Rehearsal Dinner Photographer

Miss Cupcake wrote a lovely post on the rehearsal dinner photographer at her mother's wedding. The images really are great, they are so relaxed and natural. Our rehearsal dinner will be the immediate family and our bridal party. Having a photographer present would be a great way to get shots of these VIPs without all the extra wedding hubbub.

I posted earlier about the wonderful Charlee Brodsky who shot our engagement photos as a gift to Mr. Pineapple and me. Well, she is at is again. One of Charlee's students, Mingwei Tai, mentioned that she would like to build a wedding and event photography portfolio. Charlee suggested Mingwei contact us about the possibility of working at our wedding.

Mingwei sent me a link to her online portfolio. She photographs a lot of events at Carnegie Mellon such as Spring Carnival, fashion shows, commencement and the Dancer's Symposium. I really wanted to give her the opportunity to grow her portfolio. I know what is it like to be a student dying for some "real" work.

Unfortunately, We had already booked our photographer at this point and she had an "exclusive photographer" clause in her contract. So, we would not be able to hire Mingwei for our wedding. We also did not have it in our budget to hire another photographer. I explained all of this to Mingwei and discussed with her the possibility of coming to our rehearsal and dinner. Lucky for us, she thought this was a great idea.

Mingwei also told me that she didn't need to be paid, that she would love to do it either way, just so she could have the experience. I, of course wanted to give her something for her time, so Mr. Pineapple and I have been fiddling with our budget to find a little wiggle room.

I am very excited that we will have images of the night before the big day and that we, like the Gingerbreads, were able to give this opportunity to a student. Mingwei doesn't know this yet, but I am going to talk with our photographer and see if she wouldn't mind Mingwei being at the wedding as well. Our photographer is very sweet and I have a feeling this may work out.

Anyone have any suggestions on how we could quickly turn around the files and create something cool for our reception?