Take some time out of your day, an absolute must see!

Here is a photographers blog that is a must see! Especially right now, this slideshow is so stunning! I think the images are permantly burned in my mind for inspiration!

aperturaphoto blog

The Hardest Decision

While visiting with an old friend of mine, Michelle, she was showing me her friends fantastic wedding pictures, and their wedding blog
She was telling me about how they decided on a wedding photographer. They had also written a very interesting article on how they arrived at their decision, which I have decided to share.

The Hardest Decision
Of all the decisions that Ryan and I would have to make in planning this wedding, it turns out that the most difficult one was in choosing a photographer. This aspect of the wedding was particularly important to me. Well after we both say “I do,” after the cake has been cut and eaten, after the DJ announces the last dance, after all of our gifts are opened and the thank you cards are sent out, after the wedding is completely over and the wedding day is nothing more than a series of memories–we will always have the wedding pictures to look at. The same wedding pictures for the rest of our lives. Man, they better be perfect.
So choosing the person who is going to literally frame our day was not an easy task. My best man, Amy, was a huge help and kicked off the process by contacting a few local photographers to inquire whether they would be available on our date. Okay, so it turns out that not all of them were local. In fact, after I got very excited about one particular photographer, who was not only available, but within our budget, it turned out that he was based out of Austin, Texas.

I really liked his style, I just could not bring myself to paying $850 just to fly him and his wife out to Philadelphia just so they could take our picture. So, we did some more research.

We did not know much about photography, but we did know that we didn’t want our wedding pictures to look like wedding pictures. As I get older, most of the memories of this important day are going to be in some part shaped by how it is portrayed in the wedding pictures that we look at from time to time. I don’t want my memories of this day to wind up in anyway resembling the glossy images I have been looking at in every single wedding magazine I have been looking at for the last 6 months.

We were pretty sure we wanted the following things from a photographer:

He or she should shoot the wedding in a photojournalistic style. No portraits or possed shots. We want a record of what happened on that day. From the time we wake up, until we leave the reception with our tuxes all pulled apart after a night of dancing.
The photographer should have a distinct style. We can ask any of our friends to take pictures. But we want an artist to bring a vision to the photoshoot, and create something more than just a record of the event. The photgraphs should be able to stand on their own as a part of the wedding experience.
We want to own the pictures. We would prefer that the photographer shoot digitally, and then give us a copy of all the photographs as high resolution images on a cd or dvd. We are less concerned about purchasing fansy wedding albums. We can have those made later by our friends or ourselves. But we do want to own the images.
We want to have a good rapport with the photographer. This person is going to be a guest at our wedding. In fact, we will be feeding him or her. We want them to fit in, which will help them do their job, and be less intrusive to us and our guests. We also want to make sure that we share some similiar sensibilities. We are trusting them to interpret the events of the night and decide how to capture them as our memories. That is a lot of responsibility we are giving this person, and we want to be comfortable knowing that they will make decisions we would agree with.
They have to fit in our budget. This, was difficult. Many of you know that I have expensive taste, and looking for someone to fit that bill isn’t going to b inexpensive. But I was prepared to invest money on this aspect of the wedding. As I said before, we will be living with the consequences of this decision for the rest of our lives, so we should hire the right person. But we did put together a budget, and there is only so much we had to spend.
The whole process took us about two months. But the good news is, we have a wedding photographer. Check back shortly for my next blog post where i will talk more about the four different photographers that Ryan and I seriously considered, who we dicided to go with, and why we made that decision.

Real Wedding - Richelle and Doug

 Here are a few favorite images from Richelle and Doug’s wedding in Lakeville, MA. One of the best parts of the day was at the reception, at Lebaron Hills Country Club we went for a quick ride on a golfcart to the best part of the golf course to grab a few images. Here are just a few of my favorites from the slideshow

A few little notes
The getting ready pictures were at Holiday Inn Express, Middleboro MA
The Ceremony was in a Church right down the street
The Reception was at Lebaron Hills Country Club
I don’t know who did the hair, or where the dress came from, but both were beautiful!