your wedding photos: the only thing you'll have left on sunday morning.

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Unless you're counting that cake cutting knife or the dirty confetti. Ask anyone who's married - wedding days are a blur. Spending two years planning a wedding and agonizing over every detail, and then not hiring a photographer that pays attention and curates your story is counter-intuitve. Because no matter how much you time you spend making dreamcatchers or dyeing napkins, and no matter how much money you cough up on that perfect venue in the trees or that dream dress, it's all over the next day, and what you have left is quite literally in the hands of someone you trusted with a camera.

For the love of God, please don't let it be your uncle who photographs cardinals in his backyard, or your friend's friend who has a nice DSLR, or - maybe worse yet - the photographer with cheap prices who does a decent job.

I'm not saying it has to be me. I'm only begging you to love them - their work, their vision. Because these images are the only thing you get to pull back out to remind you of your day. And not just the parts you saw - whole other nooks of the afternoon that you weren't there for: your husband hugging your dad, your grandma surrounded by your cousins at cocktail hour, your reception venue, candlelit and untouched by guests, your vision come to life. Because beyond the Google search list of "must have wedding photos," there is your story. The images that are entirely unique to you.

Because a monkey could snap a series of photos of people smiling and looking at the camera. It takes an artist to notice your mama crying in the bathroom, the twirl of a flower girl in the corner of the room nobody else has noticed.

My brides are not the ones with the most exuberant budgets; rather, they value quality wedding photography as a huge part of their day and prioritize it as so.