Exceptional Queer-Friendly Photographer Exceeds All Expectations
My partner and I have been talking about getting married pretty much since the beginning of our relationship. Over the years we dreamed about our “love day” and for the most part we knew exactly what we wanted - something small, intimate, and casual, but no less beautiful and special. And while we could have gotten married this summer, we decided we didn’t want a COVID wedding. But then RBG passed away and we felt like our rights would soon be in jeopardy. So, we decided to elope with only three weeks to plan, COVID and all. The very first thing I looked into was photography coverage. I did a Google search for “elopement photographers in Richmond, VA” and started clicking through the top hits (Flit Photography was among the first few). As I reviewed photographer’s websites, I was taking note of the type of images they captured, their style, and their price points. I was immediately drawn to Leah’s work - it’s beautiful, natural, and simple. As much as I wanted to drool over her images, I didn’t want to get my hopes up - so many photographers have minimum time requirements (some only go as few as 4 hours of coverage) and their packages are very expensive ($3,500+). So to my surprise and delight, Leah was not only running a COVID-19 elopement special (2 hours of coverage at $1,000), BUT she was (and still is) also offering a 10% discount to LGBTQ+ couples (BIPOC and vegan couples, too). I quickly completed the form embedded on her website (which includes both individual’s contact information including their pronouns) and crossed my fingers that all parties could make it work. Within about an hour, I had a response from Leah in my inbox. She acknowledged and validated what I shared in our “story” (another field on her form) and then got down to business - providing a quote and moving on to other details - the date. Ah… the date… Good question. The thing about the date was that we needed to align our availability with Leah’s and the officiant’s, but we were having a heck of a time finding an officiant that was available for the date that we wanted. I told Leah about our little predicament and she quickly offered a suggestion - she knew of an officiant that might be available. Problem solved - we scored a photographer and an officiant for the day we wanted! We signed our contract and made the first of two payments (we really appreciated the split payment arrangement - Leah also offers flexible payment plans). On to the next thing… location, location, location. Leah has a really helpful resource (“Elopement Locations in RVA”) that helped us “scout” out a few spots via a Google doc including our eventual location - The Pipeline. In Leah’s resource, she hyperlinked a gallery of images from an engagement session she did at The Pipeline previously. Being new-ish to RVA, I had some questions about how close everything was (there was a great variety of images in the gallery - which we loved, but we also didn’t want to walk 5 miles each way to get that variety). Leah came to the rescue again (I’ve lost count at how many times she saved us at this point) - and she made us a little video on loom.com narrating a satellite image on her desktop. She laid out every detail - parking, The Pipeline Overlook, Pipeline, The Canal Walk, the 9th Street Bridge - EVERYTHING. And it was all walkable! Location - check! One week before our elopement, Leah emailed us with questions to sort out how we’d be spending our time together. We knew we wanted sunset-y pictures so we worked backwards from there (Leah knew exactly what time the sun would set - again, super helpful, are you noticing a trend yet?). We worked out timing details and told her what our priority images were. On our big day, Leah arrived onsite early to scout out a few things in the area. With our two hours of photography coverage, we sandwiched our ceremony between a first look/galavanting around The Pipeline Overlook with a Pipeline stroll/champagne toast on the “beach”. After the first look images were captured, Leah guided us around The Pipeline Overlook and snapped a ton of pictures of us dancing, laughing, and kissing. She was warm and we felt comfortable being ourselves around her. Leah offered guidance if and when we needed it but for the most part she was just kind of there capturing us being us (isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?). After our elopement - the very next day - Leah sent an email with over 40 images to drool over! Before our elopement, I asked Leah about getting some “sneak peek” images, she said we’d get “a small number of ‘sneak peeks’ within a week of your wedding day.” Sweet! I was thinking that we would get like 4-5 images, no more than 10 - nope, 40+ images within 24 hours. We were stoked! And they were (ARE!) gorgeous! Within two weeks we had access to the whole gallery (175+ images)! If you’re thinking about hiring an elopement photographer, do it and hire Leah. She is extremely talented, easy to communicate/work with, super resourceful, very responsive, etc., etc. We couldn’t be happier with our photography investment and we will cherish her work for a lifetime! Thank you, Leah - we are so very grateful!