Dream Photog vs Affordable Photog

Personally, if it's in budget, I would go with the dream photographer. You'll have these wedding photos for forever, so might as well make sure you're getting the photographer you want. If you wanted to do an engagement session, you can always book just an engagement session with a cheaper photographer. The album can also always be purchased later, sometime after the wedding.

I would 100% go with your dream photographer if you can make it work financially. You could always order an album after the fact from a printing site- artifact uprising is the one we used because our package didn’t come with an album either.

Like the others said, I'd go with your dream photographer if you can afford it. Wedding photos are forever, and I fully believe that if there's one thing you shouldn't skimp on, it's the photographer.

I think you should go with your dream photographer. You don't want to regret it in the end if not.

Go with the dream photographer. All photographers charge an absurd amount for albums anyway. I also used Artifact Uprising and it turned out beautifully. I can’t imagine the photographers version would have been better and I got to select and format the photos how I wanted. You’ll have the pictures forever, go with your gut. You can always find a cheaper person for separate engagement photos if you really want but doesn’t sound like you’re sold on that anyway.

My fiancé and I agreed to put more money into our photographer because they're going to be capturing the moments you miss as the day goes by, even if that meant cutting down on other things because of our budget.

I'm a photographer and photography was one of the most important things about my wedding. Go with your dream photographer!

You want to be fully confident in your photographer on your wedding day and the last thing you want is to get your photos and feel like you cheated yourself out of capturing the day in the way you wanted. You will spend a ton of money on all the details of your wedding, most of which will not last beyond the day itself - the food will get eaten, the flowers will die, and your venue will be in someone else's hands after the fact - so it makes sense to splurge a bit to make sure your entire wedding vision is beautifully captured forever.

Our wedding package did not include an engagement shoot or an album either, but I felt very confident in our photographer and trusted her to capture our day, so didn't feel stressed about photography at all during our wedding, which has so much value in itself. If you aren't 100% sure you want to do an engagement shoot and are not sure you will get your schedules to align for one, I would not let that deter you from choosing a package that doesn't include one. For me it was not super important because we already had photos we could use for our STDs and wedding website, I knew my husband would have been a little apprehensive to do a professional engagement shoot, and we had a shorter engagement so would not have been abled to schedule them during the season I wanted anyway. Album wise, albums from photographers always tend to be VERY expensive and chances are you look at photos on devices 99% of the time anyway. Once you have your photos, you can purchase an album after the fact, whether its one you design on your own or one you order from your photographer later, perhaps with gifted wedding money. The photos are the foundation of your album, without photos you absolutely love the album doesn't even matter. As a photographer, I already have a relationship with a professional print lab and am used to processing photographs for print, so I just ended up designing my own album from the digital files supplied from our photographer and it came out great. While still not cheap, the cost to DIY my own album was considerably less expensive than if I had paid our photographer to do it. For me it was mostly an investment of time, as the quality was still the same/similar to what our photographer would have produced since I used a professional lab.

Go for the dream photographer! Especially since they can make your budget work. An album is something you could on your own anyways or could potentially be added on later if someone gifted it to you. I enjoyed the engagement session but would not have made my decision based on that alone at all. Your photos will last your lifetime it's definitely worth it.

See if you can pinch your overall budget in other areas less important to you to try and make up the $1400

Definitely dream photographer. I wish mine could've been in our budget or the realm of possibility even-- We married at a chapel in Vegas that only allowed for the use of the venue-contracted photographer, and I feel like we had so many missed opportunities for family photos. The photographer asked us who we wanted in photos, so we just were saying general things like "parents, grandparents, siblings, friends," and at the time, I didn't even notice that my nephews or my two brothers-in-law weren't part of the photos because my mind was just reeling. Don't get me wrong, the photos turned out great and we got a lot of beautiful photos of my husband and I together, but missing parts of my family in photos really sucks in retrospect. I also didn't love the editing style so I ended up editing them all more after we got them.

Even though I do still love my photos, I just know that I would've been much happier if we could have had my dream photographer. I'm sure she would've had the experience to know which photos to take & the photos would have already had an editing style that I knew I loved.

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Ladies, THANK YOU! You have all confirmed my gut feeling! Kari, you hit the nail on the head, as your thinking was my EXACT thinking as well. I don't want to live in regret that I didn't get what I wanted. An album could be made whenever, photos cant be redone so I want to go with the most important part of the package, the actual photographer. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! I am going to book today!

Definitely the dream photographer. You can always have a professional wedding album made later, but you can't go back in time to redo the quality of the photos.

If it's in your budget, ABSOLUTELY go with your dream photographer. I promise you that you will not regret choosing the photographer who is going to give you the photos you will cherish forever. you can always get an album printed later! and you can always find someone else "cheaper" for engagement photos!