Snapping up a photographer - Part II

The following week, after the disappointing meeting with the Lady Photographer, I was excited to meet with Michael Simon. I was glad that G. weighed in and checked my impatience, that we shouldn't hire an expensive photographer we didn't love just because she went to Vassar and was super organized.

We went to Michael's studio, and had a nice talk with him. He was super relaxed, and called us "man," throughout the meeting. Not in a disrespectful way, it was just a habit of his to punctuate his conversation with "man." Man, I can totally get down with that.

We both loved his vibe. He was totally on the ball, but totally relaxed. I need relaxed people around me. I am anxious at heart, and absorb the nervous energy of anyone around me. I like someone who can manage to seem both perfectly capable but also like he might also at any moment offer you a beer or something. Do you know what I mean?

But it wasn't just his remarkably awesome/laid back demeanor that hooked us (can you see where this is going?). His photographs were totally awesome. No joke. I loved all of them. I have very particular ideas of the kinds of photographs I do and don't want, and especially on the "don't" side, he was totally on board. (Photographer #1 had been like "Are you sure!?" like I was a crazy person when I told her not to bother taking pictures of my shoes.)

He also passed this totally arbitrary test that G. threw out. Recently, we went to visit his grandfather, and we saw a family reunion picture from 1986 (my man had the cutest bowl cut evah!). G. wanted our photographer to recreate this kind of huge group shot on our wedding day, with all the guests. We asked photographer #1 whether she could do this, and she seemed hesitant, doubtful, but then was like "Suuuure...." Not that convincing.

We asked Michael, and he was like "Sure, I'll just have Carlos bring up a ladder." Because he already knows the people who work at the Metropolitan Building. Because he is awesome!

We left the meeting feeling like we would probably end up inviting him to the after party. We acted all cagey, and like, "Oh, well, we'll have to go home and think about this," when really what we did was go out in the street and high-five and wait like 20 seconds after we were home to email him and tell him he was hired.


This was a guy I totally wanted around on our wedding day.

(I was a tiny bit reluctant to post this story because even though I didn't name her, part of me is afraid photog #1 will find this post, know it is about her, and feel bad. I don't want her to feel bad, because she was lovely, totally capable, and a great photographer. She just wasn't a great match for us. Telling the story with the compare-and-contrast is the only way I know how to express how we found the right match for us.)

Snapping up a photographer - Part I

One of the (very few! I swear!) things I researched during that weird, post-Talk, pre-engagement period was our photographer.

Two things -- besides actually getting married surrounded by our loved ones and their dates -- are really important to me in this wedding: the venue, and the photographer.

I looked on Theknot.com and checked out some photographers I found on there. I went through my local issue of The Knot magazine, and bookmarked the websites of photographers I liked from Real Weddings (man, are "real weddings" a great resource or what?). I even did a little snooping around on Craig's List, since I know one of my favorite Bees, Miss Joey, has had great luck with The List (as my mom calls it).

Once we decided to start seriously thinking about the photographer this past June, I went back to some of the stuff I had bookmarked. Some of it I no longer liked. One woman's site I remembered I really liked several months ago, but I was having a devil of a time getting her website to load, so her and her Flash fell to the bottom of the list.

At the top of the list was a young woman who graduated from the same college my fiance and I did. Vassar has a kind of intense alumni connection thing going on, which I can't explain to you, it just is. So, by virtue of the fact that I
a) liked her website
b) she went to Vassar
c) she took lovely photographs,

we made an appointment to meet with her at a hotel bar in Manhattan. Swank!
She arrived in a snappy outfit with her portfolio and a giant umbrella in order to super-protect her stuff from the rain. Prepared, I like that!

She was all business. She took copious notes about us and our vision, asked a lot of questions, talked about her style, showed us a ton of work. I liked how things were going.

Then she showed us the price list. And she was expensive. And she was expensive before the albums, which were doubly, mind-blowingly expensive. My heart sank, and I pretty much wanted to be like, "Ok, well, thanks but no thanks, see ya." But I was polite and pretended like there was still a chance we would hire her.

As we left (after awkward whispering between me and my fiance about whether we were supposed to buy her drinks or whether she would buy ours), I was like, "Superbummer!" And G. was like, "Mmmm.... I didn't actually think her photos were all that great. And some of them seemed like they were great by accident."

Once he said it, I realized I wanted to be blown away. We weren't totally blown away. Especially not for the money. I felt relieved, that we could move on without feeling bad or like we missed an opportunity.

Then I remembered that I had bookmarked the site for a guy who had done a wedding at our venue, on the exact same floor. I was like, "Let's call that guy!" so we decided to make an appointment for the following week, and went home to walk the dog.