CaliShannon's Knot posts: Choosing my photographer Question: How did you choose your photographer? My answer: I've got a serious passion for photography, and my husband and I knew this was going to be a huge priority for our wedding. As soon as we got the date and location nailed down, I started on a big hunt to find our wedding photographer. There were a few things that we quickly decided we wanted: images that capture the emotion of the wedding, not just the posed photos we've seen from so many weddings plenty of experience - we used some "newbies" for some things with our wedding, but we didn't want to risk our photography film photography, not digital negatives included with our photos prints of each of the pictures (not a contact sheet, not stamped proofs that we can't show others) lots and lots of pictures taken! a good sense of humor, since this is who we're going to spend a long time with at our wedding! I e-mailed a ton of photographers and looked through so many portfolios online, my head spun. But there were a handful that really stood out for me, and I met with them. My "final three" were Sharon Dawson at thedawsonstudios.com, Becky Burgin at artofemotion.com and Jacki Vaughn at jackiv.com. I met with a few others, but these three really stood out in my mind. All three met our criteria above to differing degrees, and each also shoots with a secondary photographer so we'd get two perspectives of the wedding. (Honestly, I can't imagine using just a solo photographer - especially after our wedding - each photographer caught different angles and we loved it!) Ultimately, we chose Sharon because we got along with her so well and her attitude meshed with ours. We had such a blast doing our engagement shoot that I was completely un-worried about our wedding photos. And when we got them... wow. They blew me away. I would heartily recommend any of the photographers at the Dawson Studios, as well as the other two photographers I mentioned earlier. When I was trying to narrow down the field, so to speak, I made up a big dorky spreadsheet to compare apples to apples - what everyone's packages included, how much it would cost to add things that I knew I wanted, etc. This helped me narrow it down to the top three. But between those three, it was a purely emotional decision, and I don't think I could've made a wrong choice between them. Sharon was not the least expensive option, but my husband felt strongly that we should not skimp on this - and he was totally right! She was willing to customize our package to eliminate some things we didn't need (and we added-on a few things too). We absolutely love our wedding photos and we are tremendously happy with our choice. Take a look! Someone asked me why did I put together a list of recommended photographers after I chose our photographer. I've done this because when I was trying to find a photographer, I would've loved to have found such a resource! I found Sharon through a bride who got married at a location we were considering. I want to help future brides find their photography match. :) Best of luck! -CaliShannon back to knottie resources