Having a wedding is one of the most stressful things we've had to put together, so of course hiring…read morean integral vendor such as a photographer is one of the most crucial decisions you'll have to make. With that said, Justin and his team has proven to be one of the best decisions we could have possibly made.
With Justin, you don't simply get a photographer who signed up to snap a few pictures. You get a consummate professional who has been doing this work for decades, who went to school to develop his passion and then set off to hone his craft through repetition. Honestly, Justin is so good I didn't even want to call him because I knew there was no way that we could possibly afford his talents. But against my better judgement, we gave him a call, and he worked with us to ensure everything was in our budget and knew exactly what we were going to get.
Now the major thing you get from Justin (aside from his ungodly talent) is the experience and professionalism that only someone with decades of work could provide. He broke down the wedding day for us, gave us a timeline even before we had a timeline set with our coordinators. He gave us the pros and cons of every aspect, such as should we start early, late, when to shoot, when not to shoot, etc etc. When we had questions, Justin had answers, when we were stressed, Justin provided that calm mentality to let us know that everything is going well, that we're on track. Honestly, he should get into the coordinating business at this rate :D
Now onto the day of, Justin and his team were incredibly friendly, they were total professionals, and provided a level of service we couldn't have dreamed of. You can see how easily (perhaps i'm discounting his abilities here) he handles a camera, how he naturally blends into the background, how he stays out of everyone's way but somehow manages to take candid photos that looks like they were posed for magazines. Half the time I did not see him or his team. I had guests wondering where our photographers were, and some didn't even know we had multiple photographers (which is an amazing thing).
He never grabbed us and posed us for a photo, he never asked us to stand here or stand there. He allowed us to have our wedding on our own terms, uncompromising, he allowed us to experience our amazing evening without pulling us out of our environment. He was engaging, and yet, didn't engage us directly. I honestly don't know how he did it, because the photos we received were freaking gorgeous. I honestly thought that the higher the quality of the photos, the worse I would look, but Justin's artistic talents proved that incorrect.
His ability to frame shots were simply artistic, his lighting superb (even though we had a November wedding so sunlight was a scarcity), and the fidelity was absolutely breathtaking. Justin was also so down to earth, he was a professional yet he spoke like us, he laughed and joked with us. He eased our anxiety when he knew we were stress. Justin was absolutely one of the best vendors we had at the wedding and we had amazing professionals assisting us every step of the way.
There are many regrets you have by the end of the day, did you do this right, did you do that right, was this vendor worth it? Was that money worth it? Why did we pay so much for that? Why didn't we pay enough for this? With Justin, we had zero regrets, ZERO. He captured moments we would have otherwise lost, moments that I was too overwhelmed to see, moments that would have faded into nothing 10-20-30-40-50 years down the line, moments that I wasn't there for. Although we may be done with Justin for now, what he has given us will be remembered for the rest of our days, maybe even our children's.
So I would say, if you are on the fence, if you have any doubts, if you are looking for more than a photographer, a genuine person, Justin Lee and his team are your people. They will treat you like family, and in the end, you'll as familiar as family. Thank you Justin, you went above and beyond our expectations, even with 4400 characters and 800 words, nothing I've said will capture the joy, beauty, and wonder you'll get from working with Justin, and the warm, fuzzy, serene feeling you'll get when you look back at the photos of your wonderful day. Book him immediately.