I&#8217;m a Snob&#8230;

I’m a Snob…

October 4th, 2011 @ 3:02 pm by Mrs. Funnel Cake
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(…a photography snob!)

Hive, I haven’t really talked to you about photography yet. Which is weird, because it’s our number one priority on the wedding list. Sooo important, that about a year ago I began intensively searching for THE photographer to document our day. (And quickly found out that searching for a photographer from across the ocean is hard.)

(Source)

Although I grew up in Columbus, when it came to searching for sensational, jaw-drop-inducing photographers, I was clueless where to begin. Money wasn’t even the issue. Within reason, we were willing to pay for top quality, but it was difficult finding Columbus photographers that I truly loved. I’m just so damn picky! And when I did find someone I wanted to connect with, I had the predicament of being six time zones ahead in Switzerland. (Skype and I became good friends.)

Mr. Funnel Cake decided to just leave the whole decision up to me to find someone that I was happy with, but he would join me in the Skype calls to “meet” with photographers together.

Many Columbus photographers were “affordable” to us (depending on how you interpret that word), but if I hated the photos, spending $500-$1500 would be a complete waste of money for us. Would you pay $1k for photos you think are terrible? I hope not. And yes, again… I know I am a photo snob. I wanted to really love our photos (knock on wood) so I upped my price point significantly to find better portfolios. But I was SO fickle that I only found two photographers in Columbus with a portfolio I liked enough to seriously contact. (Ironically, months after I chose a photographer, I found way more Columbus photographers when I became a bee and started sourcing photos for blog posts. DOH! Why didn’t I think of the blog search method sooner?)

Shortly after I started my photographer search, I began learning about the relationship between photography quality and cost. I drew a little graph to help explain…

The blue dots represent Columbus photographers. They were all within our desired budget, but their quality was not up to my standards. The red dots represent out-of-state photographers. (I did search statewide in Ohio and was mildly impressed with some Cleveland area photographers, but not wow-ed.) The traveling photographers are all over the scale in both price and quality. In general, paying for someone to drive or fly from out of state is more expensive than hiring someone locally, but I noticed that the cost of hiring someone from out of state was not THAT much more expensive than hiring the best Columbus photographers. Sometimes it was even less.

Now onto the numbered points:

Mama Funnel Cake is under the belief that you can get plenty of great photos from guests and that photographers are a waste of money. She feels this way because she liked her wedding guests’ photos better than her own wedding photographer’s photos. Obviously I rate this idea pretty low on the quality scale. (Remembering photos that I’ve taken personally…)
The Columbus photographers with good portfolios were strong contenders on the quality scale, but there was something off when I looked through their entire weddings. I knew if I chose them I would probably regret it later.
Like every bride out there, I was aiming for a balance between price and quality that I could be happy with! Everyone wants to hit this nail on the head without breaking the bank. For sister Funnel Cake, this meant doing option #1 and forgoing a photographer, which worked well for her but was not what I wanted to do. Everyone is different!
Sadly, we are not billionaires, so there were definitely price points of photographers waaay beyond our reach.

But I did decide that if I was going to pay a large chunk of change for photos, I might as well pay that plane ticket and fly in someone that I love, love, LOVE than settle for someone local that I’m slightly unimpressed by. So I expanded my photography search nationwide and stumbled upon some of these photographers:

(Photo by Next Exit Photography)

(Photo by Flory Photo)

(Photo by silvastills+cinema)

(Photo by Huy Phan Photography)

If you can’t tell from this quick selection, I like bright, vivid photos and wide sweeping landscapes. Mmm mmm mmm. Show me the scenery and show me the details! I noticed that more often than not, I was interested in photographers from California of all places.

One Bay photographer was curious how on earth someone from Switzerland having a wedding in Ohio found his portfolio and why they would want to fly him in, but I was really open to searching anywhere in the US for my dream photographer. It’s not like we’re Columbus locals ourselves, so why should our photographer be?

Did you look at any photographers outside your area?

Tags: columbus, photography |

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25 Responses to “I’m a Snob…”

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Member

zippitydoodah (message) 154 posts, Blushing bee

I didn’t look outside our area (we’re from right outside Toronto so there are TONS of options), but I did go way over budget! I’m a bit of a photography snob myself (my Grandpa was a professional photographer) and I quickly found out that anyone who I was really impressed in and who had the amount of experience I wanted was thousands over our budget. But oh boy do I LOVE our photographer… he’s the one wedding purchase that I’ve never regretted or thought twice about it, and just makes me that much more excited for our wedding I’ve done a good job at changing the budget around so we could save money in other places, and I think it’s worth it!

