Melissa Ferrara Wedding + Elopement Photographer Reviews
Reviews
4.7 out of 5 rating
4.7 out of 5 rating
24 Reviews
94% recommend it
Awards
-
![Julia]()
Julia E. Sent on 08/27/2022We highly recommend Melissa!!
Melissa was incredible to work with; my husband and I highly recommend her! After sending an initial email inquiry, Melissa and I connected on a phone call, and I appreciated how clear her process was and how well she communicated each step in working together. Melissa addressed all my questions and was helpful in sorting through which elements to include or avoid when putting our wedding details together. All of her communications, timelines, and processes were super clear & communicated in advance. With all the wedding chaos, I was so grateful to be in Melissa's incredibly professional hands!
On our wedding day Melissa and her assistant, Pavel, were a joy to be with! We spent most of the day with them and Melissa provided really helpful direction & was organized, ensuring we got all the shots we wanted & clearly communicated with our guests to make the photography process smooth & simple. We loved working with them on the day of the wedding, and when our photos were ready for us a few weeks later, we were even more sure we'd picked the perfect photographer for us!
The images that she shared with us were incredibly thorough- not a single special moment was missed! Even more than this, the images were GORGEOUS!! I love Melissa's aesthetic style, and you can see her keen eye in the thoughtful composition of our images. She has a great sense of light that makes the images feel both magical and still very natural and true to life. Her artistic direction made the resulting photos something my husband, myself, and our families will cherish for many years to come. -
-
![Brian]()
Brian B. Sent on 12/01/2020Quality Photographer!
Bella and I really enjoyed shooting with Melissa for our engagement session. I'm not terribly comfortable in front of the camera, but Melissa made it easy. She was even willing to climb onto the roof of a building to make some of our favorite shots. We're really happy with how our photos turned out, and would highly recommend you give her a look for your own session! -
![Anelle]()
Anelle S. Sent on 11/29/2021AMAZING photographer
We hired Melissa for our wedding and cannot recommend her enough! She was very responsive to e-mails and so easy to work with. We just got our photos back and LOVE them. SO HAPPY! She is so talented. She made us feel very comfortable in front of the camera and captured everything so beautifully. I feel all of the emotions from our day looking at these amazing photos. We will continue to use her for all of our professional photography needs. THANK YOU Melissa! -
-
![Maggie]()
Maggie R. Sent on 11/24/2021The photos speak for themselves! 10/10
I chose Iron and Honey after seeing Melissa's work, and then having her shoot our engagement - I had never seen pictures of myself that I loved before, and after I saw our engagement photos I was in love, and knew we needed her for our wedding. I am so glad we did! I cannot be happier with the amazing gallery she delivered. I would recommend her without any reservations. She took time to get shots I could have never dreamed of - our wedding day was magic and the pictures show every moment of it. -
![Carmen]()
Carmen L. Sent on 11/30/2020The best photographer one could ask for
We had a very spontaneous elopement, and are incredibly thankful that Melissa said yes only a day before. From the very start, working with Melissa was an absolute dream. She was really genuine, down-to-earth, professional and felt like a friend we've known for ages. We felt comfortable instantly and were able to both be in our own world and stay connected to Melissa. She has a great eye and instinct, and we had a lot of fun exploring the city with her and getting photographed from the riverside to the middle of the street(!). Our photos are incredible - we look amazing, and Melissa captured our moments, emotions, movements so beautifully. Honestly, everything went so beautifully on our elopement day and having Melissa right there with us to immortalize our moments was just perfect. -
Lauren Sent on 07/31/2021
Amazing experience + photos!!
Melissa from Iron + Honey was a dream to work with! We booked Melissa for our October 2020 wedding, which turned into a June 2021 wedding, and we did an engagement session with her beforehand. Melissa was highly responsive, professional, and we appreciated that she was willing to customize a photography package for our small, bridal-party-free wedding. I should start by saying that my husband and I are two people who are pretty uncomfortable being photographed and often dislike photos of ourselves. During our engagement session, Melissa immediately put us at ease and made the hour and a half we spent with her so fun and enjoyable. On our wedding day, Melissa was great about wrangling family members for pictures and making sure to get photos of all the important moments. We just got our wedding photos back and for two people who generally don't enjoy photos of themselves, I can tell you that we honestly love each and every one of them! Melissa captured every moment so beautifully, her real talent is in snapping amazing candids that capture so much emotion. We cannot recommend Iron + Honey highly enough!!Melissa Ferrara Wedding + Elopement Photographer's reply:
Lauren! Thank you so much for your kind words. It was such a pleasure working with you and Joel. Your day was so beautiful and I'm grateful I was able to be a part of it. Wishing you both all the best! -
-
Sara L. Sent on 12/07/2019
We're so happy we chose Iron + Honey!
