How long have you been a photographer?
That's a long short story! I've photographed my first wedding in 2004 and was instantly hooked! It's all the love, laughs, beautiful styles, and the gorgeous couples that I get to know and meet. I truly have the best job! Quite a few of my brides and I are still good friends long after their wedding. Since then, I've photographed anywhere between 20-30 weddings per year.
What’s in your equipment bag?
This is the part where I get to geek out! I'm a primarily a Nikon photographer when it comes to my wedding work. I own Nikon D850 and D800. Both have dual memory card slots just in case 1 card corrupts. I'm sure you've heard the horror stories. I also use my Contax 645 for my film work. I have a truck load of memory cards and extra batteries for not only my cameras but my flashes (3 Godox). For those low light situations - because more than half your wedding may be in low light - my off camera lighting I use my lights and place them on stands and control all my lights from my Godox trigger that sits on my camera. You might think all that's great, but none of it means anything without having a way to back up my images I took of you and your love on-site just in case something happens to any of my equipment. Before I leave your wedding I've backed up your images to my portable external hard drive.
If we're doing a studio session for your bridal or engagement portraits that's a whole another set up! You can find out more about my studio on my STUDIO site.
How can I have my wedding published?
I would love to see your wedding in our favorite magazine! Can you imagine seeing your wedding while you're checking out at the grocery shop. If it were up to me all my weddings would make it to print editorials. Quite a bit of my wedding work is actually published either locally or nationally. You can also find that past weddings I've photographed are also inspiration to thousands on Pinterest and Google from many online publications.
If you're interested or are aiming to have your wedding published let me know and we can discuss where your wedding may be the best fit for submission.
Do you have a studio?
Absolutely, I do! (Happen to be Office fan too?) I have my home studio for consultations and portraits by appointment. For everything else - your photo selections we can do most everything through your gallery, emails, and album design from the comfort of your own home.
Do you provide wedding video services?
I do not personally as I prefer to focus photographing your wedding, but I work with the best wedding cinematographers in Houston and can recommend my top favorite film makers.
How many images & how soon will I receive my portraits or wedding day?
Every wedding is different so it hard to say exactly how many images you'll receive. My rule of thumb is that will receive anywhere between 75-100 images per hour. My team and I are with you through out the entire day which can be 8-10 hours so can expect to see 800-1000 images in your gallery. I typically walk away from a wedding with quite a bit more than what I turn over but it's important to me that you see the best images of yourself so I cull out the blinking, duplicates, and those possible unflattering images. Your gallery is custom to you and password protected. Feel free to send the link and password to whom every you wish to view your gallery of course. Due to the amount of images taken at your wedding have you wedding photos ready to view within 2-3 weeks. You will receive your USB of your wedding photos around the same time. Your USB will have all your high resolution images from your wedding day and other portrait sessions you have and will also include printing consent.
Portrait sessions are up to 1 hour long so you will receive closer to 100 images to choose from. Portrait session images can be expected to be view in your personal gallery within 5-7 business days.
Once you've received your images on USB I highly recommend backing up your images in at least two other places in case of loss of the USB. Due to the volume of weddings I photograph throughout the year I am only able to keep your files archived for 1 year. Your gallery is available for viewing up to 10 years.
Do you have special pricing for elopements?
Oh my! These are absolutely my favorite moments to capture! If you are planning to elope do let me know in your contact form email to me and I'll send you my special pricing for your elopement! Elopements that occur during the weekday M-F will also receive an additional $100 savings.
Can you photograph in low lighting situations?
Heck yes I can! I do love natural light photography when there is ample amount of light that I can control, but more than often wedding receptions are in low lighting. It's so important to be able to have a photographer that can capture all the candids, laughs, and loving moments in beautiful lighting that doesn't take away from the life of the party.
How many of my images will be edited?
Every single one. Every image will under go editing for lighting adjustments, white balance, and other photographic processing to make it so that when you first see your images you'll feel like you've fallen in love all over again.
When it comes to your wedding album, canvas prints, or other products every selected image will be airbrushed if I see something really obstructive in the images (a traffic cone, a light pole, or a bunny ears from your fun cousin) I will edit that out. Skin will be clear from blemishes. Don't worry about looking plastic - I'm all about that natural goddess appeal.
When should we schedule our engagement session?
The are some locations that are best during certain seasons of the year. For most outdoors sessions I recommend either the spring or fall months for our Houston climate. If you plan to have portraits done so that you can send Save-The-Dates it's proper to have the images taken a year in advance so that you can announce your engagement and prepare out of town family and friends to plan for their travel to share in your celebration. Engagement portraits are taken an hour before sunset so that we can get a variety of images with different lighting. Your wedding website and guest book would also look amazing with your photos of you two so let's make sure it's not during the summer months if we can help it.
What’s the Heirloom Album ordering process?
I make creating your first family heirloom seamlessly easy. Albums can hold between 50-250 images. The more images added the more pages will need to be added to your book. Wedding Photography Collections that have an album included have max of 70 images (16 pages/sides). Albums look best when keeping images large enough to see with 1-4 per page/side.
- Once your images are upload to your gallery you can start selecting your favorite images by highlighting the heart icon hovering over your favorite image.
- Send an email to info@christaelycestudio.com to let me know you've completed your selection. I'll send you our leather, linen, other cover options, and ordering form.
