Photographer: making sure that he''s "the one"...?

[musey]

I have found who, I think, is "the one"--photographer, that is!

www.jamesleonardo.com

For those of you who already booked your photographer, how did you decide you'd found the right fit? I love his work--it's clean and beautiful and has personality. His packages are pricey for my taste, but mid-range for Los Angeles, really. The photography is REALLY important to me, so I'm willing to pay extra on that and scrimp elsewhere if it means getting a truly fabulous product.

We have a slightly flexible budget of $20,000 and already have about $13,000 of it spoken for (Location for both ceremony and reception, catering, bar, and dress all included in that). So I have $7,000 left over for everything else as of now.

We'd want to book the "Gold" package at $2500, this is what we'll get:
Up to 7 hours coverage & up to 2 locations
Engagement Portrait
Pre-Ceremony
Ceremony
Formal Portraits
Reception
Internet Gallery
Full Set of 4x6 Proofs
Hi-Resolution Digital Negatives
Digital Flush Mount Album with up to 50 images


I'm not even sure what my question is. General feedback? (Including the "What?! $2500, are you crazy?!" comments if you have them

)

 

[musey]

Also must mention--

he has a cheaper package at $1900 that offers this:
Up to 5 hours coverage & 1 location
Pre-Ceremony
Ceremony
Formal Portraits
Reception
Full Set of 4x6 Proofs
Hi- Resolution Digital Negatives

...Between the two, what we'd really miss in the cheaper one is the Engagement Portrait and 7 hours of coverage (Ceremony's at 6:30, reception ends at 11 but we're having a bonfire nearby until 1 so he could get some of that w/ 7 hours). The extras like the internet gallery and digital flush album are nice, but we'd be able to do those ourselves.

 

[musey]

Esp. love this one of his, thought you PSers might too

(not the best of his work but such a great moment to catch!!) He has quite a few ring shots in his galleries

 

[E B]

$2500 for all of that is a fabulous deal, IMO. We're paying $2200 for just our photographer's time and a CD of high res images (she's very pricey!).

I don't know if this is a big deal to you (or to most, really) but I was recently thinking about the sex of the photographer and the 'getting ready' shots. With a male photographer, I wouldn't really feel comfortable getting dressed and goofing off with my friends in our bras, but that could just be me.

It's really not that big of a deal (depending on the person), but it might be something to think about. If you don't care, then I'd say go for the bigger package. I like his shots and I think for the money, you're getting quite a bit.

 

[musey]

Date: 6/22/2007 2:02:56 PM
Author: EBree
I don''t know if this is a big deal to you (or to most, really) but I was recently thinking about the ''sex'' of the photographer and the ''getting ready'' shots. With a male photographer, I wouldn''t really feel comfortable getting dressed and goofing off with my friends in our bras, but that could just be me.

Nah, no biggie

I''ve been changing in front of boys my whole life!

(No, no, no... dressing rooms--choir, theatre)

That''s really good to hear that his package is reasonable for the price! He has an even bigger package, that ups what the "Gold" package has to 10 hours, 3 locations and a bigger album. $3000. Worth it?

 

[Stephanie]

That price is amazing.. Most photographers here (Alabama) start at $3500.

 

[DivaDiamond007]

I think it sounds reasonable. I don''t remember how much we paid our photographer, but I think it was around $1200 for:

- Unlimited time
- Three locations (we had our ceremony, outdoor pics and the reception)
- Video
- Album of 4x6 proof for our keeping
- Album of 12 large pics - I think they were 8x10 size

I think that there were other things too that I don''t remember. For us it was within budget and was reasonable as compared to other vendors. What really did it for us was the video. Some of the videographers around here charge $2500+ just for that - which we felt was unreasonable and was out of our budget.

Our photographers were a husband and wife team so she took pics of us girls getting ready, etc. while go took pics of the guys outside the church, etc. before the ceremony. They both did pics at the ceremony and reception.

Our church has rules about where video equipment can be placed so we were limited to a tripod on ground level and a tripod in the choir balcony. It''s not the best quality, but the best we could get based on our restrictions.

Our pictures turned out great and they save the negatives so we can always order more at a later date. We were completely satisfied with them and even referred a couple.

Good luck!

