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So where were we in my rampant rambling about our photographer? Oh right—I hadn’t even told you who we picked yet…
Just that she let our smelly guy sit on her lap while she showed us a few STUNNING weddings she’d shot recently. Maybe you recognize a few?
I want to say thanks to everyone for their awesome compliments on my boudoir photos. A lot of you were wondering how to find boudoir photographers in your area and, after Lynn Michelle read my post, she had this awesome link to share with everyone.
(image found here)
A couple weeks ago I asked who you thought the top wedding photographers in the field were based on fame, name recognition, and editorial coverage (for a little project I’m working on). I have a couple down, but I need to choose one more and need your help deciding! Based on the aforementioned criteria and your responses, I’ve narrowed it down to these three - a little background info on each follows the poll.
We decided to go with Danny Weiss! Thank you to everyone who gave their input - I really appreciate it! At the end, it came down to two things:
We have a photographer! 
As a sidenote, since we both liked Yun so much as well, we may end up using him for our Chinese wedding.
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The search for a photographer continued. Unfortunately, Henry Chan was booked on our day; however, he recommended some photographers that were similar to his style. One of them was Angelica Glass. I love, LOVE her work. Go check out her website and you’ll see what I mean. We kept our fingers crossed while we waited to hear back from her. Alas, she was busy on our day too. It’s a freakin Friday in April! Why are all the good photographers booked already?
Another photographer that Henry recommended was Danny Weiss. Danny was very friendly in his emails, his enthusiasm and friendly personality clearly shining through. His prices are reasonable, with packages ranging from $2,750 to $5,200. He is free on our wedding day so we made an appointment to go see him. Here are some samples of his work:
Mr. Peppermint and I agreed from the start that the photographer would be one of the most important vendors for our big day. After all, it is the most tangible way to remind us of the day. For years to come, I know I’ll be looking at those photos. I love looking at the album from my parents wedding and other family wedding pictures.
The first major question we asked ourselves was regarding style: do we want more traditional pictures? Photos in the photojournalist style? I think a lot can be said for both. For an interesting article defending traditional photography, check out this article from Slate a few weeks ago. We decided we wanted a more modern/photojournalist style approach, but to make sure to include formals (make Mom & Dad happy 
). Another thing to think about was film versus digital. I was at first reticent to go with digital photography (yes, I can be a bit of traditionalist), but ultimately the flexibility it offers (and higher number of photos!) won me over.
So when we began our search, we had high expectations. We looked at a few of the top photographers (in both LA & Palm Springs) and in particular the ones our venue had referred us to. One of those was Michael Graham. We set up a meeting with him earlier this year (he actually goes between LA & Palm Springs so we were able to meet him in LA–yay for local vendors!), and knew we had found our photographer. Not only did we like his work (we already knew that from his website), but we also got along with him. I think it’s really important to find someone you feel comfortable around because you don’t want that to add stress to your day.
Here are a few favorite photos from his portfolio:
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Mr. Peony and I decided very early that the one thing we wanted to splurge on was photography. We’ve both studied photography and knew that after the wedding, when our memories start to fade, we will only have the photos to remember our wedding day. (Plus we’d be able to tell our grandchildren, “Look, grandpa and grandma weren’t always so old and wrinkly - look at these photos and see how young and vibrant we once were.”)
So we began scouring the web.
Immediately, Something in Blue caught my eyes. A husband and wife photography team, they are a favorite of many brides in the New York metropolitan area for their vivid shots with gorgeous lighting. A big plus was that they’d shot at our venue in the past, so we can get an idea of how our photos would look. Take a look at some of their work:
**warning…lots of pictures below 
So, I have to admit, I am a desk jockey and most, if not all, of our vendors were found via the good old fashioned internet. This isn’t to say that I didn’t research the people that I hired, but for the most part, booking our vendors has been a testament to the powers of the World Wide Web.
Argh…I’m kicking myself a little for not doing better research on our photographer. I hired his company after going to a bridal show and hating every photography booth except for his. I really liked the style of his photography and decided that it was worth the significant expense. However, since then I found two online reviews, both negative. I decided that we could avoid most of the pitfalls mentioned in the reviews by having a clear list of the photos we wanted and being up front about our priorities.
Well, we had our last meeting with our photographer before the wedding and it didn’t go so smoothly. We have had two prior meetings, and each went amicably. In the meantime, I’ve had a chance to look at photographs from other weddings and decide what I want for mine. Going in to this meeting, I knew that in addition to traditional ceremony posed shots and candid reception shots, I wanted photographs of the reception venue and its set-up before the guests arrive and the tables get trashed. With this in mind, I signed up for two photographers so we could get the coverage we need.
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