Our Personal Wedding Photography Experience

In April of 2011 I asked my best friend to marry me and make me the happiest man in the world. She said yes and we quickly dove head first into planning our wedding only a few short months later. I remember back then that everyone was becoming a photographer and looking for work. Haley and I were not photographers at this point, nor was it even on the horizon for us yet. We also had no prior experience to a professional photographer or what we should be looking for in a wedding photographer. We had two friends that were starting a business together and we gladly asked them to help us out by photographing our wedding. We paid them a total of $500 to cover the entire day for us.

Now I love my friends and I’m not going to speak ill of them. However the experience that we ended up having was not ideal. We had little to no communication with them leading up to the wedding about what to expect, no mention of what we might like to see in our photos or what memories we wanted captured the most. We gave them money to click a button on a device and give us a cd of files. There wasn’t much direction when posing us or any consideration of lighting in the ceremony or when we were getting ready or the reception. Our friends were just very inexperienced and didn’t know what they were doing.

Then the worst happened.

After our wedding we get a call from our friend stating that her computer had crashed and she had lost over half of our images from the wedding day. On top of not having some of the most important memories preserved from our lifetime each image had a different preset or edit to it. So there was no cohesion to the story these photos were suppose to be retelling.

And now we are almost 11 years into our beautiful marriage and we often think back to this decision and wish that we could go back in time and at least educate ourselves on why wedding photos are so important in the long run. Because now our kids don’t have those pictures to look back on. Their heirloom was taken from them before they even had a chance with it.

The lesson I learned.

Once I had the thought of becoming a photographer myself, in 2014, I told Haley that I didn’t want to give my future clients the kind of experience that we had. So I dove into education and learning everything I could about photography, both on the technical skill side and the business side. I quickly fell in love with everything about the business and capturing peoples moments for them to be able to look back on. Finally launching my business in 2016 I started photographing weddings and helping my couples see the importance of preserving these memories for generations to come.

I’ve spent the following years creating and perfecting the client experience that I want to give to my couples for their wedding. I’ve poured countless hours into researching and finding out what a great experience looks like.

My goal for you is to be informed and knowledgeable about what wedding photography will actually mean in 10, 20, even 50 years down the road to you and your relationship. Sure it’s on every checklist for planning a wedding imaginable, but why? Why is it important? And why is it on of the most expensive portions of the wedding? I hope to answer these questions and more for you when you choose to book me for your wedding.

Don’t wait and risk your memories being lost to time! Let’s chat about how I can help you preserve your once-in-a-lifetime memories!

Love & Legacy Studios is a Wedding and Portrait Photography studio based in Auburn Alabama and available for travel worldwide. It’s our goal to preserve your once-in-a-lifetime moments against the thief of time.