All I Got Is This Photograph

Mad props to anyone who knows what song that's from (no Googling!)  Now, the lucky few of you who know that song have it stuck in your head; just like I have since I thought of the title. ;-)

Anyway...today I thought I'd talk a little more about one of the vendors we've selected.

The vendor that's been the most difficult so far has been our photographer. That wasn't because we're photography snobs (we're definitely not); it was because there were so many factors we had to consider.

One important factor in this decision was K's kids. There aren't very many wedding photographers who showcase kid pictures on their websites. Those that do, don't always have very good kid pictures. The kids are a big part of the day; it's very, very important to us that they feel comfortable in every part of it. The pictures are something I'm concerned about, since it will take up so much time on the day of the wedding. We definitely wanted to hire someone who has a lot of experience working with kids & taking kids' pictures.

We also had a very generous offer from a close friend (BM M's wife), who's a wedding photographer, to take our pictures.  In the end, we decided that we wanted her to be able to relax during the wedding. I'm confident that Christine would have handled the "frendor" relationship beautifully & professionally, since I've seen her do it before, but I was concerned that I wouldn't handle it as gracefully.  Despite our decision, if you're looking for a wedding photographer in Houston, I highly recommend her.  You can see her work on her website here.

Once we'd made that decision, K and I started looking around at local photographers. We looked at a bunch and narrowed it down to two.  We met with both of them, and decided to go with Kris Allen.  No, not this Kris Allen:

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This Kris Allen:

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Our first meeting with Kris was insanely comfortable; we met her at Sorci's, a restaurant down the street from us, with the girls. We didn't necessarily have an idea of what we wanted, but (as per our usual decision making process) we were both confident we'd know it when we saw it. 

Kris was definitely "it".  She takes great pictures. She's a former project manager, which totally appeals to me & gives me confidence that she knows how to manage the complexity of a wedding shoot. She's really friendly and easy to get along with. We had a similar sense of humor & at the end of the first meeting, it felt like we were talking to an old friend.

The ringer for Kris, though, is that she does family portraits most of the time. So, she understands kids (well, as much as anyone can) & knows how to get good pictures of them. We've seen the pictures she takes of families and they're really good. I think that with Kris' experience working with kids, we're more likely to have fantastic wedding pictures. Here are some of my favorites from one of her recent shoots (all from www.krisallenphotography.com)
 

 

 

To help the kids be more comfortable with Kris, we're having family pictures taken in a few weeks. That way the kids can get to know her and we can all get more comfortable having our picture taken together. K & I definitely think this will be helpful, since we got so much more comfortable with her during our engagement shoot last week.  I'll talk more about that later, but here's a teaser: