Wedding Splurge: Photography!

I am all smiles over my photography deal! :)

This post is a bit behind the times, but I am so excited to announce that we have found our wedding photographer. For those of you who know me personally, you know that picking a photographer has not been an easy decision or process. Many of you have probably gathered from previous posts that Johnny and I have been planning our wedding on a budget with the aim of creating a beautiful wedding without procuring a hefty debt in the process.

Establishing a budget is often the first step when planning a wedding. It helps couples to set limits and to allocate funds into categories that are high priorities for them, to help them focus on the areas they want to splurge on or simply cut completely altogether. For some brides, they want to focus on a gorgeous dress, the perfect venue, or spend the majority of the budget on the food. For me, the area I was most willing to splurge a little extra money toward was our wedding photography. Besides our own personal memories on our wedding day, pictures are the best way to preserve those little moments for the future years. However, it's important not to take the idea of splurging too far either or to spend a disproportionate amount on something. In order to keep from doing this, we placed the payment of said photographer to come out of the funds I contributed to our budget. This would guarantee that I ended up with what I wanted and that I'd be careful in my selection. You are far more discerning when it's your own money paying for something! Believe me, the search for our photographer has proven that!

Once we established who would pay for our wedding photography, my next step was to examine the expectations I had for our wedding photographer. Of course, I had very high expectations. I wanted a professional photographer, someone who did photography as their livelihood and not simply on the side. I wanted someone who did this type of work a lot and had lots of experience, who wouldn't be experimenting with ideas or trying out new functions on their camera at my expense. In other words, I didn't want a point and shoot amateur who just got adobe photo shop on their computer. I wanted someone with talent and a good eye, who could produce beautiful pictures and knew how to enhance them in the post production phase. I also wanted all these things at an affordable price...which I didn't think was too much to ask for.

That being said, until I searched Google, I wasn't aware there were so many photographers in the Chattanooga area that specialized in wedding photography. There were still more to choose from on Facebook and in the bridal magazines. I was immediately overwhelmed. I also realized it would be difficult to eliminate photographers based on posted prices, since a high majority of websites excluded pricing altogether, requesting instead my email address or phone number before it would be sent. I found this to be rather irksome, especially when I didn't receive timely responses back from my inquiries. I'm sure it's a clever method of collecting your email address and phone number for future advertising. and demographics. Whatever the reason, it appeared to be a common practice among photographers online. It was refreshing when I ran across websites with published prices, because although I was willing to splurge on photography, I still wanted to keep the expense less than $2000 dollars, preferably much less. I wanted to stay within a reasonable budget without sacrificing talent for the sake of it.

Ultimately, it took about four weeks of diligent searching and patiently sifting through online portfolios before I contracted our wedding photographer. There were several portfolios that caught my eye including: Daisy Moffatt, Our Ampersand, and in particular Innamorata, whom I was strongly considering. During our tasting in March, I noticed one of their wedding albums on display and simply fell in love with their photography style. I also came to find out they were very intimately acquainted with Grandview as a venue, because they shot weddings up there frequently. Unfortunately, their quoted price fell outside of my comfort zone and left no room for anything extra like a casual engagement session, which I knew Johnny placed a higher value upon. We both agreed that causal engagement pictures would likely be more displayable if given as a gift.

I had just about resigned myself to the fact that I would be going with Innamorata and giving up on engagement pictures when I ran across a website called BrideRush. It's a site similar to Groupon and Livingsocial, which provides its consumers, who are Brides in a Rush with discounts on wedding services. There were all types of services available on the site, from floral shops to DJ's to makeup artists, but there was only one photographer listed for the Chattanooga Area, Sergio Plecas Photography. He offered a deal that provided one photographer for 12 hours for just $1000, which originally had been $2000. Well, immediately I looked over his wedding galleries and posted engagement sessions and was impressed and excited that they were quite good! I especially liked his engagement sessions, because his photography style had captured candid moments shared by the couples. I felt assured that he'd do a great job capturing the essence of Johnny and me as a couple!

I was immediately interested in the deal, but there was only one problem....the deal on BrideRush wasn't exactly to my choosing, (I only had Grandview for 8 hours,) so I emailed Sergio about modifying the deal a bit so that it included a second photographer and an engagement session. Sergio quickly responded and was agreeable with modifying the deal for a little extra. Sergio will also spend a couple weeks after our wedding in post-production with the pictures to touch up color and enhance the pictures. He then provides me with a print release which allows me to share them on Facebook and blogger and print as many as I want. A print release is very important if you want to freedom to be able to print your wedding pictures yourself. Without a print release, you have to go through the photographer to have prints made. This can often be very expensive.

So although this post is a little late, I still wanted to share this post with all the people who knew of my painstaking search. Now on to more fun projects like compiling photos and inspiration for our wedding photography! I can't wait to start working with Sergio on this very subject! I've compiled several pictures from Pinterest that I want to modify for our wedding! I'll close with one of the shots that I have in mind!

Image via Denise Bailey on Pinterest

 

This is a shot I took of Grandview's patio. I'd love
to do something similar to the picture on Pinterest!
Can't you image it?

Florist versus Fresh Market

"How much?!"

