May I just begin by saying I love Santa Fe.

I hadn't really realized how much I was missing it until we got out of the car late Thursday night and stared up into the endless carpet of stars looking down on us.

I had forgotten that there are more than half a dozen stars in the heavens.

On the other hand, I will say that I do not love shopping for wedding photographers.

It is very disheartening to realize that what you love you cannot afford and what you can afford you do not love. I hate putting a monetary value on our memories. I hate to think that we will have to compromise the quality of the photographs we receive in order to have things like, say, a wedding cake and invitations. I hate that we even went to see some of the photographers, because there work was so gorgeous, and so perfect, and so expensive.

I also hate tacky wedding albums, black and white photos with the flowers (or sunglasses or EYES) still in color, ANY faux "filter" applied in Photoshop -- especially the one the guy called "comic book," being stood up for an appointment, profuse apologies for being stood up for an appointment, travel charges, extra roll charges, black and white film charges, hourly charges, 11x14 prints, proof "magazines," cheesy photo slide shows, and outrageous charges for the film negatives or for hi-res digital files.

=(

On the other hand, I love documentary style wedding photography, I love candid shots, I love pictures of the brides getting ready, I love pictures of the grooms looking nervous, I love pictures of the moms crying at the ceremony, I love black and white, I love sepia, I love the new digitally printed coffee table books people are touting (but hate that they want me to pay hundreds -- if not thousands -- of dollars for something I can do on my Mac with iPhoto).

And I love the idea of having beautiful, artful photographs of my wedding.

Unfortunately, I probably can't afford it. The people I can afford all seem like a step above your average snapshooter. All of them looked like we might get a few really good shots, and a bunch of mediocre shots. And they're still pretty damned expensive for what you get, which includes a few enlargements, a crappy ass photo album to hold your proofs, and anywhere from ~90-300 proof prints. Everyone is reluctant to sell you your own negatives or a CD of the hi-res files, so they all charge an arm and a leg for the "rights" to your own photos.

The more expensive folks have beautiful photographs that take your breath away. Two of them would give us a set of proof prints included in the price, but one woman only gives a "proof magazine" -- a bound set of 2x3" pictures printed six to a page from which you get to pick the 40 -- FORTY -- that go in your album. Any other pictures you want (which of course, you will want because her work is amazing) cost extra. And, of course, they REALLY don't want to sell you the negatives. The same woman looked at us like we were crazy when we asked and said she had never priced it.

Two people stood us up. One showed up after we called him, apologizing profusely and offering us 15% off the top of his prices. He bought us breakfast. He is a full time firefighter in Santa Fe and shoots weddings on the weekends as a kind of hobby. It was a little strange. Another couple we interviewed actually had a photo studio in their garage. They were by far the cheapest, but for good reason; they've only been shooting weddings for a couple of years, and only a few weddings at that. Only bonus with them is that they BOTH come to the wedding for the same price -- so when one of them misses the important shot because they're inexperienced, hopefully the other will get it.

The worst bit of all is that everyone except the inexperienced couple came in above what we had budgeted for photography. We've already decided that we're not having a videographer (that's right -- the film student isn't going to have a video of her wedding), but it's STILL more than we budgeted. In the case of the really brilliant people, it's more than double what we budgeted.

I think you ought to know, I'm feeling very depressed.