A few months into our relationship, my husband and I met Jim at a Salisbury home and garden show…read more I was impressed by Jim's personality and the quality of his work. I kept the promotional material he handed to us, and when my husband and I got engaged, I gave him a call.
We arranged a meeting at his studio to discuss what we were looking for, prices, etc. Jim's studio is a workshop behind his home in Salisbury. Jim spent at least an hour and a half with us, talking about our engagement, how we were planning on setting up the ceremony and reception, the different packages he offers, the different photo albums we could choose from, etc. We got to see examples of his award-winning work, the types of bound albums available, and album designs.
My husband and I invested in the "Gold Collection", and eventually bought all the digital files from the wedding (trust me, you'll want them!). All told, this was about $3000, which was a significant chunk of our wedding budget and more than we had initially wanted to spend. We were very happy to spend it, however, and I will tell you why:
First of all, you really have to understand what you are paying for here. Most of that money is for Jim's time and expertise. The guy must have spent around 15 hours with us. Here's a run down of everything:
The Gold package includes an engagement portrait session, which takes about two hours at the location of your choice. I recommend choosing an outdoor setting, but Jim's studio is available if you're looking for something more traditional. He'll take about 100 or so images for you, and put them on the internet so you and your family can see and purchase them. Initially, my husband and I were not all that interested in the engagement shoot, but let me tell you, we were extremely and unexpectedly pleased and excited about these pictures, and so were our parents! Not only that, the photo shoot itself was a very fun time; Jim has quite the personality and will bring out the best expressions and poses in you! You can buy the digital files for $250 or purchase individual images off of the internet site. In my opinion, purchasing the photos from the internet site was rather pricey, but we did end up buying several anyway for Christmas presents. The printing and photo paper are better than taking the digital files to the local drug store or *gulp* Walmart. Real photo shops are hard to come by these days...
The Gold package also, naturally, includes Jim photographing your entire wedding day. He will drive to and shoot at an unlimited number of locations. As an added bonus, Jim also tries to come to every rehearsal dinner, if possible. He did come to our's, and we received some nice sunset poses of ourselves, our wedding party, and our family out of this. Jim also came to my hairdresser's place and captured all the "gettin' beautful" moments, as well as a bunch of nice portraits of my maid of honor and I. Wedding day images included preparation shots, dressing, "the reveal" (my husband and I chose to "reveal" ourselves to each other prior to the ceremony), the ceremony, formal poses of family and friends, and candid photos during the reception. I think between the rehearsal and wedding day, we had over 400 beautiful images to choose from. Jim will ask for a VIP list, so that he makes sure he gets images of everyone you want. For example, Jim took many images of my grandmother, as per my request. My entire family will cherish these forever! Again, all the photos go onto a website for family and friends to view. You will be very happy with your images, especially if you are creative and work with Jim. My parents were totally crazy over the images and ordered plenty. They must have emailed me every day to comment about one or another.
Finally, the Gold package includes a professionally bound and formatted wedding album. You really need to see examples of these to understand what you are getting. We chose 60 images (very hard to do!) and "The Mind's Eye Designs" (www.themindseyedesigns.com) formatted them into a beautiful album for us. The album is bound in leather with gold-edged pages. It's archival quality and won't wear out. The album comes boxed and wrapped in a velvet or velour protective cover.
As I said before, Jim is great to work with. He's pleasant, funny, and unobtrusive. During our ceremony, we hardly knew he was there, and yet we had all these marvelous photos afterward to capture these priceless moments.
One note: Be sure to keep your bank records and emails to Jim. Jim will tell you himself he's not the best book-keeper. Make sure you keep track of your payments!
Advice to brides from an experienced bride (I've done this twice): Invest in your photography. You will watch your wedding video maybe once yearly. If your photos are done right, you will want to enjoy them daily. I do, and so does another bride who worked with Jim!
