Wedding Photography

Hours of Coverage

If you are having a traditional wedding day like the majority of clients, then most likely you will need 8 to 10 hours of photo or video coverage as well. In my experience, that amount of time is just right for capturing the main highlights of the day, including photos of getting ready, the ceremony and the reception. Please contact me for a custom price on an intimate or a city hall wedding. South Asian and specialty ethnic weddings are custom priced since they include multiple-day coverage often with unique hour requirements.

Pre-wedding consultation

I make it my priority to get to know each of my customers before their wedding. Be it a phone call or an engagement or a portrait session, it will give us both a chance to get to know each other better. It also puts the couple at ease on their big day. If you have any photo ideas or poses for your wedding day in mind, they are always welcome. My goal is to get as close as possible to the unique vision of your day. If you prefer a certain style in editing or shooting, please share that with me. I guarantee that the photos taken of your wedding day will be picture-perfect, stylistically and artistically capturing all of your once-in-a-lifetime memories.

Professional Posing

If we’re being honest, not all of us are professional models, yet everybody wants to look their best on such a meaningful day. You can have the best makeup and the best fitting dress, but a badly-posed photo can ruin all of that easily. Posing makes or breaks photographs. Add to this some of your bodily insecurities (who doesn’t have them?) and general anxiety of the day, and your photos might not turn out how you’d like them to. A job of a professional photographer is to make you feel comfortable in front of the camera and capture your best angles. I always ask my clients whether they have any preferences in posing or feel insecure about something. When I pose my clients, I always strive to accentuate their beauty and bring out their best features. If couples have any posing ideas, they are always welcomed! It is important that you feel comfortable in a pose as well. I have documented hundreds of weddings, and posing a couple or groups of people comes naturally to me.

Professional Styling

I define styling as how a photographer’s creative vision and expertise brings a moment to life via a photograph. Weddings are fast-paced events, often with very dim or far from ideal lighting. Styling a wedding photograph means quickly assessing the surroundings and lighting and coming up with the best strategy to prepare and set the scene for the most-pleasing visual result. If you plan to include some breathtaking illustrative of glamour-styled portraits in your wedding album, then you definitely want your photographer to be very proficient in different photography styles. Even documentary style of photography requires styling and posing, if not for the object, then for the photographer themself. Anticipating what will happen next and picking the best camera angle is part of visual planning and styling as well.

An online shareable and downloadable gallery with edited jpeg images

A few days after your wedding day, you will receive your first teaser photos, along with the link to your online photo gallery. Each gallery is password protected and you can safely share it with people you choose. I provide my clients with the highest-possible resolution JPEG files. All images can be downloaded, shared and printed as many times as you want. Your gallery will remain online for at least a year. I strongly recommend backing up all of your photos on several devices. Estimated delivery of the finished gallery is from 60 to 90 days from the day of the wedding.

Printing rights on all the photos

Wedding photography clients have printing rights on all the edited photos. Print release means that you will be able to print, share, post and use your edited images for all personal needs.

Best portrait images hand retouched with Stylistic Editing

I carefully crop and color correct all the images and hand retouch the best portraits. Hand retouching may include basic beauty editing, which includes skin smoothing, slimming, etc., or a stylistic color rendering, such as light and airy, dark and moody, vivid colors, etc.

No hidden fees

Smeyan Photography has two main goals when it comes to its services. First, we always strive to produce the best quality product for our customers. We don’t just capture memories, we strive to make you laugh, cry and be wowed by your wedding photos.

Secondly, I believe that as a newly-married couple, you shouldn’t start out your new life together with large financial debt. I always make it a point to have pricing as affordable, simple, and transparent as possible. Please feel free to verify all the pricing for any additional purchases if they are not mentioned on our website. Our goal isn’t just amazing imagery, we want anyone to be able to afford it.

No travel fees within 60 miles from Chicago

For out of state and weddings outside the mentioned radius, a travel or accommodation fee will be required.