Wedding Blog

A few days ago, Mr. Mary Jane and I got a chance to meet with our photographer, Shawna Noel, and her associate Kory Wallen.

A week or so prior, I realized that I needed to get in contact with Shawna ASAP because even though she had told us she’d love to shoot our wedding, we hadn’t worked out any details, we hadn’t discussed a contract or solidified pricing, and she didn’t know that we’d moved our wedding to another county. I also realized that I had never actually met Shawna before, though we are Facebook friends and I know a relative of hers. So it was definitely time to meet our photographer!

Shawna and I exchanged several emails (she was OK with our venue-change and still willing to shoot us, hurray!!), and ultimately decided that Mr. Mary Jane and I would meet her and Kory at their office for coffee. Then we’d be able to chat and also look at examples of their photos and fun stuff like that.

We showed up a bit before five and they had coffee waiting for us from my favorite shop: Caribou. Shawna’s office space was really inviting and modern. Crisp light gray walls, vases of fresh flowers, and beautiful poster-sized prints greeted us as we stepped inside. (Hmm, I wonder if light gray would work in a room of our house? It might be a little too modern. Hmmm!)

We started talking to Shawna and Kory and soon it was like we were old friends. I can tell this is going to work out well for us. We mostly chatted about life and photography and weddings (she reads Weddingbee, so she knows as much as I do about our big day!). We did chat a little about pricing: we’ll be paying a little more because our venue is a 45 minute drive away now, whereas the Grand Forks courthouse would have been practically within walking distance of their office. We expected that, and it’s more than fine. Looking at their pictures makes me forget my budget entirely.

All photos in this post are by Shawna Noel Photography. Visit the blog for thousands more.

We’ll have both Shawna and Kory shooting our wedding. We’ll get our images on a CD and it’ll probably take a month or a little more to get them back, depending on how busy Shawna and Kory are with editing. I understand: editing is hard work and it can be tedious! I was honestly surprised (and thrilled) that the photos could be done in as little as 3-4 weeks.

But speaking of forgetting about budgets: oh God, the albums they showed us. All along, I’ve been planning on getting some albums printed for our parents. Probably from somewhere like Blurb, Shutterfly, or MyPublisher. Then, I was going to either do one of those for us too, or spend some time scrapbooking our wedding for a really personal touch.

But then… Shawna and Kory drew our attention to their collection of gorgeous album options. They work with some professional printing companies (whose names escape me right now) to create The. Most. Gorgeous. Custom. Albums. Ever. One of them had a custom leather spine and a glass cover. A GLASS COVER!! It was an odd dimension: 8″x20″, and each page opened up to reveal a 16″x20″ print from the couple’s wedding day. I’ve never seen such a thing. I dared to ask what such a beauty might cost, and of course each one is different depending on the options you choose. This one was nearly $1000.

I always thought it was silly to spend so much money on an album. I can buy a photo album at Michaels for $12.99, after all! I can print photos from Walmart for 15 cents each! I can get a great Blurb book for under $100! But holy crap, ladies: this amazing album makes a run-of-the-mill photo album look like a pile of poo. This wasn’t an album: it was a work of art.

To my surprise, Mr. Mary Jane liked it even more than I did. It’s great to have a supportive groom (though our mutually-expensive tastes in many things certainly do “help” us spend our money!). The couple that didn’t want a photographer may have a very expensive wedding album in their future! (But our wedding album will kick other people’s wedding albums’ asses!)

I can’t find a good photo of something similar online: it was so cool and unique and custom. And though I brought a camera to the meeting, I forgot to load a memory card. Nice work, Miss Mary Jane, nice work.

Our little meeting was definitely a success. I am really happy to be working with Shawna Noel Photography. Shawna and Kory were both very laid back and easy to talk to. I’m sure our photos will be totally awesome, and I left the meeting feeling like I didn’t just have great photographers: I also had some cool new friends.

As a bonus, Shawna and Kory even gave me the business card of a florist friend she knows who can probably work with our very small bouquet budget! Grocery store flowers may not end up in my arsenal after all…

Did you spend some time getting to know your photographer before the wedding day? Have you given thought to where you’ll get your photo album(s)?