We love being very personal with our couples as it really helps our storytelling by getting to know each other. From our blogs, and our first video chat with the couple, to the day we spend together celebrating, we feel like we’ve become friends through the whole process. This is the way we like to work, this is the way we like to set the experience for our couples. So we really want to help you get to know why we do what we do.
I (Tony) shot my first wedding in 2003 with good old film. A friend asked if they could hire me to photograph their wedding, as I have never shot one before but had decent experience with events. The photos turned out well, they were happy with it and told their friends. I shot my second wedding also with film which by that time I had enough funds to buy a Digital SLR camera which was just starting to get popular for professionals. I was still studying at Rutgers at this time, majoring in Graphic Design. I had never been to weddings as an adult before, and never thought about the world of wedding photography since I hadn’t even graduated or planned my future career in my major. Soon enough, the word got out that I photographed weddings around my peers and they started hiring me.
As requests grew for my services, I made sure I had website with galleries and a contact form. That was it. No advertising, no listings, no networking. I just let my business grow organically, word of mouth, and by demand. Couples told me they really liked how my work showed the real events of the day and not just posed images that could really just be a generic couple. I was shooting and traveling so much for weddings that it really grew into a full time occupation. While still to this day I don’t fully understand why, but the demand and trust was great enough for my work that couples would fly me out for their West Coast wedding just from referrals!
Fast forward to 2011 when Olya and I first met working at an event as photographers. We soon became good friends and she started shooting weddings with me. We took great effort and time together to produce top quality work that both complimented each of our strengths and weaknesses, and elevated the experience with the couple to a whole new level. I’ve always been on the quiet, background photo-ninja style photographer while Olya loves to provide white glove service to our couples. They are held by the hand from their first contact with us and through the whole day of the wedding.
We are people pleasers, so we really go above and beyond wedding photographers. We show up on the wedding day as as the couple’s closest helpers to assist in absolutely anything they need from needing a ride to the venue to bustling the wedding dress. We keep the couple on schedule. We make sure the couple enjoys themselves and relaxes whenever possible. Oh and did I mention we also take amazing photos of their entire day too?
Olya and I both majored in other fields in college, and we do wedding photography because we absolutely love where it takes us in life. We know couples that come to us by request because they don’t want anyone else. We stay in business after decades because we want couples to love their wedding photos – and who are we to deny them what they want?
That basically sums up why we do what we do. Couples love us, and we love them!
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