We use full-frame professional Nikon bodies and lenses.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Our travel fee is waived for all events taking place within the five boroughs of New York City and Northern/Central NJ. Events taking place outside of this geographical area will incur a travel fee, typically covering accommodations and transportation (gas, tolls, air fare, car rental, and/or all of the above). If you're unsure, please feel free to contact us and we'll provide you with an estimate.
Since it's a complimentary service that we provide, clients are certainly welcome to skip it if they wish . Unfortunately, there are no cost-savings we can offer clients who wish to skip the engagement session altogether. We strongly encourage our clients to do the engagement session because we want them to become acclimated with equipment as well as our working style. Along that same vein, these sessions provide us with a tremendous amount of insight on how to approach the wedding day, along with many other benefits,
which can be found here.
Of course! And we would be happy to deduct the cost of this session from your wedding photography package if you decide to book with us in the future.
As far as a rain date is concerned – unfortunately, we can only hold one date at a time per client. Due to our limited schedules, we need to make sure we are available for other clients who need firm dates for their engagement sessions (especially during the wedding seasons April-June and September-November). We allow clients to reschedule their engagement session up to 2 times (so 3 dates total) for any reason (emergencies, schedule conflicts, weather, etc) before the engagement session is forfeited. Any reschedules that occur after the 3rd cancellation are considered on a case-by-case basis.
Most private properties, parks and landmarks will require a permit of some kind, and the clients are responsible for securing these permits before the engagement session or wedding day.
We only book one event per day, so there isn't any left-over time to speak of. Think of our wedding day coverage as "day-of coverage, capped at 10 hours".
Overtime coverage may be considered on a case-by-case basis, and will be based on our availability. The good news is that we are usually able document all of your deliverable images well within those 10 hours of coverage.
We'll generally do some online scouting to see what's available at the location(s), and if time permits, we'll scout the location on the day of. The trouble with scouting locations in advance is that shooting conditions may be different between the scouting time and the wedding day (lighting, weather, season, etc). If there are any specific features at your venue/location that you'd like us to use, please let us know and we'll accommodate those requests as best we can.
While you are not required to feed us, a warm meal is always greatly appreciated. The last thing any bride would want is their wedding photographer passing out on the dance floor! If a warm meal is not provided, we would simply take a 30-60 minute break off-premises and find something on our own. Our time off site will be determined by how far we are from the nearest restaurant!
We would be happy to work off of a shot list for family formal portraits only. While we don't mind entertaining any ideas that our clients may have found on the internet, this approach to wedding photography will limit our ability to document the wedding day in a candid, journalistic manner that reflects our style as genuinely as possible. It's also super important to note that copying other people's work is a huge no-no.
If their list of rules are provided to us in a timely fashion (so we can discuss with the director/coordinator, if necessary), there should be no problems as long as the clients understand these rules as well. They're simply there to ensure that photographers don't cause any disturbances, and that some level of decorum is maintained throughout the ceremony.
Always two. Barring any tragic catastrophes, Ben always guarantee his presence for your event.
Karis would generally handle any emergencies (personal or otherwise). In those instances, we would simply provide a substitute second-photographer at no additional cost.
We work really hard to avoid any of those 3 scenarios. We belong to many professional photography organizations and we are confident that any one of our talented colleagues would be more than happy to help out if something really tragic happened to either one of us.
A typical wedding will generally yield between 500-800 images, depending on the length of coverage time, as well the number of elements that are incorporated into the wedding day. There are many things our couples can do to increase their yield of images from their wedding day,
which can be found here.
While we guarantee delivery within 20 weeks of your event date, we typically deliver around 8-12 weeks (or sooner, depending on the time of year). Engagement sessions are guaranteed at 12 weeks, but we typically deliver between 6-8 weeks. To date, we’ve never fallen behind schedule on our deliveries.
Our clients will receive a link to a private online gallery where they may view/order their images. A password will also be provided for distribution among family and friends. Additional links for downloading the full-resolution images will be provided as well.
No. This would be like going into a restaurant's kitchen and asking the cook for the ingredients so you can make your own meal. We have a professional responsibility to provide our clients with a finished product; nothing less, and possibly a whole lot more. The consistency and accountability of our brand is counting on it!
Read more here.
Yes. You will be provided with a copyright release, which will allow you to make prints, enlargements and albums on your own.
We will work with all our clients to assemble a package that will best suit their budget and needs. However, we have a professional responsibility to keep our pricing consistent with all of our clients, and accomplish all this without compromising the client experience or the quality of our delivered product.
We will place a soft-hold on your date for two weeks while you look over the contract details. Our availability is determined on a first come-first served basis. We cannot hold any dates without a signed contract and deposit.
Our schedules are typically booked up to 12-18 months in advance.
Due to our limited availability throughout the year, we are no longer taking any new clients for maternity, newborn and family photography.
Yes and no - it really depends on our availability. We only take a limited amount of bookings each year to ensure timely delivery of everyone's images. Since we don't outsource our post-production, it would be simply unwise for us to shoot 7 days a week.
Keeping our post-production in house allows us to maintain creative control and accountability over our images. While some clients may wish to receive their photos within 1-2 weeks after their wedding, this simply isn't possible with the amount of work/care that we put into each individual image for all of our clients.
Our ability to obtain new clients relies heavily on search engines and social media. If a client found us, there's a very good chance that they've already viewed our work online: a benefit they can now enjoy because our past clients were willing to pay it forward by allowing us to showcase their images. It's also reasonable to assume that most prospective clients would not even consider a photographer without seeing their portfolio first. So unfortunately, the short answer is "No".
While there may be a ton of photographers out there in the universe who may agree to endorsing an NDA, we just don't happen to be one of them. If you'd like to keep your wedding images private, there's certainly nothing wrong with that! This would simply be a case of square pegs and round holes, that's all :).