We looked at a lot of them.
People are constantly telling us "get this person to do it" or "this person will do it for cheap!" but not being interested in having someone cheaply shoot our wedding on the Canon Rebel they just bought from Costco, I insisted on meeting with several photographers who's work impressed me and met my aesthetic!
First of all, for a guy who apparently couldn't care less about capturing memories of the most expensive day of our lives (he literally said he didn't care about the photos, "they just get stuffed in a box to never be looked at again right?" LOL), Nick was an absolute prince charming throughout the consultation process. Once he got it in his head we were going to be spending a quarter of our wedding budget on photos he took to meeting everyone, and being a supportive future groom like a duck takes to a pond -- graciously and with verve. I felt really supported by him.
Secondly, there are a lot of talented photographers among our family and friends and I don't want my Rebel crack to be misconstrued. I really wanted a photographer who has a lot of experience shooting weddings specifically, who would know how to get us out of our shells and direct us to get the best photos possible, and again, who fits a specific compositional and post processing aesthetic. Not only that, but I wasn't interested in having our friends and family busy taking pictures instead of living in the moment! Haha, I'm even considering making it an 'unplugged' wedding where everyone is asked to turn off their cell phones at the door.
Anyway, we contacted six photographers or photography companies, and met with three.
Our top three were:
All three of them are absolute artists and I'm a huge fan of all of their hard work and dedication to shooting amazing weddings.
In the end we decided to go with Genevieve, for a few key reasons. First of all, when we chatted with her she kept it light and informal, and genuinely seemed to want to hear all about our wedding plans. Not only did we spill everything to her, but she started immediately coming up with ideas as to how to shoot our wedding, timelines that would work best, even decor tips. She was just so knowledgeable and there wasn't a single moment when we were stuck as to what to say next. She prompted us along and always knew exactly what to say. That kind of intuitiveness really showed her professionalism and experience to us. We ended the call (she's from Calgary so we chatted over Skype) feeling like she would know exactly how to shoot our wedding. I could envision her having the same intuitiveness when she's shooting with us, knowing exactly what to say to make us smile, and what shots to take to make us happy. That's what I wanted.
I would highly suggest any of these talented local photographers, one thing I kept saying was that I had no idea before starting our search how many extremely talented professionals we had at our fingertips. It made deciding very difficult for us.
If I could share one tip with people about choosing a photographer I would say choose someone who you click with on a personal level. That's maybe not the most practical advise, and yes, we also love her photography, but the biggest deciding factor ended up being -- this is someone who I wouldn't mind having at my wedding as a friend and a guest, this is someone who I think will reduce stress on the day, rather then add it, and who will be professional and also have fun!
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