Matt was absolutely amazing to work with! From our engagement shoot to our wedding day, he went above and beyond in every way. He’s not only incredibly talented behind the camera but also such a kind and genuine person. He made us feel completely at ease, captured the most beautiful candid moments, and paid close attention to every detail.

Matt was wonderful with our families, making everyone feel comfortable and included. By the end of the process, he truly felt more like a friend than just our photographer. We’re so grateful for the memories he captured — every photo perfectly reflects the joy of our day. We couldn’t recommend him enough and would love an opportunity to work with him again!

Matt photographed our wedding and engagement, and we truly had a wonderful experience working with him. He is prompt, professional, and very accommodating. During the wedding, he was extremely efficient and organized with taking portrait pictures of all of our friends and family. Most importantly, the quality of Matt’s photography is unmatched. He has an uncanny ability to capture the moment with his lens, and his editing skills are quite impressive. My wife and I are so happy we chose Matt to be our photographer for our wedding. We cannot recommend him enough to anyone looking for an easy-going, highly experienced photographer who offers reasonable pricing.

We absolutely loved working with Matt!

We wanted our wedding photos to have a candid, documentary feel to them, and we chose Matt because we could see in his galleries that he executed this style brilliantly! Everyone in the photos looked genuine and joyful, and not at all posed or inauthentic.

Still, when we showed up to our engagement shoot—since neither of us had ever had a professional photoshoot before—we felt a bit nervous that, somehow, we would end up being the ones who couldn’t pull off the naturalistic style. Nonetheless, Matt did a wonderful job putting us at ease and capturing us in exactly the way we were hoping!

Given our experience with the amazing engagement photos, we felt confident going into the wedding that at least one of our vendors was a guaranteed winner – and, of course, Matt didn’t disappoint!

On the day of the wedding, Matt did an amazing job reading the room to know when the right time was to pull us for specific shots, and when to just let moments happen. He was great at getting the groups together for portraits, but also incredibly creative in the way he captured candids and details throughout the rest of the day.

When we got our full gallery, we were blown away! We’ve had many friends and family rave about just how incredible and artistic the photos are. Truly, we will cherish them for years to come!

Working with Matt Schmachtenberg has been a joy from our very first meeting. I’m writing this review 3 days after our wedding, before even receiving our preview pictures or full wedding photo set, because I have high trust that we will love anything he sends our way.

First call: We hired Matt to photograph our wedding over a year before it took place, and even the first call inspired confidence that he understood what we valued: The people who we loved being featured front and center, and an eye for candid, human moments. We wanted to minimize the amount of posing that we did on the day. We deeply appreciated how up-front and transparent his pricing was, and after interviewing the other (lovely) photographers on our list, it was clear that he was exactly who we were looking for.

Engagement shoot: Our engagement shoot was a wonderful experience. We did an in-home shoot, and Matt was so good at keeping things playful and creative. We came with some ideas (cooking, playing board games), and as opportunities arose, so did he. We danced around the living room, we laid down on the floor while he got on a chair, and we talked and got to know each other. He was warm, calming, and professional. For the engagement shoot, he was on time, he returned the preview shots super quickly, and the full album was stunning. We used his pictures all over our wedding website.

Wedding: On our wedding day, he was super grounded and friendly, and was willing to roll with multiple sites (our ceremony and reception were different places, and our getting-ready shots too. Sorry, Matt!) We received compliment after compliment about our guests’ interactions with him. We got some (totally not expected) phone pictures from the day, and we’re already in love with them.

We did not have a super specific vision for what we wanted our wedding or engagement pictures to look like. I know that is not the case for everyone, so I can’t speak to what that would be like with Matt. I’d say that we went in able to articulate the things that we valued (which Matt also asked about in a survey he sent out before the wedding), and really let Matt take the lead. It was easy to do that given how much he inspires trust. Everything we have seen from him has been a work of art, and working with him has consistently been one of the highlights of the process of hosting a wedding. I would recommend him without hesitation to anyone who asked.

Matt was so wonderful to work with! He's such an easy going and fun presence, and he made us feel super comfortable having our photos taken (especially during our engagement shoot when he said, "Oh I forgot to mention it's super awkward for the first few minutes, but it will get better!" haha!) My husband has a Chandler-Bing-esque inability to smile normally in a posed photo, but Matt was able to overcome this and capture his candid smile perfectly :) We had a blast with both our engagement photos and our wedding day. Oh yeah, and the photos are gorgeous!! We haven't even gotten our all our photos back yet, but I know we'll cherish them forever. You can't go wrong booking Matt!

Matt was the first vendor we locked down for our wedding, after we’d seen and loved his work and style on his Instagram. And, man, he totally lived up to and exceeded expectations. He put us at ease quickly and played off our energy so well when we met him for an engagement shoot in Old Town Alexandria, so much so that when it started to pour we just rolled with it. Those photos turned out great — a mix of black and white and then mostly color, some posed, some capturing us walking or doing some bit he always encouraged — and we loved the way we looked, too.

Matt and his second shooter, Xiaoqui, totally on it for our wedding day, too, from getting-ready and detail shots to small emotional moments to the ceremony, cocktail hour, first dance, scene, speeches and dance floor. He also thought big, in a move that I think captures him well: Matt had taken the time to scout out our venue property and found a field of flowers just a short drive up the hill from our reception site, and at sunset we stole away to take some just stunningly beautiful, memorable shots. We’d recommend him to anyone, and we already have to all our friends.

Working with Matt on our dream engagement and wedding photos was an incredible experience. My husband and I are generally camera shy but Matt put us at ease and captured beautiful, intimate moments without awkward, unnatural posing. We will treasure these images forever. Matt's process is collaborative and flexible. He was extremely accommodating throughout the planning process and the wedding itself. We were especially impressed by the sheer number of photos included in our gallery and the range of memories he captured. My husband and I get so much joy out of looking through our gallery and reliving different parts of our celebration. Without hesitation, we highly recommend Matt!

Matt is awesome!! He did our engagement shoot and wedding photos and they are all stunning!! He captured our wedding day perfectly, and we will treasure the pictures for years to come!

I can't say enough good things about having Matt as our photographer. He traveled to OBX for our intimate wedding, and was so easygoing throughout the entire day, willing to be flexible as planned changed a bit. The photos turned out amazing, and he perfectly captured the fun of the day!

Matt's gorgeous, candid photos captured all of the joy of our wedding. Not only that but he was an absolute pleasure to work with—incredibly responsive, kind, and put us at ease immediately. We could not have been happier to have the chance to work with him and his excellent second photographer, Katie.