From the first time we spoke, we knew Melissa was the calm, confident presence we needed for our wedding. She had a great portfolio, which included smaller weddings like ours, so I was sure she would capture our day perfectly. She handled everything like a pro, making everyone feel at ease and keeping things organized so she could get the shots we wanted. When we received our photos (way faster than anticipated!), they were just perfect and captured our favorite memories of the day and more. We would absolutely recommend working with Melissa to anyone – thanks for everything, Melissa! -
-
![Bella]()
Bella S. Sent on 09/25/2021Couldn't have been easier!
Choosing Melissa as our photographer was one of the best decisions we made for our wedding day! She was so incredibly flexible and accommodating, and managed to stick it out with us through 85+ degree heat and humidity. Melissa also put us at ease immediately and effortlessly led us through the day to make sure we got all of the best shots! She is a true talent and we feel so lucky that we got to work with her! -
![Emily]()
Emily C. Sent on 11/22/2019Melissa is THE BEST!
I have been told over and over that my wedding photos are some of the best my friends and family has ever seen! Melissa flies under the radar on the wedding day (adding no stress to your day -- she actually reduces it!) and follows up with the most beautiful photos imaginable. If you're having any reservations, don't! Her style of shooting and editing is so unique - and she is so personable too. I would recommend her x a million! -
-
![Emily]()
Emily N. Sent on 09/14/2021Melissa is the best out there!
We worked with Melissa for our engagement and wedding photos. On the day, she was calm, cool, and fun to work with! She made us feel like our best selves in front of the camera and they resulted in the best photos. Looking back on them, we can feel the emotion of the day, not to mention they are STUNNING photos. I would work with Melissa 100x over! -
-
![Tina]()
Tina S. Sent on 11/24/2019When your wedding photographer feels like a friend...
When Andrew proposed to me, I knew right away who I'd ask to be our photographer; Melissa of course! We had traveled to Chicago from California in December 2017 and I thought it would be fun to have photos of us taken while we were there. (Because why not! hehe) I did some googling and I found Melissa. I loved her style and reached out. She did a couples session for us and we had a blast at the windiest spot in the city that day! We really loved the photos she took too. So naturally she was the first one I thought of to photograph our elopement style ceremony after Andrew proposed. We knew we wanted to get married some place on the coast and ultimately decided on Cannon Beach, OR. I emailed her asking if she wanted to come to the west coast and the rest is pretty much history! We invited her to stay with us in our super cute Airbnb for the trip! It was a lot of fun just hangin' out chatting with her outside of the ceremony and photo work that she was there to do, and I think that was special thing for us to share with her. Not all couples have the luxury of their photographer getting to know them on a more intimate level like that over the course of a few days and I'd like to think that helped her really capture not just our ceremony, but also who we are as a couple. She and our videographer worked so well and they made magic with their crafts. I'm so incredibly grateful to have the beautiful and emotive images she took for us. I really appreciate the details she captured and the story she told of our day through the photos. I'm pretty sure it goes without saying (at this point) that Melissa has my highest recommendation! Working with her was effortless and it felt like we were hanging out with a friend the whole time! We still wanna karaoke with her too! So someday... either whee we go back to Chicago or if she comes to Northern California! -
-
![Carolyn]()
Carolyn S. Sent on 01/03/2020Photos you can feel & a stress-free wedding day ❤
Melissa was so amazing on our wedding day and on every day leading up to it - from our first phone call to our engagement shoot and up until the big day, we knew that Melissa would be the perfect match for what we were looking for. Melissa was communicative from the very beginning and eager to walk the neighborhood with us and visit our apartment for our engagement shoot - even hanging half of her body out a bedroom window for some perfect balcony shots! Melissa's organic/in-the-moment/documentary-style of shooting truly captured all of the meaningful and emotional aspects of our wedding day, just like we had hoped. She was hands-on and hands-off at all of the right moments, eliminating a lot of the stress and pressure that photo-taking can sometimes bring and instead allowing myself, my husband, and all of our wedding party to feel relaxed and truly "in the moment" throughout the whole day. It was exactly how we wanted to remember our wedding day and our photos were plentiful and turned out absolutely amazing. You can really *feel* the photos and put yourself back in that moment in time, which is something that we appreciate so deeply. Thank you Melissa for sharing your talents and for being a special part of our wedding day - we'll never forget it! -
-
Erin Sent on 01/06/2018Beautiful, natural, just-right moments captured with a quiet, fierce grace...
