When you know (really know), you know

Before Mr. E and I even got engaged, I had been following the blog (or stalking the blog) of a wedding photographer. I loved her pictures, especially the detail pictures, so as soon as Mr. E popped the question, I set up a meeting with her. She met with us as well as Mama Elephant to go over her packages, show us some of her albums and tell us about herself. She was on the higher end of cost side, but I knew that pictures would be the most important thing to me so I was willing to shell out some serious change. We left the meeting thinking she was the one...

Fast forward a couple of months, after we had moved the date of the wedding back a year, and I didn't see any reason to book her until later on (mainly so we could spend the money on more important deposits like the venue and wedding planner).

As a daily reader of the DFW Knot boards (which is a wealth of information when it comes to wedding planning in my area as well as a source of real life bride reviews of vendors) I started to notice certain names mentioned when people asked for photographer recommendations. Lynn Michelle was a photographer that girls either used and loved, or wish that they could have had the budget to book her. You may remember the name if you followed Mrs. Hydrangea, Lynn took her boudoir photos.

Take a look at some of her work.

 All images found here on her blog

I love how she is able to capture everything that we want: the details, the emotion, the posed, the candids and the artistic.  I knew that photography was a decent percentage of our budget so I decided to take a look at her website and blog. I was amazed that her most expensive package (which can be customized to take out things you don't want or add things that you do) was only a couple hundred more then what we were planning on spending with the first photographer. The big difference was the amount of "extras" we would get with her package, such as:

-2 more hours on the wedding day
-A 3rd photographer
-Rehearsal & Rehearsal dinner coverage
-A canvas wrap of our favorite engagement picture to display at our reception
-Fully edited pictures on a CD with shared rights so we can print them as we like

Lynn's work (which happened to be at our venue) was featured in and on the Knot (Source)

After telling Mama Elephant and Mr.E about this awesome new photographer, and explaining all of the extras that we would get for about the same amount we were already planning on spending we set up a meeting with Lynn. We showed up at 5:30 and didn't leave until about 7:30, and it didn't even feel like we had spent 2 hours with her! Lynn was amazing, her personality clicked with all 3 of us. She showed us a ton of pictures and albums and books.

Knowing that we were already booked at the Tribute, she pulled up past weddings that she has shot there, as well as an album from the wedding that she shot which was published in the Knot Texas magazine. She kept it real with us, telling (and showing) us that her skills have evolved during her past 12 years of shooting. She gave us a tour of her house which included a home studio as well as a couple rooms dedicated to her boudoir photography. We walked out of her house knowing, really knowing, that she was the one to photograph our wedding!!

When planning, did you ever change your mind after being set on another vendor?