Thursday, July 29, 2010

first photographer interview: Tiffany Wayne


I. Love. Her.

It's overwhelming searching the web for a good wedding photographer, but when you find one that's amazing you know right away.  The shots on Tiffany Wayne's website are beyond fabulous for what I would expect from wedding photos.  I first contacted Tiffany through the contact form on her website and she got back to me within a day and was ready to set up an appointment.

She came to our home so that we could meet with her, and she was a little bit late (less than 10 minutes), but I don't hold that against her at all because I think everyone gets lost when they come to our house for the first time - that's what happens when you live at on a dead end road at the end of a corn field with a crooked street sign.  She was so concerned about being late, which is great, because who wants to hire a professional that doesn't care about punctuality!  I was actually a little nervous about having someone come to my home for a meeting, but then I realized... If I'm not comfortable having this person in my house, then how will I ever be comfortable having her take my picture while I'm getting dressed?  After that I was cool.

Tiffany is about our age, which always makes it easier to relate to someone, but she was so confident and cheery that I think pretty much anyone would like her (except for maybe my grumpy grandma Mildred).  I also loved how she was dressed very professionally even though she was just coming over to our house for a half hour - no worries about having her show up to my wedding in jeans and a wife-beater!

I loved how instead of simply showing us all of the stuff we can buy from her, she began by talking to us about how we met and what we were like, and she really only produced things for us to look at when it came up naturally in the conversation.  We were able to see a book of her photos and an example of a published wedding book.  She also gave us a folder containing pricing and packages, an example contract, business card, and glossed up shiny postcards with her website and business information on them (and truly, who can help but love something shiny?).

When we got down to actually talking about photos, Tiffany made sure that she understood the styles, posing, colors, locations, etc. that we were looking for.  Tiffany also suggested a way that we could alter one of the packages to better fit our needs, which was really helpful because we wouldn't have thought of that on our own; for example, we could substitute having a second photographer and instead have an engagement shoot (which we would call an "I love you shoot" - since we're not truly engaged).  Tiffany also brought up the idea of a photobooth which is something I really want to do.  I've seen other photographers mention that on their websites and they charge extra for it, but Tiffany included it in her package for us.

The thing I liked the most was how Tiffany's face lit up when I explained that we aren't looking for formal or traditional wedding photos - we are looking for creative and artisitc shots, something really unique.  It was like I gave a 5-year-old a whopping chunk of chocolate cake.  That moment convinced me that we wouldn't get some clichéd wedding portraits with people standing in a line - let's move beyond 1985, people!


My only cons (which aren't really cons) are two small things:
1. I wished that I was able to see her packages and pricing before our appointment - even though I told her my budget in the initial email and she let me know that she did have packages in that range.
2. After meeting with her, I wish that she had posted something on her website about being able to do photobooths.  If I had known that she could do that, I might not have even made the appointment with the second photographer, because that's something I was really looking for.

However, based on our interview, I would recommend Tiffany Wayne 100% to anyone who asked.  Although we haven't made our decision yet, because we have another appointment scheduled, we were very impressed with Tiffany and we think she would be an excellent fit for our needs.

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