Old Vendor, New Vendor

Quite awhile ago I posted about how we fell into a free photography contract with an acquaintance of mine who offered it up. Many of you expressed concerns, and at the time I had faith it would work out; it had to work out because we had no other option. I should have listened to you, Hive! About six weeks before our wedding, I opened my Gmail to find an email from said photographer. My heart sunk. He was writing to tell me that his photography was going in a different direction and he 'no longer needed wedding photography for his portfolio'. Six weeks before we needed him, six weeks in which everything else was coming together. And many months to late to start a new photography budget. I was a mixture of emotion from being completely pissed off to the feeling of total betrayal. We emailed back and forth, and it came to him agreeing that he would honor his contract and shoot our wedding 'if that's what it came to'. Long story short, I was getting the many hints that our photographer just didn't want to be there for our wedding.

One night I had one of those wedding nightmares that so many Bee's have written about. My nightmare? That this photographer just didn't show up. I mean why would he? He had no vested interest in our day, no deposit to return, no money to collect. I laid in bed thinking how awful that would be and my mind drifted to a different thought. What if he did show up but was just so-so in his efforts? Which situation is worse? Mr. Honey agreed, and told me to look into other options. That morning I promptly emailed a photographer in town; being the small town we live in, I have known him for years (him and my brother used to ride bikes around our neighborhood back in grade school days) and he had recently photographed two friends weddings. In fact, I had chatted with him back in August 2010 about being our photographer, but the chance at free photography swayed me from my initial contact. Nonetheless, a mere 5 weeks before our wedding, we had ourselves a new photographer. We decided that we would pull money from the sky if we had to, to ensure that we had pictures of our day.

Many, actually most of you, probably wouldn't have even noticed that I was crediting a completely different photographer than the one I introduced to you back in August. However I wanted to write this post for a couple different reasons.

There will be wrenches thrown into your wedding planning, it happens to even the most organized and prepared brides. I did have a minor, okay major, meltdown after reading that email. I'm here to tell you that it worked out. In fact I believe it worked out better this way than if we had stuck with the original guy. Our new photographer rocked it, he swooped in and handled our wedding like he had been on board since day one.

That brings me to my next point; Zak & Karly of Zak Fleming Photography were incredible. They need a proper shout out so that all members of the Hive know who the talented photographers behind the lens on our big day were. We are forever grateful that they were able to work with us for our wedding. If we could pay them a million bucks, we would.

Now, since I didn't take the advice you all gave me when I revealed our risky decision, I can't tell you that if you are in a similar boat as the Honeys that your situation will end like ours, or even not to take the risk; but I will say proceed with caution. We always knew photography was of utmost importance but it wasn't until our wedding day pictures were hanging on a very weak limb that we panicked. What our original photographer did to us, in my opinion was just mean, but in retrospect we truly ended up on the better side of things. We will be getting amazing shots (seriously, I've seen two and I about cried they were so beautiful) by two photographers who truly wanted to be a part of our day. The focus of this post is not to blame the old guy but to show appreciation for the two who stepped up.

Did you have any vendor 'situations' in which you ended up appreciative of the change? How 'bout some praise for those that came late to the game but helped make your wedding day perfect!

How Facebook Saved Us

Being without a photographer is not a fun place to be. I worried big time about this and mostly kept my concerns to myself; I knew bringing it up every time I had the thought pass through my mind would only stress and annoy the mister. Sure we talked about it but it always came back to: "We can't afford what you want, Miss Honey". Hrmph. Somehow, though, I just had this feeling that it would be okay. We had a couple leads from other  And then the answer came in the form of a Facebook status update, which I very well could have 'liked' one million times.

Image via The Atlanta Journalism-Constitution

A friend of mine from college, was just starting in the wedding photography business and was looking for couples to take a risk with him and allow him to shoot their wedding and use the pictures in his portfolio. With risk, comes reward, and our reward for taking a chance with a new wedding photographer was the price. Ready for this? It starts with 'n' and ends with 'a'...or starts with 'z' and ends with 'h'. Give up? Nada, Zilch...Free!

