the courage to contact my very first wedding vendor crush.  They were open on our date!  (In fact, they said I was way ahead of the January wedding curve.  I might have overwhelmed them with my excitement.)  So I went to meet with Janet and EJ.

Can I tell you how nervous and shy I was, like it was my first date?  (Janet and EJ, if you ever read this, please forgive my intense awkwardness.)  But I didn't know what the appropriate protocol was for meeting with a wedding vendor when what I really wanted to say was, OhmygoshIloveeverythingyoudopleasebemyphotographerandfriend!

I knew my father would definitely not approve of such behavior.  So I held it in, but I hope my intense amount of smiling helped.  I loved them, eventually Ryan and my family met them, and everyone was happy.  The day my dad emailed to say he had booked them, I did a huge happy dance around my apartment.  I think that moment was better than the moment I found "The Dress."

So that's enough out of me!  Go check out Blue World Studios!  Not only are they incredible photographers, but they have bigger hearts than most people I have come into contact with.  And not just for humans, but for animals too.  And their love of others and understanding of human emotion is apparent in their work and it sounds like in their lives.  (My counseling background is showing, I apologize.)  I can't wait to work with Janet and EJ and have some emotionally perfect wedding artwork of my very own.

Did anyone else have to muster their courage to contact a wedding vendor crush?  Do other people even use that phrase?