Wedding Wednesday: Our Photographer!

Happy Wednesday and welcome to the new folks from the giveaway I'm hosting on Meg's blog!!

I'm very excited to share our photographer with all of you today!

Any couple planning a wedding has their planning priorities, and one of ours was absolutely our photographer. I definitely did my research: I went to WeddingWire, the knot, and asked friends. I interviewed about 18 photographers over the phone and kept a spreadsheet with notes. Then I ranked them and had a list of my top 11 photographers. My next task was to limit the list down to five photographers and then Andrew and I would decide together. Honestly, there were so many awesome options that getting them to five was tough! So I gave Andrew 6.

After all of that, within MINUTES Andrew identified his favorite. I either know him really well or he's incredibly decisive. 

Either way, I was pumped with his favorite since she was my fave all through the process. Literally seconds into our phone conversation I knew we would get along. We gabbed and gabbed before we talked about photography. She was so awesome over the phone that I wish we met in person! Not even half of the photographers I spoke with asked any personal questions about me and Andrew. I was advised by every source that it is essential for personalities to be compatible with the photographer since they'll be with us all day. Some photographers just described their packages over the phone and that was that. Booooring. 

Once we passed our favorite by my parents, I called her and she said yes! Yay!!!

Tessa from Starling Studio is our photographer!

She gave me permission to share some of her photos from her Facebook albums. It's very difficult to choose among all of the beautiful options, but here are a few:

We just love her style and the quality is exactly what we are looking for in our photos. 

Also, check out this wedding featured on the studio website: the reception was at our venue and those photos were a huge selling point!! So so so gorgeous!

So there you have it! We're pumped and can't wait to meet Tessa on our next trip to Ohio!

Wedding Wednesday

Happy Wednesday! 

This weekend Andrew and I started the fun task of sorting through the ridiculous amount of photographers in the Columbus area. Wowsah. So many!

So far we are considering photographers who are obviously in our budget and have affordable packages for 10 hours/all day.

We're also looking through recommended photographers from my sorority sisters' weddings (heck yeah word of mouth!). Our process so far is to scroll through websites and the portfolios therein, asses available packages, and decide whether or not we want to contact them for further information.

...and I have to stop being a snob about the websites. Yes, I do web analytics for a living and work with incredibly talented web designers so I get particularly frustrated when I see junk on the screen trying to sell me. I need to get over it. However, web design is a good investment! Sheesh! 

[End soap box.]

But yeah, any photographer can post pretty pictures on their site. How do you know who to choose? I'm thinking I should Yelp all of these photographers and see if they're rated anywhere like The Knot or WeddingWire...which means they cost more, right? 

Do you have any tips on finding the right photographer?

I read Le Magnifique Blog's post on the subject. The author, Damaris, provided tips and I created a list of what to look for when hiring a photographer:

I also read the below tips for photographers on Pinterest, so at least I can see if the photographer will do these things:

Source: cooldailyinfographics.com via ♥ Jevel Wedding Planning | Jennifer E Wilson ♥ on Pinterest

Do you have anything to add? How did you choose yours? Since we won't meet any of them in person until we hire one do you have any questions that we should ask them over the phone?

Thanks for your input!