10/4/11 @ 3:37 pm (reply)

Member

Melanie11 (message) 560 posts, Busy bee

I didn’t look outside our general geographic area, but I can relate to the photography snobbery. I don’t want to break the bank over the photos, but it was the one area where I wasn’t going to cut costs wayyy down. I figure, the photos are THE one thing from the wedding that are going to be around forever. Not the food, not the cake, not the music. Like you, I asked myself, why would I pay even $500 for photos I hate? I love the photographer we ultimately chose. The price is reasonable, though not cheap by most standards, and his photos just make me go, “Ahhh…so prettyyyy!!”

10/4/11 @ 3:47 pm (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Parasol (message) 2,132 posts, Buzzing bee

Of course you started looking at California Bay Area photographers! We do have the best! And yes, I’m talking about our photographers. I can’t wait to see who you chose. And I totally 100% agree with everything in this post. Great photos were our #1 priority, and we were willing to up our budget to get exactly what we wanted. Why pay $2000 for something you hate when you can pay $3500 and get what you actually want? In that scenario, the $2000 is wasted, while the $3500 is well spent. It may seem crazy to others, if that’s what you want and you’re willing to spend it, go for it!

10/4/11 @ 4:01 pm (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Hyena (message) 1,881 posts, Buzzing bee

I love the shot of the mouse shoes! What a fun idea. We only looked local for our photos, but I was happy with plenty of our options!

10/4/11 @ 4:15 pm (reply)

Member

shelliduke (message) 412 posts, Helper bee

I didn’t have to look outside our area, as I found our amazing photographers pretty quickly, but photography was definitely priority #1 for us. And we did end up flying in a videographer, after we started out not even wanting a video, because he was so amazing and literally the ONLY one I found that I liked.

I guess I’m a snob too, but my mom acted the same way about photography! She said “I’ve noticed that all the photographers get the same shots. There are some black and whites, and some pictures of everybody on a hill, but everyone looks really nice so the pictures can’t come out bad. So you should just hire any old person.” (second part was paraphrased.) I’m SOOOOOOOOO glad I didn’t listen to that (terrible) advice.

10/4/11 @ 5:35 pm (reply)

Guest

Nicole

I’m a huge photography snob and blew a full 25% of our budget on ours. But I knew the moment I saw her work that I absolutely *had* to have her take pictures at my wedding. We’re in the Sacramento, CA region which has a surprising dearth of good photographers so we’re having her drive in from the bay area but I know that it will be well worth the extra cost.

10/4/11 @ 6:21 pm (reply)

Member

Future Army Wife (message) 1,101 posts, Bumble bee

Two of my cousins got married in Columbus. I could always ask who they used if you haven’t booked yet.

10/4/11 @ 6:53 pm (reply)

Guest

SoontobeBride

we found a fabulous photographer in Portland OR - he travels all over and is SO FUN! Not to mention great price and I just loved him and his wife. His wife (2nd Photographer) made me want to hug her like she was my best friends Mom or something. I can’t wait to work with them at our Wedding Celebration
Just in case anyone is looking, I had such a hard time finding someone affordable and personable.
http://www.michaelhacker.com

10/4/11 @ 7:54 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Doe (message) 540 posts, Busy bee

Oh my gosh you are going to have incredible photos!!! And uhh…Silva Stills + Cinema? That’s my neck of the woods!

10/4/11 @ 8:37 pm (reply)

10.

Guest

wedding designer

I love to photography. it is very good job for fun and it is very hard job for making very good photography for bride and groom. Because wedding day come once in life. we can go further that time and movement

10/5/11 @ 1:59 am (reply)

11.

Member

SydneyScribbler (message) 36 posts, Newbee

Oh man, I can relate. I live in Australia, my wedding is in Massachusetts, and I’m flying my photographer in from California. Some of my friends think I’m nuts. But by doing it this way, I’ve managed to get the photographer of my dreams AND save a bundle! Our photographer is far less expensive than any of the Boston photographers I talked to, and he threw in a bunch of freebies. I’m using my frequent flier miles to cover the flights, and the only other expense on top of is regular fee is a hotel room and a rental car. So in the end, it was cheaper to fly him in — along with his talented wife, who will be a second shooter at no extra cost. I think it’s smart to look outside your geographical area… you broaden the talent pool, and it is NOT always more expensive. Win-win!

