Decisions, Decisions: Photographers

We were entirely at a loss as to how to begin looking for wedding photographers, so we started out following Jill's advice, left in the comments of this post: by googling "wedding photos + View on the Hudson" to see other photographers who had shot at our venue specifically, and how their pictures had turned out.

My mom had also been looking, and we got ideas from friends and relatives as well as, in at least one case, from a wedding blog, which left us with a pretty substantial list, that we then narrowed down by price, style, and grammar. (Listen, photographer-who-shall-remain-nameless: If you think that saying "da" instead of "the" is cool, that's your prerogative. But if you think that using it in on your professional website is appropriate, you have to expect that you will drive away those potential customers who do not think that using "da" instead of "the" is cool.)

We arranged to meet with as many of the photographers as was possible on a single day, and spent a weekend in NY that looked like lots of our weekends in NY do lately: the wedding-family-wedding-family-wedding sandwich. (It went photographer #1 - graduation party - photographer #2 - grandparents' house - photographer #3.)

The first photographer we met with was Ryan Kaplan from Small Moments Studios in Suffern. As we left, we looked at each other and Ben said, "I'd be fine canceling the other appointments now." We thought Ryan's photography and his personality were wonderful and would fit our wedding perfectly, but we decided to go through with the remaining appointments anyway.

After my cousin Emma's 8th grade graduation party, we met a second photographer, whose photography was beautiful but whose personality didn't do it for us. Then, after stopping by my grandparents', where Grandma gave us homemade cookies and zucchini from the garden, we met with the last photographer. Her photography and personality were both wonderful, and she gave Ryan a serious run for his money. We thought we could have worked well and been happy with either of them, but in the end we decided that Ryan's style better fit our needs. (His price was better, too; there wasn't a huge discrepancy, but we did feel extra confident in our decision, since all the relevant factors - style, personality, price - lined up.)

We're very excited to work with Ryan!