Best Decision We Made!
It's hard to know where to even begin with a review of Samantha Phillips, but her work can be described as nothing less than OUTSTANDING.
Samantha truly goes above and beyond for her clients; she does way more than any photographer should and she does it without even being asked. To start, Samantha includes a free engagement session in the cost of her services. From the moment we met Samantha and her husband, Colton, we were so excited to have booked her. During our shoot, Samantha suggested we include our pup but we were concerned because we didn't want to have to worry about our dog during the entire shoot. Samantha problem solved and told us that her husband would be happy to "pet-sit" for shots without our dog.
My (now) husband and I had never had professional photos done and were both a bit camera shy. Samantha was amazing at giving us directions and prompts that led to some of the cutest and most genuine photos I've ever seen. Samantha and Colton are both very easy-going and fun, so working with them immediately felt like having a (super talented) friend taking pictures of us. Honestly, we both just want to be friends with Samantha and Colton now. For us, that's important. Your wedding day is an intimate day and you want to feel comfortable with your photographer since they will be there for every moment.
Aside from the fact that her photography is stunning, Samantha sets herself apart from others with her work ethic and speed. She got us our entire, edited, engagement gallery within days!
After our engagement shoot, Samantha continued to go above and beyond. Her referral list is excellent (I found my makeup artist based on her recommendation) and Samantha, while primarily a photographer, is also something of an undercover wedding planner. Samantha literally helped set up the timeline for my wedding, and while I had a great planner, I knew that if something went wrong at any point that Samantha would step in. You definitely should not be relying on your photographer to do planning for you (please don't do this!), but Samantha as an "insurance" policy was pretty amazing.
Throughout the process, of all my vendors, Samantha had the best communication and I felt like I was communicating with a friend. I even vented to her on multiple occasions and she was always there to lend an ear.
On the day of the wedding, Samantha came early and then largely took the reins of making sure that we moved from point A to point B prior to our ceremony. We were running a bit late and things were a bit chaotic with our families, but Samantha was flexible and made sure we got all the shots we needed, even if we totally ended up messing up the order of them for her.
Samantha's husband, Colton, served as her second shooter and she didn't charge anything extra for this. That's unreal. Because of this, Samantha was basically able to be in two places at once which was necessary because our venue (SD Safari Park) had our ceremony and reception on opposite ends of the park. I hope that Samantha will start to charge extra for this feature ;)
Somehow, Samantha managed to get these insanely beautiful shots and, yet, was able to do it in stealth mode because I feel like I never even saw her camera.
If this is all not enough for you to book Samantha Phillips, this next part should solidify things. Many photographers promise to get you a sneak peak album within a week or 2 so you have something to post. For most people I know, they get this album about 2 weeks after their wedding. Samantha sent us our sneak peak album of 35 perfectly edited images THE DAY AFTER the wedding. We took our first photos at 3:45pm on 5/22. At 3pm on 5/23 I already had an email from Samantha in my inbox with that sneak peak gallery. That's less than 24 hours and that's just UNREAL. Of course, true to form, the images are stunning. It's incredibly hard to choose which ones to post. That's with 35 images; so, I'm pretty concerned with whats to come when she gets the whole gallery back to us.
Overall, I cannot recommend Samantha Phillips Photography enough. This woman has real talent and that talent is only matched by how hard she works to deliver the best product. I'm forever grateful to have found her and if you don't book her you are making a mistake. Don't start your marriage off on the wrong foot. Make sure to start things off right by booking Samantha!