10/5/11 @ 4:17 am (reply)

12.

Member

Acorn13 (message) 23 posts, Newbee

I’m getting married in Cleveland but live in Columbus…photography is really important to us as well and we ended up with a Columbus photographer. She is amazing and actually has a lot of pictures that look like the same style you posted…just wanting to represent that Columbus is not all bad! You can check out her work at http://www.unveiledphoto.com/

10/5/11 @ 5:48 am (reply)

13.

Member

Acorn13 (message) 23 posts, Newbee

Her name is Timary Lee forgot to mention that.

10/5/11 @ 5:50 am (reply)

14.

Member

Ms.Bookworm (message) 76 posts, Worker bee

Our photographer is from out of state too! but she’s really a friendor of a friend from college, but it’s driveable ddistance so no plane ticket which makes me very happy!

10/5/11 @ 6:21 am (reply)

15.

Guest

beesgf

Am I the only one thinking this is ridiculous??
You are going to pay to fly in a photographer? Are you kidding? Memories are great, beautiful photography is great, but what on earth are you going to do with all these photos anyways? Honestly, this post has stunned me. It is one day, granted it is a wonderful day, but it is one day. I really can’t believe this…

10/5/11 @ 6:24 am (reply)

16.

Member

MStivers (message) 125 posts, Blushing bee

I live in Seattle and I am getting married in central California … and my photographer is from Chicago. How did this happen? His (Darrin Ballman.com) daughters live in California and so he is trying to expand his business out west. So I loved his photography and he gave me a great price. So far he has been very open to communication and understands that I really don’t know what I am doing or how my day will go, but he will work with me. My wedding is 5/5/12 and I am very excited (nervous? a bit.) to meet him

10/5/11 @ 7:48 am (reply)

17.

Member

Zusie (message) 247 posts, Helper bee

I’m in a little bit of a photographer pickle. I signed up for a free engagement session and won (yay!). The photographer is building her portfolio so I thought that this would be mutually beneficial.
We had the photo session and there are certainly good photos that we can use, but none of them wowed me. I’m not happy with the way that I look in about half of the photos and I don’t know whether that is just me being self critical or if it is because she wasn’t able to capture the best angles for my body or my face. I say “I” because there aren’t that many photos of my fiance looking at the camera and again I don’t know if that was the photographer or him.
My fiance feels like we should use her for the wedding or else we will be taking advantage, but I’m not sure.

10/5/11 @ 8:26 am (reply)

18.

Member

Zusie (message) 247 posts, Helper bee

@beesgf: In most cases the photos are the only record of the day aside from the license and the memories. Just think of your grandchildren looking at your wedding album. I do think that there are a lot of frivolous things that people buy for weddings, but I don’t think that this is one of them.
Most people spend a lot of money on things to make the wedding and yourself look good and to make the most of that you need a photographer that can help you make it look even better.

10/5/11 @ 8:33 am (reply)

19.

Member

Entangled (message) 2,616 posts, Sugar bee

We used a traveling photographer (www.kylehepp.com). She is out of Santiago, Chile and we got married in northern California. Admittedly, there are tons of good (if quite expensive) photographers in our area, but given the going rate, it wasn’t much more to fly Kyle and her husband in. I’m not sure I would have done it if she weren’t someone I already knew (she went to high school with my MOH and shot her wedding last year), and it was a little more complex, but I’ve seen some of the pictures already, and I’m so glad we went this way. They were fun and awesome to have around, the pictures I’ve seen so far (~100, maybe) are amazing, and her travel schedule means lots of travel time to edit pictures… she had a 30 picture preview post on her blog before we left for our honeymoon!

I was definitely someone who thought a photographer wasn’t really necessary when we went into planning, but the more research I did, the more I changed my mind on this. It’s not really about the formal shots and posed pictures of the bridal party and family… it’s about seeing the images that really capture how much fun everyone was having, how my husband and I were looking at each other all day, and the trouble our guests got up to.

10/5/11 @ 8:35 am (reply)

20.

Guest

Margaret

This photographer is based out of Lexington, KY but I know does weddings in Ohio. I went to college with her, and happen to be facebook friends, which is how I came across her blog. I don’t know if it’s your style- but thought I would point it out!

http://stephanielyell.com/blog/

10/5/11 @ 1:17 pm (reply)

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