Check!

We have our photographer! FINALLY! I am so excited to have this settled- it was one of our last major things we had to get done!

A quick re-cap of our photography issues..... A good family friend is, or was, a professional photographer and my Dad and I both assumed that he would shoot our wedding, as a gift to us, so in our original wedding budget we only accounted for the cost of materials ($500 or less). About 3 months into planning, my Dad actually got around to asking him about it, and he said he'd really rather not do it. Since he doesn't do it professionally anymore, he doesn't have a lot of the equipment he'd need and I wouldn't be happy with his work, and he would rather just come and enjoy himself at our wedding, considering he has known me my whole life. So we go to Plan B.... Will's parents recommend a family friend of theirs, saying that he does weddings all the time and they were sure he'd be more than happy to do it. A couple more months go by.... he basically says the same thing. So now it is almost March and we still have no photographer...... Plan C: I ask a friend from college, who was a photojournalism major, if her and her roommate, also a photographer, could do it and how much they would charge, explaining that we basically have NO photography budget. They email me back a quote, which seemed a little high, but I assumed it would be the best we'd find, since she was giving us a price break from what she normally charges, because we're friends. Will is shocked at how much photography costs and suggests that we just have friends and family email us their digital pictures..... umm... hell no? Sorry, but I am too obsessed with pictures and memories and scrapbooks to have no one there to photograph the most important day of our lives!

So, now I'm on a mission to contact other photographers and prove to him that the quote isn't bad, considering what others are charging... and low and behold... I find Melissa Smith! I had some business cards of photographers in a file, from various wedding events I've been to, and I just started contacting them. Melissa got back to me right away, and once I told her about our photography struggles, and about our wedding/honeymoon budget getting slashed due to the trips to Florida and me being laid off, she agreed to shoot our wedding for $500! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT??? I couldn't! I was so excited yesterday, I could barely contain myself!!! I probably shouldn't be advertising this, because it is not something she normally does. Most of her packages start around $700, but I think that's still a lot more reasonable than most of the others out there. To me, she is an angel, and if there is any money leftover when September rolls around, I will definitely be spending it with her! Her work is amazing and I absolutely cannot wait to have her be a part of our big day!!

Check out her work! www.melissasmithphotography.ifp3.com