Who is going to be your photographer?

For a while now I have admired the artistic eye of a photographer friend of mine, Julie Roberts. The main catch is that she lives in Tennessee. Even so, when I called her she alerted me to the fact that she was already booked for the weekend of our wedding. Otherwise, she may have considered flying out to shoot for us. She did, however, mention someone in Orange County that she admires, The Becker, whose $7,000 starting package places him well out of our price range. Of course, we have other local friends who are great photographers with competative prices. Still, we were looking for a certain style.

We asked around and one of the recommendations we received was David Blair. He is a great guy with an amazing eye. And we enjoyed meeting with him immensely. Even though he and his wife will be moving to Kentucky the week of our wedding, he was totally willing to fly back to shoot our wedding.

We also met a second time with Mike Kelley who we initially met at a bridal show in Ontario. We certainly had a good rapport from the start. And his work stood out as unique in style and professional in quality among all the photography vendors there that day. When we met with him the second time, it was to learn specifics of the packages he offers and also to discuss the fact that to do our wedding he would have to fly back early from vacation in Oregon, which he also was totally willing to do. He needed to know as soon as possible whether we would like to hire him so he could make flight arrangements.

It was a difficult decision, but in the end we chose Michael S. Kelley Photography. Not only do I like his style, but I am convinced that he charges some of the best prices for the best quality products out there. I found one local photographer whose inexpensive package consisted of $300/hr., after which she would simply hand over the negatives at the end of the day, end of story. In contrast, for less money Mike will be going in after and adding special touches to our photos, providing us with a book of proofs, and making our photos available online so that we and our loved ones can order additional quality prints at our convenience. I'd encourage you to check out and enjoy his work here and read some comments from other clients here.