Engagement Pics

Mr. Pug and I have a trip planned to Las Vegas and Seattle next month, and I would love to take some engagement pictures while we are there. Las Vegas is one of the cities we vacationed at as a couple, and Seattle is important to me because it is where I went to college and lived for eight years. I wanted some iconic shots of the city -- Las Vegas sign, The Strip, and Neon Light Graveyard in Las Vegas; Space Needle, Pike Place Market, University of Washington, and Issaquah (the town I bought my first home in) in Seattle. I ran the idea by Mr. Pug and got the okay, so I started researching photographers in both cities.

Since I lived in Seattle for a while, I knew of a couple photographers who's work I've been eyeing for the past five or six years -- GH Kim. Isn't their work amazing? *swoon*

Unfortunately, I contacted them and they were a little out of our price range ($600 for one hour of photography and about 25 images -- $500 more for a guestbook made from the images). I continued my search by checking out the Seattle Knottie board to look for recommendations. That's how I found Kate McElwee. I love her style and the way she incorporated those iconic Seattle sights into her pictures. I contacted her and worked out a deal that would allow us to take pictures at all of the locations I mentioned above. Take a look at her pictures. I'm so excited!

For our Vegas pictures, I once again ventured to the Local Knottie Board to look for recommendations. I once again fell in love with a photographer who was out of our price range -- Chelsea Nicole. Her price was about $700, and if I wanted to shoot at the Neon Sign Graveyard, there is a $150-$200 fee. We decided that was too much for us to spend on engagement pictures, but here's some eye candy for you...

The Las Vegas knotties also highly recommended Bently & Wilson. They have done a lot of "strip tours" where you walk along the strip and take pictures in front of a bunch of hotels. Even better, it was less than $300 for 2 hours of photography, a digital copy of all the images in high-resolution, and 75 prints of the best shots from the shoot. We decided to book him and can't wait!

I've always wanted "nice" pictures of Mr. Pug and me...my current collection are a bunch of "self-portraits" where you can see my pasty arm holding the camera as far away as possible in hopes of capturing our faces and a sliver of the background behind us. I'd love to take professional photos each time we travel to a new city, but I imagine that could get costly!