The Members of Team Alishan: Ben Harrison Photography

Having never been one the little girls that always dreamt about her dream wedding, I had very little idea of what I wanted my day to look like. I did however know what was important to me. That list included the following: An early summer wedding date, incredible food, flowers, pictures and a venue like nothing I had ever seen. A quick trip back to Grand Rapids to see my mom shortly after the engagement provided us with all of these things. Unfortunately, as Jill mentioned (side note: If you’re not reading Jill, you should be) a lot of venues and vendors don’t take bookings more than a year out. Now you may be saying “uhm…why didn’t you just get married in early summer 2007? You’d only have to wait 8 months then.” And in theory, you would be correct but that’s simply not the way this event was going down. I’m not one of the most low maintenance people by nature (shocking I’m sure, to those that know me!) so the idea of rushing around and having to deal with the possibility of not getting the vendors I wanted simply was not an option. We decided to have a long engagement so that we could enjoy the planning process and each other during this transitional time in our lives. After research, we found what we believe to be the cream of the crop of Grand Rapids wedding vendors and wouldn’t trade them for the world. The services they provided leave us in awe almost a year later and I am lucky to consider many of them friends. Their professionalism and the fact that I trusted them to do their jobs without me having to nag truly made our day as seamless and perfect as it was.

 

*These reviews are not in order of awesomeness as they all rocked my socks*

 

I found Ben and Laura of Ben Harrison Photography (B+L) on theknot.com within weeks of getting engaged and scheduled a quick meeting with them when I came home a few weeks later. Now if you have met with my mother and me at the same time, we can be a bit of a handful. We both talk really fast, jump from subject to subject, and like to get down to the nitty gritty of whatever we’re dealing with. From the minute B+L greeted us, we knew they could handle whatever we threw their way. Drawn in by their incredible work, we were hooked by their tremendous personalities. They made us feel welcome and I knew I would be comfortable spending my wedding day with these two. Mike and I wanted someone to capture moments that we will look back on years later and feel the emotions of the day. We wanted innovative individuals willing to step outside of the box of what has already been done and look towards new creative ways to shoot. We wanted fierce, fun and 100% awesome. That’s what we got with Ben Harrison Photography. We met with other well known Grand Rapids photographers just to make sure we weren’t rushing into anything (seriously wanted to book B+L before even leaving their studio) and after a few of those meetings we had to stop ourselves from literally running back and throwing our money at them. Enough of me yammering on look for yourselves.

Pretty good, right? The details, the moments, the laughs. We have hundreds of pictures and these are just a few of my absolute favorites. Ben Harrison Photography can be found here and their blog can be found here. Next up, our very own Modern Day Floral. Also, please leave whatever questions about ANYTHING in the comments. The best resource I had was friends that had already gotten married and were open to answering all of the questions I didn’t want to bother my family with!

 

Until next time,

 

Alishan

all images are courtesy of Ben Harrison Photography