Lucky Groom!
When my wife and her friend were searching online for wedding photographers ~1 year before our wedding date, they stumbled upon Cottonwood Studios' Instagram. My wife, who has even higher standards for photographers than she has for a husband, was extremely impressed, and she made it clear that we HAD to get Cottonwood at all costs - even if it meant moving our wedding date if Cottonwood was unavailable! I won't comment too much on the photos themselves since everyone can see Cottonwood's work via Instagram, their portfolio, etc, but I do want to discuss the means to the end - the process of working with Caleb and Kari. Starting with the engagement shoot, it couldn't have been easier working out a shooting day with Cottonwood. FYI, Caleb and Kari live outside the U.S. and work events all over the world, so it is good to discuss with them when they will be in your region. Fortunately for us, they were in NYC already when we wanted to have our engagement shoot, so we coordinated a shoot in Brooklyn. Speaking of that shoot in Brooklyn, we were able to leverage Caleb and Kari's expertise - they had shot in that location years ago and still remembered some really cool areas to shoot. The whole evening/night, they were extremely personable and we had a lot of fun. They helped us carry around some 2nd outfits which we changed into and they didn't seem tired even though we put a few miles on our feet that night. So recap, they were accessible and helpful during the shoot and were great at suggesting poses, positioning us, and getting some great, natural reactions out of us. Moving onto the wedding day: Caleb and Kari have great style so they looked great at our wedding. Caleb arrived at the Groom's room in the morning to snap the guys getting ready while Kari did the same with the Bride and the ladies. Caleb and Kari fit right in and there was never any awkward moments. The entire wedding day, which was breakfast to midnight, was a very long day with no breaks, but Caleb and Kari also had a lot of energy and kept the great suggestions coming the whole time. Same as the engagement shoot, we again had a lot of fun with them and got great photos in the process! One of the neat things I noticed was how excited Caleb and Kari were immediately after they took great photos. Caleb or Kari would show each other thumbnails on the camera screen (which is actually pretty big these days), and they would both get so excited - which got me and my wife very excited, too! Then they would show us, and we could see first-hand how their vision would pay-off and that we would get the same type of great pictures we saw on Instagram months earlier but with us in the pictures this time! For my last point, I want to quickly mention that I had a lot of friends coming up to me at the wedding telling me how "friendly and cool" the photographers were. A lot of other friends asked for their information, too - now I think I know who might be getting engaged soon! Overall, my wife and I could not be happier with having Cottonwood as the photographers for our engagement shoot and our wedding.