You can basically find anything on the internet, including services like photography. However, there is just nothing better than word of mouth. While searching for a wedding photographer, both my wife and I were introduced to the notion of hiring Pete through another newly engaged couple at a "takeover" event @ Artifact Coffee. After a night of good food and talking wedding shenanigans, we scheduled a face to face with Pete.
We met Pete at his office / home. You can tell right away that this guy is completely immersed in his profession by his collection of cameras, lenses and awesome setup for integrating his profession with modern day technology.
After sitting down with him, he asked us where we were going to hold our wedding. Once we told him we were holding it in a small vintage town in Lambertville, NJ. He immediately pulled up on his TV, from an iPad via Apple TV, a couple of wedding's he shot that were similar to our wedding. Immediately we were impressed. What was more impressive was that we thought each wedding he shot was UNIQUE.
Now the only part that was left was the $$$$. Warning: Pete is not at all a cheap photographer. He may even be expensive to some people, but I feel that the job he does justifies the cost. For those wondering, he does negotiate on cost if items needed to be added or replaced.
*Fast Forward to Wedding*
The wedding shots came out perfect, so perfect that we even bought two parent brag books (two copies of our album in a smaller size) for each of our parents due to how shots were so spot on.
The only shots that didn't come out as well were the shots where our DJ went above and beyond his responsibilities and gave us free upgrades (yay! you cant beat free) to up lighting and laser lights. Now what laser lights does is kills your photos by putting polka dots on everyone's faces. *Sad Face*
What is even more amazing was the fact that Pete was able to edit the photos on the fly in lightroom/photoshop while we were there during one of our post wedding meetings. This says a lot as he is comfortable with the pressure of us being there as he performs his magic.
Due to the nature that my wife's family lives in Hong Kong, we needed to look for a photographer for our second wedding. Now wedding photographers in HK are freaking expensive for what you get. Even if the photography is good, you have to pay their expensive base price along with the expensive add ons which are not made well, along with someone that does not speak English very well.
So based off the price, we had a brilliant idea and asked Pete what it would cost him to shoot our wedding in HK. Lucky for us, we were able to negotiate the price competitively to what we would pay for a photographer in HK and accommodations. What we got out of it was quality photos on our wedding day along with day after shots at various places, because who travels half way across the world to just shoot for one day at one location. read more