Photographer = booked!

Yay! After much searching, Derek and I decided on:

Events to Remember.

• The owner, Aaron, is so personable that we talked for two hours. I felt like I was his only customer.
  
• And, he has no problem communicating through email! I had no idea how nice I would find this, but it's great.
  
• He was able to create our own special "package": $2950 for 9 hours of coverage, a 30-page album, a high-res dvd of all of our pictures, an engagement session, 2 parent albums, and a proofbook. From what I'm seeing, that's a pretty good deal.

Here are the other photographers we looked at:

Birch Photographers

• Met with Nicole, she seemed very nice.
• Package pricing can be found here.
• If you go with Birch Photographers and President Tuxedo, you get a $300 discount on the photography.
• Their standard albums weren't leather-bound; they had a photo cover. It was cool, but I like leather-bound better.
  
• Here's what bothered me about them: they contacted me after I entered a contest to win a package from them. Then, they kept calling me about tuxes afterward. That was annoying.
• I didn't get the personal feel from them that I got from Aaron. The lady I met with was a manager--I didn't meet with the photographer. I would have gotten to choose from 6 photographers, but it just felt so impersonal. There were too many gimmicks--for example, if I booked by June 30th, I would get a second photographer thrown in for FREE. Well, it's July now, and they still have that promotion going on...with the deadline being a month later.

Precious Memories Photography

• We didn't actually meet with anyone from here, but they looked reasonable in price and they got an award from theknot.com.
• I didn't like them because I found a picture on there of a groom pretending to smack his new wife's butt. That just turned me off right away.

Grant Isaac Studio

• He was expensive (started around $4000 for packages with an album), but he was Derek's friend and we would have considered him. However, it turns out that he and his wife might be moving to North Carolina!

Fotografz Wedding Photography

• I liked this guy because he had a lot of experience in Birmingham, but he was just too expensive (starting at about $4000 for packages with an album covering 8 hours).

So there's the scoop on photography. Now, on to the florist drama! And boy, is there drama. You just wait until you hear the issues that I never knew existed. Also coming soon: bridesmaid dress shopping. Stay tuned.