Behind The Scenes: A Life of a Vendor

Quite a while ago, I wrote a post about what it's like to be on the vendor side of the fence when it comes to wedding planning and executing. Since that time, my career path has changed pretty drastically. I am now a full-time Wedding and Event Coordinator for a local catering company. The account that the company is contracted for is one of the larger colleges in the Pittsburgh area and the venue at the college holds between 50-70 weddings a year. If you're thinking, "but there are only fifty-two weeks in a year, you dope," I am here to tell you that Friday and Sunday weddings are definitely A Thing in this region. 

I love my job and it's kind of a dream come true for me. When my friends will ask me what all my job entails, my short, jokey answer is, "I plan shit and tell people what to do." The response is almost always, "that is perfect for you." It wasn't until fairly recently though, through communication with BM Y, that it hit me: I'm a vendor. 

Since that thought took place, I've been sort of writing this post in my head. I thought that it might be helpful for those in the planning stages to have a sort of behind-the-scenes glimpse into what a vendor does for your wedding. Mr. Palm Tree consistently comments that he would never think to inquire about so many of the things that I handle on a daily basis, but he would expect them to be done. 

Spotlight On: Our Photographers

I know, I know, I'm too clever for words. ;) 

Before I share our engagement pictures, I wanted to share how we picked our photographers. 

True Confession: Photography was one of the the things I started looking into before we got engaged (Gmail tells me I sent the first e-mail December 14th. We got engaged December 22nd - but hey, to be fair, I knew it was coming). It was always one of the most important things to me (seriously, I'm a picture whore) and I knew it would be one of The Big Decisions.

That having been said, I also knew how expensive wedding photography was in general. In my opinion, $3 - $5,000 for photography is just too much, especially when you add on all the limits: 'x' amount of hours, up to 'y' amount of total pictures, 'z' amount of proofs back. . .but for $500 more, you can add an engagement session! Ain't nobody got time (or monies) for that, am I right?

Despite my near depression, I was persistent and decided to search anyway. I definitely used The Knot for this and would open up six or seven websites at a time, only to close them out with a sigh one after one. Two factors would immediately turn me off: not listing their prices and having fancypants, formal, artsy-fartsy and/or 'serious' pictures everywhere. I mean, to each his/her own, but we aren't fancypants, formal, artsy-fartsy and/or 'serious' people, you know?

Then, I stumbled across Limelight Images.  

Courtesy of Limelight-Images | This is the first picture I saw on their website. I fell in love.