“We knew Tess personally and contacted her about photographing our wedding because we were fans of her professional work. It was one of the best choices of our no-frills wedding. We chose to get married at the courthouse in downtown Brooklyn on a Friday morning with family and then have a separate party in Williamsburg the following night with family and friends. With Tess, we were able to put all the photography stuff on auto-pilot and never worry about it. The planning process was extremely easy. Once we got her price (which was more than reasonable and a really good value) and paid half for a deposit, she blocked off the two days she would join us. Other than planning to take an extra hour or two after the Friday ceremony, that was all the preparation that went into it. She may have scouted the area in person or via map or just known the area. Either way, she was really in control with a plan once we got there. On the day of the ceremony, Tess came to the courthouse and basically just worked her magic. We were able to go on with whatever we had to do and Tess just moved around and through us taking photos opportunistically. She got some action shots of us in the waiting room and signing the papers and some portraits with our flowers and family. Tess's major strength is finding amazing scenes in the moment, and you don't even know they're happening. She has an amazing eye for pictures. And best of all, she captured them with us being able to go on with our day, barely noticing her darting around us. She of course photographed the little ceremony in the courthouse and then we took about an hour in the big hallway for family portraits. She was fast at organizing us and snapping through all the necessary combinations of people. Very efficient. Then we went outside with a smaller group and went to a few nice locations nearby. On the steps of a municipal building, crossing the street to a little park, and then the subway. It was fast, it was efficient, and we didn't even know until later how amazing the photos really were. They are not average photos. They are unique and artistic and beautiful. Once again Tess found the little scenes happening in front of us. She really has a great eye for framing and light. We didn't know just how cool they were until we saw them later. We then took a 30 minute subway ride getting some classic New York shots. On the second day, Tess arrived at the location of our party, and once again it was stress-free. She spent 2-3 hours weaving through the crowd capturing action shots of talking, eating, drinking, dancing, and also was very good at putting groups together every now and then and taking group portraits. It was the least hassling part of the party. Maybe a week or two later she sent us a link to the photos. She sifted through all of them (somehow), got rid of the bad ones, and touched up the good ones. We were able to download the folders of photos so we could share with our friends. Later, we ended up printing some glossy pictures of our favorite artsy shots from outside the courthouse and on the subway to put up in our apartment. And from time to time we print some little ones for little frames too. Whenever we want, we can tap into our repository and remember the great weekend. All in all, there were 500-600 photos that amazingly captured everything we would've wanted without us worrying if anyone was there to capture it.”
