how we picked our photographer

As I mentioned here, I'm a huge fan of long engagements because they give you copious amounts of time to pick everything from your venue to your tea flavor (kidding, I think). I don't make many decisions lightly and when it comes to my wedding, I may be seen as especially particular. Maybe. I don't know. Let's move on.

I found that the best resource for finding a photographer was New York Magazine Weddings. Their whole wedding section is awesome for a few reasons. 1) It's, um, all New York based, so every vendor is available to you, not just a subset.  2) New York Mag is cool. Ergo, the vendors they pick are cool. Also all of the descriptions of each photographer/store/cake baker etc. rang true, in my opinion. 3) It's organized really well and I like the seasonal slideshows they do. Great for inspiration.

So basically, I just started going through their list, all six pages of it. Some people might not be quite as thorough, but I bet my pictures will be better than theirs. KIDDING. I kept a list of the ones I liked and when I was finished looking through all the listings, I went back and edited that down to a more reasonable number. From there I requested pricing, since mostly everyone doesn't have that available on their webpages. Insider tip: I would suggest enquiring a fair amount of photographers so you get a better idea of price range. Also look for someone who throws in an engagement shoot as part of the package so you get to know your photographer before the big day.

Once we got prices back, we threw out a few who just seemed a little too 1% for what we were looking for. Luckily, my number one choice was well within our budget and available for our date (see: planning summer 2013 wedding in fall of 2011). Her name is Lilian Haidar and this is her website.

How can you not love this? Photo credit Lilian Haidar

Why was she my number one choice? Well, if she isn't yours by the time you finish looking through her site, then you should probably be reading someone else's blog. Many of the photographers I saw just seemed very cookie cutter. Lilian's work is imbued with more creativity and she really strives to understand who she's photographing.

And once we actually met face to face, I knew she was literally destined to be our photographer. How? HER CAT LOOKS LIKE MY CAT. It was fate.

Stay tuned to see our engagement photo shoot session sometime in early fall....