The search for the perfect photographer

If you couldn't tell already, I'm a super picky person.  And I was just as picky with the photographer as I was with everything else.  Mikey doesn't care.  I think the only thing he was concerned about was how much longer he would have to listen to me obsess about the photographer.


My thoughts on wedding photography:

-Try to go through a referred photographer. You know what you're getting when you do business with someone who's already worked with someone you know, plain and simple.

-Even though I mainly based my wedding photography choice on referral, I did some research before I found our photographer.  My main thought is this: What did people do before there was the internet?  How hard was it to get what you wanted when you didn't have an example?  I Google searched wedding photography Bay Area, indie wedding, wedding photojournalist and looked up names, looked up websites, emailed people, read reviews, and rifled through thousands of images and saved pictures I liked.

-Wedding photography is really expensive.  The average wedding photographer quoted me prices like $2500, $3000, and $3500, and always added on, but "it depends what you want," AKA "the price goes up."

-Lastly, I've always loved my mom's wedding album.  It's not an extensive wedding album. I think there are like 20 pictures in the whole thing, but when I'm done flipping through it, I always wished there was more to see.  I think that's what I love about it.  And the pictures are so alive.  Closed eyes, open mouths, laughing, jumping.  So a wedding book with a million portraits was never on my wishlist from a photographer, give me 20 great prints of genuine moments in a regular photo album and I'm good.


So in short, I based my decision on these things:

1. Referral
2. Style
3. Price


Meet our wedding photographer Juvenia Tso-Wheeler (click the link to check out her site)!

I don't know if you can tell, but her blog was pretty much the template for this blog (thanks Juvenia!).

But how did I find Juvenia?  Not through a Google search, but through a coworker at Genentech, Eric Tso,  Juvenia's cousin.  He referred me to Juvenia after hearing about all my wedding talk.  It's not what you know, but who you know, right?!

After a bit of facebooking, flipping through some of her pictures, emails, and a price quote, I was sold.  Done deal, sign the contract, put down a deposit, and forget about searching, photographer found!





-Jenny