Tracking Down the Photographer

Much to Tom's chagrin, our wedding photography package includes an engagement session. For those of you keeping track, this means TWO engagement sessions for us. The first session was taken by my mom over Labor Day weekend at our wedding venue. The second will be taken by the professional who is also taking our wedding pictures. Tom HATES having his picture taken. In fact, hatred would be an understatement. He loathes the idea. That is why I am insisting on the second engagement session, rather than swapping it out for something else.

Before I am accused of being insensitive, let me give my case. Wedding photography is expensive. As far as our wedding budget goes, the only thing more expensive than the photography is catering dinner for all 100 or so of my guests. If I'm going to pay more than $1000 for pictures, they better be good pictures. Hence the second engagement session. I already have all the engagement pictures I want. The ones that my mom took are gorgeous, and I have them displayed all over the place. I also used them for our save-the-dates and I plan on using them for our invitations. The reason I am going for the second engagement session for a trial run with the photographer. How do our personalities blend, is he someone we can work with? How do his pictures come out, is it our style? and most importantly, can he capture good pictures of Tom, without Tom necessarily realizing he is having his picture taken? The company that we purchased our photography package from has several photographers, so better to find this information out early when I still have the chance to switch if I need to.

When I chose the photographer, I did so because I fell in love with his portfolio. I have always loved "art shots" in photography, and that is really what I want our wedding photography to be. The way I look at it, anybody can take pictures of me in my dress, but a true photographer can catch the overall feel of the wedding. It took me countless phone calls to the manager of the company providing the photography and the tuxes to finally get a phone call from the photographer. I finally have the photographers phone number and email address, now it is just a matter of figuring out where, and when we want our professional engagement pictures done.