Image from Cheezburger.com

While we do realize the huge gamble we are taking here, all of our hesitations were put to rest when we met with Brandon, of Studio BSL, last week. We met in his framing studio and learned that he has years and years of photography experience. He has most recently been working in commercial model photography, but also offers a creative talent when it comes to shooting action and still shots. The trade off here is that he doesn't have any proof, if you will, of being a successful wedding photographer. Here is an example of his non-wedding photography, it's stun.ning, right? The guy has talent:

Image by Brandon of Studio BSL

The icing on the cake is that Brandon's specialty and where he intends on fitting into the wedding industry is with the highly coveted wedding films. He has a branch of his business devoted to films, called Silver Summit Films. He has shot a few wedding films, which to no surprise, I was in love with. His second shooter (both photography and film) comes from the empire known as Disney, so needless to say, the Honey's are frantically working the budget to see if we can pull it together to get a film of our wedding day. We are hoping that by saving a ton of dough in the photo area we will be able to offer our gratitude to Brandon with the purchase of a film...double and triple crossing our fingers.

From Silver Summit Films on Vimeo.

We feel beyond lucky to have this opportunity essentially fall in our laps and on the flip side we are loving that we can help an up-and-coming wedding photographer build his portfolio. Being that we are both risk takers, we are a-okay with taking this chance on a photographer, especially when the price is right and the skills are there.

Would you ever take a gamble with your wedding photography like this?! Who else would jump at the opportunity?

Our Urban Side

I whined about not being able to afford the photographer of my dreams in my last post, because of (the lack of) money and my best friendor situation. Well sometimes a girl gets lucky enough to have the best of both worlds: a bridesmaid AND a talented photographer.

We are fortunate to have gotten our engagement pictures taken by the amazing BM Candace, as our wedding gift. Since we aren't paying, we gave her full reigns, with a couple requests and suggestions. I think for her it was fun because she got to be uber creative, and for me, well it was my best friend shooting us, need I say more?! I knew we were in for something amazing, because in the days leading up to our first shoot she was sending me Pinterest pictures as inspiration. BM Candace decided that we would do two shoot; an urban influenced shoot and a Colorado inspired shoot.

It was exciting and nerve racking all the same. I've been in a gajillion pictures with BM Candace but never on the other side of her lens. Fortunately I mixed up a batch of Sweet Tea Vodka and Lemonade to help ease my nerves.

Sweet Tea Vodka



Our first stop was the local Skate Park



Of course Mr. Honey couldn't resist playing a little bit during the shoot!

Then we played in the park and on Mr. Honey's skateboard

We headed to our downtown area just before dusk and the light was incredible! We climbed some stairs and hung out on top of a roof, even though it clearly stated No Trespassing. We are rebels like that.

 The light at dusk and us standing on the roof made for these super unique and fun shots, a la Peter Pan!

The final stop was a bar. Yup, we had some engagement pictures taken in a bar. We were going for classy in a less than classy place, that's urban right?

We had SO much fun and Mr. Honey and I are so happy with them. They reflect US and show our personality through and through. They aren't expected and that's what we love about them. 

Our next shoot was inspired by this picture:

Image via Pinterest & Modern Photographers/Photo by Aves Photography



Tell me about your 'off the beaten path' engagement locations, Bees! I want to hear about other fun engagement session locations!

*All pictures by Candace Cross Photography unless otherwise noted

A Best Friendor Dilemma

Usually, the first vendor booked by an engaged couple is the photographer. It's a smart move, insuring the person who will document the biggest moments of your big day is set in stone. Well the Honey's haven't booked a photographer. That's because our preferred photographer is a Friendor (a friend and vendor all rolled into one), but not just any friend and not just any 'ol vendor; she is one of my best friends and also a bridesmaid in our wedding. Hive, meet one of my eight bridesmaids, BM Candace of Candace Cross Photography.

Initially, people are envious our friendor relationship and automatically assume that we get to have her shoot our wedding, I mean she has some serious talent. While I wouldn't trade anything in the world for having her stand next to me at the altar, I will admit I'm jealous of the couples who get to have her document their big day:

I'm spoiled when it comes to wedding photography, because I get to see the amazing work BM Candace does and because I've saturated my mind with photography from wedding blogs. Clearly I want to have my cake and eat it too but the cold, hard truth is that we can't afford the photographers that I want and I'm terrified of paying for a photographer we can afford and receiving sub par photos. I know that sounds ridiculously snobby. Currently, we are trying to figure out how get the drool-worthy photos that I crave at the price our wallet can afford. It's not a fun spot to be because time is ticking. We do have some promising leads as other options for photographers, so I'm not panicking yet.

The silver lining to our dilemma is that BM Candace, of course, does engagement pictures and does a damn good job with them. Stay tuned for our engagement pictures and to see how our photography dilemma pans out!

So hive, who else is using Friendor's for their wedding? Who else feels their expectations far exceed the budget?! I can't be the only one!

*All photos in this post by Candace Cross Photography