Selecting a photographer

Now that we have picked the location, finished the invitation design, selected our officiant, our next big step is selecting a good photographer & videographer and praying that they get along.
For we have heard horror stories of in-fights over good spots, lights, and jealousies over who has more time with the bride and groom.
While WE have been doing this, I have also been trying out salons in the area for my big day.
Things I have learned:
I like the idea of consultations where the stylist can check out my hair, talk to me about ideas and discuss options.
Since I moved here only a month ago, I have also wanted to find a good stylist for my everyday use and so was working that angle first and the wedding inquiries usually popped up during the consultations.
I am learning that this method works better than calling up salons specifically for wedding consultations. The fees are usually astronomically higher for some reason...interesting.
Also, I love the salons here better than smalltownamerica. I can't describe it but they feel more ethnic and seem to be used to handle different kinds of hair.

Our photographer/videographer hunt is helping us meet some interesting people.
After registering with a local website, which had the average cost in the area of different components of the wedding (v.helpful), we received tons of emails from local vendors.
Sifted through and selected the ones that meet our specific needs and fixed up appointments over the weekend.

All of them were quite professional and had some lovely work. Several stood out but one especially imprinted himself in my brain because of how gross he was. We met at the local Panera and he slurped through his soup, which really didn't bother me much. But specks of soup hung on to his moustache which bothered me v.v.much and I just couldn't look at him after that. His videos had this romantic voice-over where the bride and groom talk about how they met and what they love about each other. v.gushing. and so v.not.us.
Which I kind of smiled and told him and he immediately took offense.
???
And he was quite peculiar about not wanting to work with us on any of our specific requests.
It was v. prima dona 'I am v.creative and have been doing this since before you were born' attitude.
and besides the whole remnants of soup on moustache thing just did not do it for me.

In the end, we have sort of decided on a young husband-wife team who were just full of ideas and had lovely work and seemed to understand the cultural intricacies of our special day.

As for the photographer, we have all but decided on a lovely Venezuelan whose work just seemed to scream us.

So that's location - done
officiant - done
invitation - design done
videographer - almost done
photographer - nearly done

:)))


And because we did so much work over the weekend, the boy & I treated ourselves to our favorite Peruvian restaurant.

The whole eating healthy has made me a very fussy restaurant customer, the sort on whose food waiters may actually spit in before serving it.

But what the heck - I am determined to avoid useless food.