Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Santa Barbara Dreamin'

Going into all of these festivities, having a wonderful photographer to document the fun along the way was basically #1 on my list. This is a once in a lifetime event, and Mike and I both wanted once in a lifetime photos. We also wanted them to be a certain style - something modern. Not like the photos where in every single one, everyone is posed and smiling awkwardly. No thanks!

Emily gave me a website that listed all of the noteworthy photojournalistic photographers in the area, and I was able to narrow it down to a few choices. We scheduled appointments with four of them in September. The first person we met with was named Frederick. He had a cute little studio in downtown Los Gatos. He works with his wife, and they were both very friendly. They walked us through some of their shots and packages, and it all looked pretty good. I have a hard time evaluating pictures when they are of random people. When my friends are in them, all of the sudden they become much better.

The package that we were most interested in getting included an engagement session as well. We definitely wanted that because, when do you ever have a good excuse to get beautiful photos taken of yourself? You might as well live it up!

As we were talking about the engagement photos, Frederick mentioned that we should take them in a place that was really meaningful to us, like a restaurant or place we met. Mike jokingly replied, "Do you travel to Santa Barbara? That is a place with the most meaning for us." He pointed us to his travel rate, and then said, "I love Santa Barbara - I graduated from college there." Of course, we instantly connected over Gaucho memories and talked about campus and the town a bit. He said that he would love to have an excuse to get back down to SB. And also said, "But you know, I have so many friends in Santa Barbara still that I would love to go and see. If that is where you wanted to go and you go with us, I won't charge you the travel fee. It will be like a mini vacation for me." SCORE!

We left feeling really good about our meeting, and about Frederick, but we wanted to meet a few other photographers as well.

Our second meeting was with another husband and wife team - a recommendation I had gotten from a colleague at work. They showed us scores and scores of albums of their beautiful photos, and asked us a lot of questions about how our day was going to run. I really appreciated their attention to detail, and it was clear that they go into their events with a plan of attack, so to speak. He also gave us a lot of ideas on what to ask other photographers, about lighting, inclusions, etc.

Leaving the meeting, Mike said to me, "That guy talks too much." So, he was off the list.

I emailed back and forth with the two others, but we couldn't really nail down a date that would work for both of us, and one of the photographers wouldn't leave the city for a meeting, so we would have to go to her, which was just going to be too demanding given our busy schedules during that time of year.

We talked and thought back to Frederick. We were both so instantly at ease with him, and felt that he was a very genuine guy who put a lot of detail and thought into what he does. We emailed him a score of questions that we had learned to ask from our other meeting (14 questions, to be exact). He responded within a day to each and every one of them. When we looked at the contract and had questions/revisions, again, got back to us in a day. Mike and I both appreciate efficiency and responsiveness, so we were further impressed and convinced that Frederick was our photographer. We asked him to be there with us on our wedding day.

The next big step was scheduling our photo session in Santa Barbara - which for Mike and I was a dream. We ultimately would have wanted to get married in SB which was the place of so many of our memories. But the travel time was going to prove to be too cumbersome. But, as you will see, Santa Barbara and our time there will be a big part of our wedding - starting with these awesome photos!

We scheduled a date for November, and hoped and hoped and hoped that the weather wouldn't give us too much trouble. Sometimes it is gorgeous in November, and sometimes it is foggy and aweful.
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