Weddingbee

As I’m sitting here trying not to sneeze goop all over the keyboard, I realize I never shared with you the engagement photos Mr. Sweet Tea and I took in New Orleans back in January. [Sorry to all the LA bees that made it up to the meet-up yesterday, but the prospect of a 5hr+ roundtrip drive made my head spin even worse! Hope it was fun!]

Let’s just say photography is important to me… as in, after the food and drinks and before the dress, it was my highest priority. There are some really great photographers around New Orleans (and I’ll feature some tomorrow!) that I emailed just after getting engaged in the hopes of talking to them about shooting our wedding.

For me, it’s not just about the splashy websites, fun blogs, or shiny photos on the internet that would sell me on our photographer (though I stalk photog’s blogs like whoa!). In addition to that, I needed to know all the gritty deets- what cameras they shot with, if their output files were RAW or jpg, what their working philosophy is, etc. And seeing full wedding shots (compared to just ‘highlight’) reels made a huge difference for me- it is amazing what doesn’t get shown from seemingly magazine-worthy weddings! Finally, they had to be able to meet one condition- that they shoot us in January while we were in New Orleans. Partly out of wanting Mr. ST to get comfortable in front of a camera, partly because I needed to see their output for myself, it was a no-go if someone wouldn’t be able to schedule with us in January.

After all that, we decided to schedule an engagement session with Chris Williams (photographer extraordinaire and proprietor of Zoeica Images) on the last full day we were in town. Talk about terrible timing! After several days of decently cool weather and sunshine, the morning of our scheduled photo shoot was absolutely freezing and drizzly. My hopes of getting shots of us on the cobblestone streets of the French Quarter were basically dashed, but we did manage to get a few nice outdoor shots on the rooftop of the Royal Sonesta hotel and on the walk from one indoor site to the next (the photos of me *without* my coat on in 30 degree weather are… hilarious, to say the least).

While it wasn’t my dream session, I feel confident enough in Chris’s abilities for our actual wedding, and am really happy we booked him. He’s much closer to the ‘real’ photojournalistic style we wanted, shoots both black and white and in color, and he’s promised to shoot at least a little bit o’ the wedding with his Leica (oh, Leica love. swoon.) All within our budget, too. Whew!

Without further ado, here are just a few of our favorite shots, and some in the hardbound proof book we got as part of the deal. My most difficult decision is whether or not I like the color or black and whites best. What do y’all think?

*this one above is a shot from his Leica M6!

Were any of your e-pic shoots thwarted by bad weather?

[All photos copyright of Zoeica Images]

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