As I mentioned in my last honeymoon recap, we decided to get some professional photos taken while we were in Kauai staying at the St. Regis! And when I say “we” decided, I mean me. Grace took some convincing. But I’m so glad we ended up doing it, because I really love how the pictures turned out. I think there are at least a few compelling reasons to get professional honeymoon photos taken:
You spend a lot on wedding pictures—and your wedding is 1000% more important than your honeymoon—but wouldn’t you want at least SOME nice quality photos of arguably the most special vacation ever? I definitely did!
Knowing we were getting professional photos taken later on the trip kept me from stressing about not having many pictures of the two of us earlier in the trip.
Our honeymoon is something I will hold near to my heart for the rest of my life. Photos are a love language for me, and a way I crystallize memories and tangibly cherish them. So having nice pictures from this time in my life was a no-brainer for me.
I love the idea of our kids looking back at honeymoon pictures of their parents! Maybe they won’t care at all, but I know I’d love to have beautiful pictures like this of my parents on their honeymoon.
Also, the cost wasn’t too bad! To be candid, we spent about $350 on our honeymoon photos. That’s a lot of money for some things, but for anyone who’s paid for professional pics, you know that’s very reasonable. We used a company called Flytographer, which matches you with a professional photographer in the area where you’re going on vacation. I looked through a few galleries of Kauai photographers and selected Brigitte, who had great pics and had taken portraits of some gay couples before (my fellow LGBT travelers, you can probably relate that it gives peace of mind to know someone you’ll be working with is a friend to the community). Here’s a link to Brigitte’s profile if you’re interested in booking her. She was so great!
I’m not sure if there are other services out there like Flytographer, but we were really happy with the experience and I would totally recommend them. Of course, every photographer would be different, but our experience was great.
By the way, if anyone wants to use Flytographer, I have a $25 off referral code for you! Use this: CODE9385 :)
Anyway, our pics! We met up with Brigitte at our hotel and headed out to the beach. She lives nearby and has experience shooting at the St. Regis, and she actually showed us to a beautiful hidden cove we hadn’t seen yet! No one else was around and we got some great photos.
Next, we walked around the Hanalei Bay cove and got pictures in some more locations. One of Grace’s hesitations in doing these photos was that she didn’t want everyone to be staring at us if we were getting pics taken in a busy location. So I was thankful that Brigitte knew exactly where to go—even on the grounds of a popular resort like the St. Regis, she managed to find gorgeous hideaway spots that served as amazing backdrops for our pictures.
I also appreciated how much direction we got—Brigitte took plenty of more traditional portraits (like the one above), but she also did a good job getting action shots and would give us ideas of what to do since I definitely tend to get kind of stiff in front of the camera.
And of course, some classic prom shot pics :)
All in all, Brigitte took photos of us for about an hour, and we got 60 pictures back. Not bad if you think about it as a picture a minute! And those are 60 pictures that she culled and edited down—in reality she took many more than 60. Another one of the best things about the service was that it only took 1 week to get our pictures back, and they even sent us a couple of “teaser” shots after a day or two.
If you are considering getting professional pictures taken on your honeymoon or any special vacation, I say GO for it!! I didn’t realize how easy it would be, but I’m so glad we did it. Thanks for reading!