Lotus Dude and I decided early on that photography was going to be one of our priorities. I had seen gorgeous photographs on various wedding websites and blogs. I started out by contacting two photographers whose work I had seen and loved.

Photo from kisofotografia.com

Of course, both of those photographers lived in New York. And it would have cost quite a bit to have them come to Ohio to photograph our wedding considering the time, travel, food and lodging. While I’m sure it would probably have been worth every penny, I began to worry about the practicality of asking a photographer from New York to come photograph my wedding in Ohio. What if something happened? A freak storm, traffic accidents, airline difficulties, equipment getting lost… these days scenarios like that aren’t so unlikely.

So we decided that we should at least look for photographers in Ohio. It just made much more sense to hire a local photographer if we found someone whose work we liked. We were looking for someone who was skilled at capturing spontaneous moments as Lotus Dude and I want to minimize the time we have to spend posing. We also want someone who will be able to capture the emotion of the day. After all, that’s what weddings should be about. And of course, someone who was skilled at the basics of photography and composition.

I am so glad we decided to look at photographers in Columbus. We ended up finding kiso fotografia and Karen’s work is gorgeous. To me, this photograph is all about emotion and spontaneity.

I still haven’t met Karen in person, but we’ve corresponded on the phone and via email several times. We’ll meet in person for the first time a couple months before the wedding when she comes to D.C. for our engagement shoot. I really feel like we connected during our phone conversations. I think our personalities will work well with hers and we’ll have a lot of fun working together. After all, I don’t want our engagement shoot and our wedding to feel like work!