A huge sigh of relief

When we booked our wedding photographer (the amazing Christina Garber), I was completely excited to have that part of the planning behind us.  With one minor hiccup -- we had never laid eyes on the woman!  I booked her after looking at her website and some pretty lengthy email correspondences, but never once had we met face-to-face or even chatted over the phone.  Don't get me wrong - I wanted to do the traditional meet-up and look over portfolios, but it just wasn't feasible.  We were in Pittsburgh, she was 2-ish hours away in Altoona, Pennsylvania.  I wasn't willing to wait until after a meeting, and run the risk of her getting snatched up by someone else, so I decided to forget the meeting and put down a deposit ASAP.

Fortunately, Christina offers a engagement shoot as part of her wedding day package.  I was smitten with this from the get-go for a few reasons: it would give us a chance to actually meet each other before W-day, we could see how she interacts with us while shooting, we could see how we interact with her while shooting, and we would (hopefully) get some pretty sweet professional pictures out of the whole process.  Not a bad deal.  Mr. Snow Cone and I decided we wanted to take our engagement pictures in the fall, for one main reason.  Pretty much all of Western PA looks like this during the autumn:

 

Image via About.com Pittsburgh / Photo by Commonwealth Media Services

It's super amazing, and definitely one of my favorite parts of living in Pennsylvania.  Christina was totally on-board with an outdoor autumn photo shoot, so the plans were set.  We all met in a teeny tiny town called Loretto, shooting at Charles Schwab's former summer home near St. Francis University.  Mr. Snow Cone and I were both a bit nervous about how it would all go, since we had no idea what to really expect from Christina.  WELL.  She kind of rocked our world.  She was totally relaxed behind the camera, offering us some suggestions for poses and backdrops without being pushy.  She kept us laughing the whole way through the shoot, and both Mr. Snow Cone and I ended up feeling really relaxed and comfortable during the entire thing, which undoubtedly helped with the quality of pictures we received.  Without further ado, here are some of the best of the best:

All photos above by Christina Garber

Despite our initial anxiety, we were both quite pleased with our selection.  As we were driving back to Pittsburgh after the shoot, Mr. Snow Cone said everything I have ever wanted to hear in respect to wedding planning: "Well, Miss Snow Cone, your due diligence definitely paid off.  She's awesome."  The best part?  Christina got all the photos to us in less than a week, which was a much faster turnaround than I had ever expected.  I am so excited to see what she images she manages to capture on our wedding day...!!!

Did you book any vendors based on internet research alone?  Were you pleased by the results?