- I'll review the images to see if any additional edits need to be made.
- Within 5-7 business days you'll receive an email with your completed album design for your revisions or approval.
- Upon your design approval we'll start the building process. And like many great carefully crafted masterpieces it takes a little bit of time. This can take between 4-6 weeks.
Parent Albums are also available. Parent Albums are 8x8 or 8x10 identical versions of your wedding book.
How can you ensure that our photos go missing?
There aren't a lot of photographers in Houston that plan ahead like I do to ensure that something unfortunate happens to your photos. I start with having backups within my camera. All my cameras (other than my film cameras) have dual memory card slots. If one card happens to go corrupt I have another that's been doing the job of taking duplicate copies of your photos. The next step of my process is that I back up my images on-site before I leave a job to my portable external hard drive. This includes my associate photographer's images as well. So I have 3 copies of your photos before I even leave your wedding. As if that wasn't enough I make an extra copy in my office to an external hard drive. All the images are copied there and those are the ones I begin to get to work on. I keep the backed up images on memory card until photos have been delivered to you.
Due to the volume of weddings, events, and other photography works I only archive your images on external hard drive up to 1 year after your event. So I recommend that once you receive your USB of your high resolution images you make copies in at least 2 other places so you never lose them in case of loss, dog ate the USB, theft, hurricane, or whatever happens -- you have them backed up. Great places to store your images are to your Dropbox, Amazon Photo, Google Photos, etc. Heck! Do them all!
How can we view our images?
Oh! I can't wait for you to see them. If you go to my home page you'll see in the left top navigation "My Account". Click that and you'll be able to find your gallery amongst the many. Simply type in your given password and voila!
What’s Printing Consent vs Copyright Release?
In the case that you might need permission with your print lab when you receive your images on USB you'll receive my Printing Consent form. I want you to have whatever product your heart can think of. And you can share them anywhere you want on social media (I would love to be credited though). This gives you access to print, reprint, enlarge your images for your own personal use. It entitles you to manufacture anything you can dream of...but there are limitations. You can not edit the images and pass them off as your own as the Photographer, try to sell them, or remove a logo if it happens to be placed (which isn't often).
The images will and always will be that of the Photographers and I do reserve the right to use the images for marketing and branding purposes. There are occasions where the client and I agree to not have their images shared for marketing purpose.
[Copyright Release falls more into the commercial arena of things. Visit my Brand Studio site to find out more about Commercial Use License and other licenses.]
[See my print lab recommendations here]
Should we provide a Family Portrait Shotlist for our wedding day?
During the family portraits portion of your wedding day (which can take place after either your First Look Portraits or after your wedding ceremony) to lessen the stress on yourself and to ensure you get photos with all the family members you know you're going to want to make a list of those family members. The family portraits have been known to take a much longer time than anticipated not to mention hectic for the bride and groom when they haven't let those family members know that they'd be included in the family portraits and find that parts of the family already made it to the reception. So do let family members know ahead of time that they will be formally photographed at the appointed time.
The best way I can help to lessen the time and make the day much more enjoyable for you may be to recommend the following "Peel Away System" so that you can enjoy part of your cocktail hour or go into your ceremony knowing it's completely out of the way.
- Bride's Family: Bride + Groom, immediate family of the Bride, Bride's Grandparents, and extended family
- Bride's Family: Bride + Groom, immediate family of the Bride, and Bride's Grandparents
- Bride's Family: Bride + Groom and the immediate family of the Bride
- Groom's Family - Bride + Groom, immediate family of the Groom, Groom's Grandparents, and extended family
- Groom's Family - Bride + Groom, immediate family of the Groom, and Groom's Grandparents
- Groom's Family - Bride + Groom and immediate family of the Groom
Cutting down a shot list that had every single one combination of portraits that use to take 45 mins and cut into the fun - This shot list can take up between 15-20 mins! Leaving more time for more of your Romantic portraits with you and your beau!
Do you have business insurance?
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What are your hobbies outside of photography?
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Mel an posse ceteros consequat, id rebum debet vel. Magna posse adversarium sit cu, ad nec vivendo appetere convenire. Ut augue dicam ius, eum dicit graece libris te. Habeo reque sapientem ut mei. At pri convenire gloriatur.
Eum an duis possim imperdiet. Unum audiam latine at sit, mea id suas elaboraret efficiantur. Audire saperet has ad, eu wisi congue docendi mei. Id quo iudicabit deseruisse, per essent legimus ut.
Perpetua abhorreant per in, sed pertinax expetendis cu, has at dicit oportere. Ius odio propriae definitionem in, sint autem eum ut. Debet convenire has id, sed scripta accusata omittantur no. Mel eu dissentias vituperatoribus, eam ex vide intellegam, libris molestiae voluptatibus ex est. Vix nullam evertitur adolescens in, id qui quaeque fabellas praesent. Ea pro dicat sanctus, quo in modo pertinax.
In meis iusto instructior usu. Natum alienum eum cu. Inani forensibus ex eam. Quidam iuvaret laboramus sit id.
What’s the payment process?
My studio accepts the following forms of payment cash, check, and all major credit cards (Amex, Mastercard, and Visa). The total of your Collection payments are broken into 3 payments between the time of your initial booking to 30 days before your wedding/event. This is make sure that you don't have to stress about last minute payments on or around your wedding day.
