Hard Decisions

This post has been a long time coming, but we only finalized the, shall we say, finer details yesterday. I hinted earlier this week about the need for a second engagement shoot. The reason for this is that our new wedding photographer requires an engagement shoot with her before the wedding. Yes, you read that right, I said new. Let me elaborate a bit.

When we started looking into wedding stuff, we looked pre-ring because we knew we were on a tight schedule and budget. We found our first photographer pre-ring, which was also pre-wedding knowledge. I had no idea what I wanted or what wedding photography could be. I only had my parents wedding to reference at the time and things have changed a lot since then. Our first photographer is good, they were a couple that had been in the buisness for a long time and had great packages. The thing is that the more I looked at their wedding pictures on their site, the more doubt filled my mind. It is probably because I was starting to spent more time on Weddingbee and seeing more modern ideas of wedding photography. I fell in love with the photo-journalist type photos and I craved photography that was astoundingly out of my price range. By the time we had our engagement shoot in September, I was already having doubts, but I stuffed down those doubts and went through with our shoot. The shoot turned out good, but not great. I let other people talk me out of my doubts and my fears and convince me that the photographers I had were the rational choice. A word of advice to you ladies out there, go with your gut. Seriously, if you are having doubts there is a reason for it, don't shove those doubts aside, look closely at the reasons for those doubts and make choices that are best for you and your intended.

In January I decided to go with my gut and search for another photographer, one who had a more modern eye and feel. I still had a tight budget but Mr. Tal and I had discussed it and decided that maybe going a little over budget to have photographs that we loved would be worth it.  Every photographer that I had looked into before had insane prices and were way over my budget. Until I found her, it was like a light was sent down from heaven to surround my computer screen. I e-mailed her immediately and she built me a custom package within my budget. We met within a week and I was ready to cross the I's and dot the T's by the next morning when I got to look over an entire wedding she shot. I'm so happy that I decided to look again, because our photographer was still in the process of setting up her buisness when we started looking for wedding vendors. The hardest part of this decision was deciding to let go our first photographer, they are very nice people that are good at what they do, they just weren't what I wanted. I hate hurting people but it was a necessary evil in this case and I realize it was for the best.

Did you have an hard decisions when wedding planning? Do you think you made the right choice?

Tune in next time for more tales from a DIY bride.