THE PROCESS
HOW THINGS
GO DOWN
from start to finish
Intro
Hi! You’ve made it to the place where we introduce what working with us feels like. There are a million articles online of what to ask your prospective photographer or how to pick one and while they can be helpful, they tend to gloss over what the larger experience with your photographer will be. They tend to focus on things that honestly don’t actually help you find the right photographer for you.
And at the end of the day, just like not every person is someone you want to marry, not every good photographer is the right photographer for you and your wedding.
Many of our couples initially reach out to us over a year before their wedding date and the most helpful thing we can do before you reach out is to give you a peek into the process we take for each wedding.
Here’s what working with us looks like:
Step One – Getting To Know Each other
Shoot us an email with as much information as you can about you and your wedding plans. Tell us about your favorite Saturday mornings or your favorite adventures you’ve taken up to this point in your relationship. Tell us about your plans and dreams for getting married – and we’re not talking colors or decor. Tell us about whether you want to feel like you’re hosting a candlelit dinner party or if you want it to feel like a ski vacation with your best mates. Tell us whether or not you want to eat cake or dance or climb a mountain. Tell us if you want something close to home or far away. Then we’ll find a time to chat on the phone or over video and answer any questions you might have. But ultimately we just get to know each other a little better and chat about life!
Step Two – Initial Planning
Once you’ve booked we get into it with you! We chat about when you want to get married. It’s ok if you don’t have a concrete date and location. We’ll help you find what fits you best! Do you want fall leaves? Summer sun? Winter snow?
We’ll start creating an idea of where you want to get married (backyards, ski resorts, mountain tops, beaches, castles, small Airbnbs on the coast of Portugal, backcountry camping, you get the idea).
We’ll explore the dreams that you might have but you’ve been afraid to speak for fear that they can’t come true. We learn about the priorities you might have (food or accessibility, stars, campfires, a live band!). We begin to craft a vision together of your dream wedding.
Side note: It’s totally common to have a little when pitching a small wedding/elopement/destination/etc. to your friends and family. We had this same experience. We weren’t a hundred percent sure that everyone would be down with it and while we didn’t want a giant wedding, there were a few people that we knew we wanted to have by our sides. We can help you work through the logistics of it all.
Step Three – Scouting
Once we have a general location in mind, we help you find the perfect spots for all the parts of your day.
As photographers, we want to find spots that will give you the best photos through out your day while making sure you have an amazing experience. If we’re being completely honest, some places simply don’t photograph as well as you might think. Some cabins look amazing on the outside and like a dark box inside. You get the idea.
We’ll give you our opinions on coordinates to exchange vows, the perfect campsite for your mallow roasting fire, or the most quaint Airbnb. We’ll also hook you up with the best vendors in the area who can ferry you across rivers, rent horses or ATVs to explore the desert, build amazing wildflower bouquets, or make you the most delicious meal after you’ve gallivanted around nearby forests. We scan topographical maps, and use Google Earth, our knowledge of necessary land offices, permits, and even visits to make sure that you wedding will be exactly where you want.
Step Four – Pre-Wedding
We are available via text, call, and email leading up to the wedding. By the time the wedding comes, we’re going to feel like friends. We want your questions, your ideas, your photos of your dogs, your favorite cookie recipes. We’ve had couples who moved their elopement from Yosemite to the Catskills to Maine to Portugal to eventually Olympic National Park and we were there at every step recommending vendors, locations, timelines. This is not to say we recommend switching your date and location 5 times before your wedding but we want you to know that we are in this with you.
This is also a good time to pick out your clothing for the day, making sure that it compliments the environment, weather, and lighting both from an aesthetic point of view but also making sure that it’s comfortable and you can hike in it or whatever your day demands.
Lastly, we’ll build a detailed wedding day schedule with you ensuring that everything you dreamed of can actually happen. We’ll make sure we’re accounting for driving, weather, sunrise and sunset, and the hundred little details that, to be honest, you kind of don’t think about if you haven’t been to a ton of these things!
Step Five – Wedding Day!
And then it happens! You wake up and it’s your wedding day! We’re there documenting what the day felt like, what it looked like, the tiny glances, the hugs, the tears, and sometimes the sweat or the dirt stained wedding dresses, the ocean soaked socks, the pizza stained ties – and the first looks, the kisses, the beer on the beach, the pb and j’s at the summit, the jumping into the pool at the Airbnb, all of it.
We’ll also be there making sure every part of the day keeps moving and stays on schedule. We’ll tell uncles to move their butts if need be. We’ll watch the sunlight and make tweaks if necessary. Simply put, we think you two shouldn’t be looking at a schedule or your watch on the day you get married. You should be soaking it all in and living in the moment.
Step Six – Post Wedding
We hang out! Honestly we normally end up good friends with our couples and even if we don’t live in the same city or state as them, we usually make it a point to cross paths at some point over a beer or a pizza. Honestly if you’re hoping for your photographer to feel more like a vendor than a friend, we’re probably not the best fit for your wedding. And that is totally ok! We want you to find the best photographer for you. Because we truly believe that your wedding will be the most fun if it’s full of the people and the things that light you up.
So if you want a couple of new friends, send us a message by clicking that button below and let’s build the wedding of your dreams together.
Step Seven – Beer and Pizza
We sit down with the thousands of photos we’ve taken and edit the ones that help tell the story of the day in the most meaningful way. We send you those photos about a month after the wedding in a beautiful online gallery that you can share with family and friends, order prints from, or download directly onto your computer (which we always highly recommend). If you’re wanting us to design a wedding album for you, we’ll take care of that too.
So if you want a couple of new friends, send us a message by clicking that button below and let’s build the wedding of your dreams together.