 

[musey]

Date: 6/22/2007 2:23:27 PM
Author: DivaDiamond007
I think it sounds reasonable. I don''t remember how much we paid our photographer, but I think it was around $1200 for:

- Unlimited time
- Three locations (we had our ceremony, outdoor pics and the reception)
- Video
- Album of 4x6 proof for our keeping
- Album of 12 large pics - I think they were 8x10 size

That sounds amazingly inexpensive!! Mind if I ask where the photog. was located?

 

[DivaDiamond007]

We are all in Northwest Ohio. We had to do some searching for them in order to stay in our budget (our parents paid for our wedding) and it worked out in our favor.

 

[labbielove]

that is an amazing price for LA area, I would assume
we are in Western NYS and have a husband wife team- they are pro photogs (we researched the heck out of photogs, also the most important vendor to us),
we''re paying about the same as you for comparable items.

our package is a bit more because we wanted rehearsal/rehearsal dinner coverage (FI has friends coming in from CA and we also want some shots of us/our families in casual clothes), and a couple extra hours on the day of (we have 10 booked, option for 1 more if needed)

if you like his personality- i say go for it. even from our short engagement shoot we realized we are WITH these people for a looong time that day, and they have to be able to interact with our guests without being obnoxious,etc.

 

[musey]

Date: 6/22/2007 3:28:39 PM
Author: labbielove
we realized we are WITH these people for a looong time that day, and they have to be able to interact with our guests without being obnoxious, etc.

GOOD point, labbielove-I hadn''t thought of that!

 

[zoebartlett]

Musey,

I''m so glad you started this thread! I''m in the middle of looking at photographers'' webites now and I might start a thread asking for help as well. The price sounds reasonable to me. The photographers in Maine and in NH we''re considering seem to be in the $2200-$3000 range, dependng on the package you want. I really like the work of the one you''re considering! That''s along the lines of what we want too. I like the more creative types instead of the typical posed head-on shots. I''d say your photographer is a winner in my book.

 

[ephemery1]

Photography was super important to me... the first thing we booked actually, so I spent a lot of time looking at portfolios and websites and talking to different people. When we met with our guy, we felt really comfortable with him right away... his style was creative and fun and very photojournalistic, and since we wanted our pictures to be more artwork-y than boring and formal, we were really excited. We also knew he booked only one event per day, had an excellent assistant photographer, and put together gorgeous albums... all of which helped seal the deal. Our package was around $5000 I think, which was about average for the caliber of photographers we were considering.

And on the day of the wedding, he was amazing!! A genuinely nice guy, very discreet and inconspicuous, and incredibly creative and inspired. And now that we''ve gotten the pix back, I can''t stop looking at them!!!

So definitely money well-spent.

 

[SparklyDiamond]

His prices are good IMO, but I''m concerned about the number of pictures you get back. 50 is very little. From my research of photographers, they usually give a minimum of 250 pictures to you. If you break it up, pre-ceremony, ceremony and reception. With 50 pictures, you only get ~16 pictures per... Thats too little for me. Say if you take formal pictures, 30 of them, you''re left with 20 to capture the entire event...

I''m sure you''ll pick more than just 50, how much do they charge per picture after 50? Does the photobook fee increase with more pictures? I have a feeling everything will add up to 3k ot 3.5k when you''re done.

As long as you go in with a good knowledge of what you''re getting ,and a rough estimate of how much you''re willing to spend. You''ll be fine.

The photographer''s work is wonderful BTW !

 

[musey]

Date: 6/24/2007 7:04:39 PM
Author: SparklyDiamond
His prices are good IMO, but I'm concerned about the number of pictures you get back. 50 is very little. From my research of photographers, they usually give a minimum of 250 pictures to you. If you break it up, pre-ceremony, ceremony and reception. With 50 pictures, you only get ~16 pictures per... Thats too little for me. Say if you take formal pictures, 30 of them, you're left with 20 to capture the entire event...

Thanks for the post, SparklyDiamond!

50 is just the number of images he'll print up in a flush-mount album for us. As the list says, we get ALL of the images on CD, and 4x6 prints of everything as well. I wouldn't want more than 50 pictures in an album, personally--especially not 30 pics of just us!!

I'm sure we'll end up getting our own GIGANTIC album printed up with most of the pictures in it, but 50 is just about as much as I'd want to subject any poor victim of the "Would you like to see our wedding album?" question

ETA: RE your question about increased photobook size, he offers a $3000 package that ups it to 70 pictures (as well as an increased 2 hours of coverage and one additional location, making 9 hours and 3 locations total)