In my "real life" (you know, the pre-wedding planning frenzy life) I'm pretty crazy about taking pictures. My little digital elph camera is always tucked into my purse, ready to make an appearance at the first sign of something cute/interesting/embarrassing. I've been known to take hundreds of pictures in a night of hanging out with my friends, and once, on a three week cruise with Mr. Chickadee, we managed to take 3,000 pictures.
So, you can imagine how important wedding photography is to me.
Prior to getting engaged, I thought I knew exactly who my wedding photographer would be. You see, when I was a senior in high school I had my pictures taken by David Lee. David Lee was the best around and back then everyone went to him for senior pics. When we got the pictures back, I was amazed! It was the first time I ever felt really pretty in pictures and I was convinced it was all due to David Lee's great skills.
So the first thing I did upon getting engaged was buying up all the wedding magazines at Barnes & Noble, but the second thing was calling David Lee. However, I was devastated when I found out he didn't do weddings! Apparently I had just overlooked the fact that there was no "wedding" link on his website. What? It could happen to anyone!
So I turned to my local wedding planning webpage to find the names of some other photographers. If you're feeling stumped about some of your own vendors, try seeing if there's a local board out there with suggestions. You can also turn to your local Knot board if it's at all active. Living outside of any one metropolitan area, though, I've never really found a "home" on the Knot boards. If you really can't find a photographer up to your standards, don't settle! Many awesome photographers will travel to your location for a pretty reasonable fee.
I narrowed my search down to three photographers in the Bloomington-Normal area:
1. Schilling Photography: This was one of the very first photographers I found that seemed to capture what I envisioned. My love affair with Schilling Photography was short lived though. After e-mailing them and finding out about their packages I was a little disappointed. One of my major concerns was that they shot in film, so the pictures were limited to (what I thought) was a pretty low number. I'm not that photogenic so I figured we would need unlimited pictures in order to get enough where both Mr. Chickadee and I were looking fabulous.
2. Bruer Photography: I still look at Bruer Photography's website and ooh and ahh over their pictures. I think they have a really beautiful and artistic style. Unfortunately, my attempts to contact them were wildly unsuccessful. I ended up e-mailing them twice and when I didn't receive a response within a few weeks, I started calling....like once or twice a day (I am persistent). No one ever picked up the phone, although I did eventually get a response from the emails I sent. I was already in contact with another photographer by this point (see below) but I did email them back to get some pricing information and see if we could meet. I didn't hear back from them until several months later when I had already signed a contract with another photographer. In my opinion, if a vendor cannot even return emails or phone calls, I will not feel comfortable working with them for something so important.
3. (Ok, so I saved the best for last!) Mark Romine: Mark is another photographer I found through the Bloomington-Normal wedding page. I contacted him almost immediately and was so excited to see an email back from him the next day! He's wonderful about responding to all my long and obnoxious emails . In the first couple emails we exchanged, Mark shared with me some of his photo album designs which really sealed the deal for me. Mr. Chickadee, his mom, and I met with Mark and his wife Susan last Spring and we clicked really well. I figured we would walk in, be handed some information about pricing, and be asked if we had any questions. Instead, we went to their gorgeous studio and chatted for over and hour. We saw albums & proof books of weddings, engagements, and family pictures. One thing I really liked about Mark was the vibrancy of his shots. Mr. Chickadee, on the other hand, was satisfied to hear that Mark had shot the wedding of one of his favorite U of I basketball players. If he was good enough for Robert Archibald, he was good enough for us!
Below are some samples of Mark Romine's work. All the copyright belongs to him, so please don't take and reproduce or anything.
Mr. Chickadee and I are planning an engagement session in October, so I'll keep you all updated on how it goes! Feel free to contact me if you have any other questions about Mark. He's also got a portrait site, if you're like me and love to look through all the cute pictures of kids.
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