Vendors: Photographer, Website, Save the Dates

WHAT TO LOOK FOR
During wedding meetings, it's not feasible to carry around a laptop, it's very difficult to walk and talk. I have 2 notebooks, 1 large and 1 compact. It's important to document highlights during each meeting [what makes the vendor stand out from their competition?]. Immediately after each meeting, in the car, Mark and I talk about what we liked and disliked about each vendor.

**Key Note:If you know someone who has more knowledge in certain areas, ask! It can save you a lot of time.

PHOTOGRAPHER
We knew we wanted amazing pictures--in a span of 2 days we met 7 photographers! Trust me, it was exhausting!!

We aren't photo connoisseurs and we certainly didn't know what we were looking for. All we knew is that we wanted incredible documentation for our day. We contacted one of Mark's family friends who went to photography school and asked him specific questions [what makes a photographer a good photographer, etc]. He suggested we go with someone who has more technical experience and that didn't rely too much on photoshop. OH, and of course the price+package that would fit our budget!

After meeting and seeing so many photographers and their style, we were able to narrow it down to 2.
Why we went with our photographer, aside from asking our friend for his opinion[haha]

Ron Solimon:
1. He had incredible shots from previous weddings and brought MULTIPLE albums for us to look at. Plus he did a photo shoot for Manny 'PacMan' Pacquiao [ i mean he must be good right!]
2. Although fairly expensive, he offered a larger package which included: engagement photo shoot+ a CD(plus a really nice hard album cover), more album pages (25 is standard, he offered 50), hand delivery of the album, parents albums are customized to our parents and what pictures they want from the larger album, a customized guest book of our engagement session, and unlimited time for the day of wedding. THEN on top of everything, they offered to be at our rehearsal dinner

Why is it important for our rehearsal dinner? Our rehearsal dinner will not only include the people at the wedding but my parents and mark's parent's immediate family members+kids. It will be a huge gathering and we're looking forward to being with everyone.

WEBSITE

Mark and I are fortunate to have incredible friends, specifically, Charlene Prosser who is also one of my bridesmaid! She worked on developing a website for us that was simple, yet elegant. Mark and I knew we didn't want a website from the knot, weddingwire, etc.[not knocking them, love the sites]. We wanted something more personalized with a simple URL for people to remember. I still need to give her our pictures so she can complete the website along with our contact information--all though everyone should already have it =] I have to remember to give her everything! lol, but to view our website its: www.sherryandmark.com


SAVE THE DATE
After our wonderful photo shoot [held during the cherry blossoms] and our website completed, now it was time to work on our Save the Dates "STDs." We wanted to send them out earlier so family can start planning to save money to come across the country/world. I have gone through multiple websites but realized Costco works with a few websites and give incredible discounts. Mark and I spent $161.77 on 175 magnets with extra envelopes. The other websites were quoting $195+. It was a great save!

I went to Staples and bought the clear labels and printed out everyone's names & addresses, what a wonderful invention! It saved a LOT of time!