Engagement Photos: Yay or Nay?

From the very beginning of our wedding planning, I have stated how extremely important photography is to me. So it was no surprise that the decision whether or not to take engagement photos was a no-brainer! (All these lovely images you see here are courtesy of the crazy-talented husband and wife duo Jason & Anna Photography). I figured if we were going to spend money on anything it would be the photos.

I'm not quite sure when the whole engagement session thing started but it's safe to say that this portion of the wedding industry has significantly expanded in recent years. Every photographer I contacted when initially searching for our wedding photogs all suggested an engagement session. It's a great opportunity to get to know your photographer and most imporantly get comfortable in front of the camera. Trust me, it's a bit unsettling at first and takes a little while to get used to someone snapping away in front of you.

Naturally, it's not super surprising to hear that we'll be having two engagement sessions. Yea, I'm a little of a photo session diva what can I say? (Secretly, I'd love to be a photographer but considering I lack any talent in that area, for now I'll settle on someone else taking pretty pictures with me in 'em.) I initially contacted Jason & Anna to shoot our wedding but they were unfortunately unavailable on our wedding day. Regardless, I decided a photo shoot incorporating the Arizona desert where mine and my fiancé's relationship started would make for some good stories for the grandkids. (OK, I can't take full credit, it was my younger sister who made the very wise suggestion and I'm so glad she did, thanks to her we have some amazing pictures!) We also recently shot with Delbarr Moradi, the super-talented photographer that we are honored will be capturing our wedding day! Both sessions were super fun and really helped us get acclimated to being in front of the camera. I know that on our wedding day I won't be nearly as nervous, especially since I'm confident that the pictures will come out great :)

Everyone has their own opinion on the matter but to me, money spent on photography is quite simply money well spent. What better way to capture this exciting moment in your life than with some kick-ass photos? I mean we're only young once right? Might as well make use of our youthful looks while we still got em! ;)

 

Images courtesy of Jason & Anna Photography

Photographer Finalized!

By far the toughest thing in this whole process has been choosing a photographer. Instead of poring over bridal magazines looking at dresses and colors, I have been obsessed with finding the right photographer. After all, this is the person that captures the most important day of your life! I couldn't stop searching. Every pretty photo I saw, I frantically emailed the photographer asking them for their pricing. *Sidenote: Really wish they would just list their prices on their websites!

Early on, my heart was crushed. I found out that the photographer that I had dreamed about was way out of our price range. As in about $8,000 over it. Bar none, photography has been THE most important to me when it came to wedding planning. But realistically, I couldn't blow that much on the pictures or else there wouldn't be much left over in the budget for the rest of the wedding. That's when reality hit me and I realized that I would need to narrow down my search and focus on great, talented photogs that were still within our budget. That's the great thing about photos, they're completely subjective. Everyone chooses a photographer that features a style that they like with a budget they're comfortable with. For us, (and by us I mean me because I was the one obsessing over this not the patient fiancé but hey) it was about finding someone with a unique vision that connected with us and would be able to capture the memories of our day.

I'm happy to report that we finally found them! The extremely talented Delbarr Moradi will be taking our photos and we couldn't be more excited! (Again, my excitement is probably just a touch bigger than fiancé haha but he's still happy that I'm happy.) In an interesting turn of events, Delbarr's own wedding was photographed by my first choice, the very talented but very expensive Jose Villa. Her wedding was a few years ago and his prices have gone up since his popularity has skyrocketed but I kind of took it as a sign that it was all meant to be :)

Photo courtesy of my new iPhone :)