|
Review content:
AMIE MORGAN PHOTOGRAPHY
Carmel, Monterey, & Pebble Beach
I just had a wedding in Carmel (at the Carmel River State Beach to be exact) and was fortunate enough to have use Amie and her awesome assistant as my wedding photojournalist. Given that I live in New York and had never actually been to Carmel before the actual day of my wedding, it truly was refreshing to find Amie's website and utilize her services. For anyone like me who is unfamiliar with the Monterey Bay area and planning to have a destination wedding there, finding a local photographer who actually knew the geography (as opposed to the San Francisco based photographers of similar caliber who are simply ignorant of the local in's-and-out's) was the best thing that could have ever happened.
Trust me, when you Google around looking for local Carmel or Monterey based photographers you'll notice one glaring problem: not only does their work simply reek of tacky style and a business model based in the stone age, but they are completely destination wedding UN-friendly. So, when I visited Amie Morgan's web site and found that she really did cater almost exclusively to destination-wedding brides-to-be, it truly took a load off my shoulders.
Just a few of the highlights from my experience with her include:
-Simply breathtaking, stunning images (my hubby is not-so-photogenic and she somehow made him look like a million bucks)
-There were two photographers at my wedding (both Amie and her assistant)
-Since it was a man/woman team shooting, they were able to split-up before the wedding and shoot both myself and my fiancé getting ready (those were actually some of the most touching photos actually)
-Online reservations
-Online credit card payment (I think I used Google Checkout but am not sure)
-I got a ton of super high-resolution images (well over 500 pictures)
-With those digital images I could order prints at my local photo finisher
-She made an awesome slideshow & hosted it at her site so I could share it with my family/friends who didn't make it to the wedding
-Surprisingly low price (especially considering the horrible local competition cost well over $1,000 more than her prices)
-She really did run her business practically all online so I was able to do everything from my laptop here in New York without a single hiccup.
The only "downside," if you even want to call it that, was that she does not operate a traditional photography portrait studio; so, if you want super-formal portraits with backgrounds only found in portrait studios, then that would be a drawback.
You should also know that she really does shoot in a "photojournalistic" style as opposed to the formal and posed style that was previously popular back when my parents were getting married. That isn't to say that she didn't shoot posed group shots of the family, she sure did, but I can say that with my photos about 90% or more of them were more candid, natural, un-posed, and of a photojournalistic style (basically, she was telling a story when it was all said and done).
I suppose another "downside" is that she books her calendar well in advance and it fills up fast. I actually contacted her a year and a half in advance of my wedding and we actually had to shuffle my schedule around a little bit to have her shoot my wedding.
As far as prices are concerned, like I said earlier, it truly was refreshing that she provided clear, honest, and up-front pricing so that I could budget accordingly. I say this because the vast majority of the competition I looked at really "hid the ball" by charging a low fee up-front but then seriously burned you after the event is over by charging anywhere from $10-35 per 4"x6" proof print (if I recall correctly, for the bigger 8x10 enlargements the competition would charge well over $45+ per print). Even though she does provide the opportunity for you to order extra enlargements/prints from her site after the event, those prices truly seemed like she simply passed her cost directly on to you without any nasty markup. Additionally, while on the topic of prices & prints, she provided me with the 500+ high-resolution digital images so that, if I decided to, go out and make prints on my own and cut her completely out of the picture (I actually didn't make many of my own prints because I noticed that my local photo finisher didn't do half as good of a job as the photo finisher she uses).
In summary, I simply am soooooo happy I was able to find her and have my wedding captured with her attention to detail. Without question, I would highly recommend Amie's photography services to any bride-to-be that is having their wedding in Carmel or the Monterey Bay Area.
|