Weddingbee Blog

Have I told you how we snagged our photographer? About two weeks after the engagement, at the same coffee date where I asked MOH Ginger to be my MOH (she almost cried, and it was sooo cute), I was chattering about how nervous I was about paying for a wedding while leaving financial wiggle room for my future “must-have” whims later on. So Ginger casually mentioned that her boyfriend’s friend’s wife is a photographer, and a pretty darn good one, but isn’t full-blown professional yet. She offered to reach out to her to see what she had to say about rates and her willingness to take us on.

Imagine my absolute elation when MOH Ginger emailed me with a response from our photographer—Hillary Shorts of Short’s Shots—saying she had STUNNINGLY LOW rates and very flexible terms, and would do our engagement photos FOR. FREE. She pointed us to several albums worth of wedding photography she’d already done, and she had just the look we were going for! No, she didn’t have the super-swanky lighting or vast array of props that pricier photogs offer but, honestly, I couldn’t tell the difference for our tastes. She had great detail shots, captured emotion, and made excellent use of natural light. So we pretty much booked her on the spot, pending a face-to-face meeting with her.

We met her at a Starbucks one weekend and were smitten. She’s adorable and was at the time pregnant, which made her even cuter. (I have the babies rabies, and drool all over anything baby related.) We all totally hit it off, and she said several things I loved, chief among them: “I don’t like to do a whole lot of ‘pose-y’ shots—I will do some, but I’d rather capture you naturally.” Yes! Thank you, please!

We scheduled our engagement session for Ybor City, a historic area with great architecture, which she chose for us after we told her we weren’t huge “photos on the beach” or nature people. Since we’re getting married in a botanical park, we figured the pavement-and-brick shots would balance out our portfolio of love quite well. I was especially excited to get to know Hillary more and see how we clicked.

We had such a blast, and she provided us with so many amazing shots that we were totally blown away. After we posted them on Facebook, we had several comments from people, both there and in real life, commenting how well she did her job, how classy they are, how…US they are. And given that we are getting her at an absolute steal, I can honestly say it’s one of the vendors I’m most proud of out of the whole shindig.

We are so excited to have her shoot our big day! How did you find your photographer? Was it a breeze? Was it a splurge? Let me see your engagement photos.

*All photos by Short’s Shots