Can I tell you I love Michelle? Well I do. I love her.
I…read morestarted planning our wedding in 2008, and had gone through every photographer I could find on The Knot and Brides. I did google searches. Everything. I hate standard wedding photography. Crap that looks overly posed and nasty. And then I cam across Michelle on the last day I could look for a photographer - my husband, then fiance, said I had until the end of February or we were going with his first choice. I looked through her website, and oh bolly bolly oh my golly! SHE is what I had been searching for. Gorgeous shots of people, nothing overly posed, every shot looking like a dear friend took the picture. They captured the essence of each individual and I felt like I was there, like I understood how the people in the pictures felt. That was all I needed, I sent out an email.
Two seconds later, Michelle had responded. Here was a vendor who was used to using technology, she told me I could contact her on gchat and since our schedules were packed we could conference call our first meeting. I nearly cried.
The day of the teleconference came. The only question I really had was, do you make any provisions for military, what if my husband got deployed unexpectedly. She reassured me, we would not lose our money, she would hold onto it and reschedule. She also reassured me that she would shoot until every last major event in the wedding was captured. She wouldn't just take off. That was it, we hired her on the spot.
We also hired her (for an insanely reasonsable fee - think Crazy Eddy sells electronics) for our engagement shoot. We wanted her to get to know us and vice versa. She was amazing and incredibly fun to work with.
We were all geared up for our wedding in 2008 when the worst news came through, my husband was being called up for service early. We had to postpone everything. I was running around contacting vendors, family, bridal party. Trying not to melt down, and when I called Michelle she was so sweet and understanding.
When we rescheduled our wedding for late in 2009, I called Michelle. She was so excited to work with us again. And so was I.
She is so incredibly professional - Annie and Bill were out of town on the day of my wedding so she asked her friend David Esquire to fill in. I never even knew that there was a problem. She just handled it, like a dream vendor.
Again, on the day of the wedding, Michelle was professional as can be. She was there on time, and even tolerated the fact that I didn't get her her shots list until that morning. She was funny and energetic (a difficult feat when it is raining and so cold you can see your breath and it is an outdoor wedding). She was like a ninja, I don't ever remember seeing her, but when she gave me the pictage link to our wedding photos, there were all these amazing shots she had taken. She took these amazing shots of us too, posed me perfectly, hid flaws played up assets.
Honestly, I don't think of Michelle as my vendor. I think of her as a friend. Every major photo op I have in life will be shot by her or her studio. Heck I even added her on facebook.
If you pass her by for another studio (maybe with the exception of Esquire Photography because David was pretty cool himself) you are a total fool. Studio Z will capture your wedding day exactly as you saw it, exactly as you experienced. And really, isn't that what a photographer is supposed to do?