I'm sure my jaw dropped and my eye's must have gotten really big when the florist said the bouquets, boutonnieres, and arrangements would cost $1200 - $1500, because she went into great detail regarding how that price was figured. I don't think I heard much more of her persuasive speech, because in my mind I was still screaming the number and hearing it echo about in my cranium. I had always known flowers were not cheap, but I guess I was naïve to the fact that they cost that much, especially for what I had proposed, which was fairly minimal. I had proposed 4 bridesmaid's bouquets, plus my wedding bouquet, 3 corsages, 8 boutonnieres, and 8 arrangements for the tables. I know that sounds like a lot, and I'll agree that the boutonnieres, corsages, and bouquets were probably the majority of the proposed cost, but I couldn't wrap my head around why the arrangements would cost so much... All I knew was that the amount of said arrangements and flowers was not going to work with my budget.

Well, I'll admit, I left the florist a bit disappointed, resigning myself to the likelihood that I would probably not use a florist for what I wanted to do for the wedding. That realization also squashed the probability of me being able to get any of the flowers that I had originally wanted, namely peonies. If you are unfamiliar with what peonies looks like, click the following link to Pinterest to a picture of one http://www.pinterest.com/pin/543668986239143279/. Unfortunately, peonies bloom early in the South, usually around Memorial Day and would be here and gone by my wedding date in late June. My only glimmer of hope had been to have them ordered, which didn't seem very likely now. Instead, I resigned myself to the notion of using seasonal flowers and my second favorite flower, the iris, which would be in bloom throughout May, June, and July.

Bouquet wrap from
Michael's

So what does someone do when they are on a budget like me? I turned to my favorite person to console my sudden misery and pull my dashed little dreams out of the deep chasms of despair in which they had fallen, my fiancé, Johnny. (Okay, so I exaggerated for dramatic effect.) One of the things I love about Johnny is his creative mind and ability to think outside the box. He's great at pointing you in a direction of potential resource, which is my opinion of the Fresh Market. Can I take a moment and rave about the Fresh Market? That store is so cool! I can't believe I haven't been in this store before now! I was even more excited to find out that they have fresh flowers all year long. Granted, their seasonal flowers change throughout the year, but they have roses all year long. So I can say the colors, red, pink, and white are pretty much a guarantee to be able to accessorize with around the décor at the wedding. The Fresh Market also has affordable ready made bouquets or the option of having one arranged from the stock on the floor for the cost of the flowers (which were not expensively priced) and a $5 labor fee. So I'm thinking five of the ready made bouquets, some ribbon around each of the bouquet's stems, and a bouquet wrap from Michael's and my bridesmaids and I have our flowers for a $100-150 dollars. The flowers for the centerpiece arrangements will cost about the same if the Fresh Market arranges them or less if my wedding party puts them together. I'm pretty confident that my wedding party would be able to arrange the flowers for the centerpieces. I don't think what I have in mind will be too complicated. I'll just need to determine if it would be worth our time to do it versus paying the Fresh Market to have them arranged. I'll decide that later. The lady at the Fresh Market said she only needed two weeks notice.

Doilies from Michael's, frames from Hobby Lobby
and Garden Ridge for $10 and the a sampling of the milk
 glasses vases I purchased at the antique stores.

Inspiration picture pinned to Pinterest
 by Madison House Designs

Each centerpiece on the tables will consist of four items: a paper doily, a milk glass bud vase, an ornate picture frame, and a small candle. If you are unfamiliar with what a milk glass vase looks like (you've probably seen them, just didn't know what they were called) I have posted a picture. Milk glass comes in all different styles and sizes. Older vases have very tiny mouths and can only hold one or two flowers. The newer vases actually are a bit wider at the top and can comfortably hold 3 or 4 flowers and some small sprigs of greenery or babies breath. It is the later vases that I had in mind. The paper doilies can be found at Michael's and Hobby Lobby. I bought mine from Hobby Lobby and got 6 for $2.99. I'm still trying to locate a small candle for the centerpieces. I think some silver glass would be really pretty with the white and black. I located enough of the milk glass vases yesterday. I found several vendors on Etsy with bulk listings for milk glass, but unfortunately, glass is heavy and fragile, so it costs a lot for the shipping. Instead of purchasing them off of Etsy I decided to put some money back into my local economy and shopped around at several of the antique stores around the Chattanooga area. After visiting three shops I found a total of eighteen vases of various patterns and sizes and paid only $87.36. The math works out to $4.85 for each vase which turned out to be a far better deal than Etsy. My inspiration for the centerpieces actually comes from multiple pictures on Pinterest, but this picture posted by Madison House Designs best illustrates the design I have in mind (the color scheme will just be slightly different and I'll be using more bud vases.) Now you can probably understand why my jaw dropped when the florist gave me her price. There wouldn't be a lot of arranging for a bud vase and if I supply the vases, that's another cost I shouldn't have been charged.

Picture from Etsy vendor showing
 that at most, only
 3 or 4 flowers can fit per vase.

In the end, I think it's to my advantage to not use a florist. If the Fresh Market had not been an option, there was always the vendors at the Chattanooga Market during the summer too. The vendors there are also great contacts and would have been able to supply us with flowers the day before since our wedding would be Monday, the next day. I'll admit, there are some advantages to using a florist though, particularly that you can choose the flowers and colors, knowing exactly what you are getting. I'll be playing it by ear with the Fresh Market. Sure, they have a good idea of the seasonal flowers, but we'll be going with what is available. Some people might find this type of arrangement too nerve wrecking. Lucky for me, I'm pretty laid back and can be spontaneous. It's also a good thing that white and black go with everything! (Yep, I knew that would be helpful later!)

Probably the best part of our trip to the Fresh Market was hearing that sometimes in June, they get a shipment of peonies, but it depends on late frosts and the weather affecting their crops. So I have my fingers crossed that the crop doesn't get frosted and I end up with my peonies after all! Wouldn't that be awesome!