Melissa Ferrara of Iron & Honey has an art and zen that is so refreshing and rare. And if that wasn't enough, her demeanor, professionalism and fun-loving, down-to-earth personality made pre-wedding "meet-ups", engagement pics and the actual event a dream. So where did we find this gem of a human? My husband and I were referred to Melissa by a very good friend who had worked with her in the past. From there we scheduled a coffee-date to chat through ideas and prepare a timeline and quote. My husband and I both love photography... so ensuring we had the right fit for our wedding photographer was something we put a lot of weight on. Having checked out her portfolio prior to our coffee date we knew we loved her style, but our official in-person meet-up put all our anxious feelings to rest.
But then... it got better. We scheduled our engagement photoshoot on a windy day in April... we were going to scrap doing them, but Melissa mentioned it would be a great test run of shots for our wedding and way to get to know each other / get comfortable behind the lens. DO THIS... Out shots are so simple, so brilliant and it was fun to share a warm-up beer with Melissa before the shoot.
And then came the wedding. Melissa managed to eloquently wrangle our 16+ wedding party, taking classic, stoic and hilarious photos all in the same hour. After seeing the full array of shots following our wedding, our expectations were not only matched and surpassed... we were blown away. I've attached a few of my favorite snapshots herein.
My husband and I (and all our guests!) recommend Melissa Ferrara of Iron and Honey with the upmost confidence and highest of praise. So much time and energy goes into planning what amounts to an 8 hour (+/-) event. Make the most of those memories, photos are forever -- hire our girl, Melissa... we are so happy we did. -
-
Brynne M. Sent on 08/03/2021
Incredibly Organized and Beautifully Photographed!
Melissa was referred to us by one of my co-workers who had had her engagement photos done by Melissa. Those photos were so gorgeous and intimate, that I knew that I had to book Iron and Honey for our wedding. After our first meeting with Melissa, I knew it would be a great fit because she is so organized and on top of all of the things to think about, and was completely aligned with what we wanted to get out of the day from our photos – which was the emotion, joy, raw reactions, and beauty of the day.
My favorite part about working with Melissa was how she approached the day. She sent us a comprehensive questionnaire that prompted my husband and I to truly envision and plan out the most important pieces of the day. All of this wedding prep made the day itself so easy and seamless, and we were able to just let Melissa do her thing!
Iron and Honey Photography was the right pick because our photos turned out even better than we had hoped that they would be. Melissa was able to capture all of the beautiful, raw moments from the day, and I feel the emotions all over again whenever I look at the photos. We could not be more thrilled with how the photos turned out, and have received numerous compliments on the final product from our friends and family.
-
-
Kayla W. Sent on 08/13/2021
Captured life, love, and joy
Melissa did a great job capturing love and joy in our wedding pictures. I appreciated how accommodating she was when we had to reschedule our wedding due to the pandemic. My husband and I are not super comfortable in front of the camera, but Melissa was able to get a lot of shots of us looking very at ease. Would recommend Melissa for capturing your special day. -
-
![Adriana]()
Adriana J. Sent on 11/18/2019Artistic Photographer but limited flexiblity
The pictures of our engagement and wedding were good. They were not great. They had an artistic flair, but they were not mind-blowing and at times there were some missed shots such as our entrance into the ballroom for dinner. This is an average photography company and in the mid-level of pricing. The photographer does not edit anything (they stated they want people to only to be portrayed naturally) so considering the raindrops it was a bit cumbersome to find some that were clear and printable. I had just been through some serious medical issues and the photographer took little interest in my limitations.
Overall it was nothing to write home about and some of our friend's photos captured us much more authentically. -
-
![Danielle]()
Danielle B. Sent on 04/21/2021Huge Mistake, Red Flag
Awful experience. There were red flags, but we were hopeful. What an expensive mistake. As a COVID-impacted couple, our wedding planning was complicated and less than ideal. Iron+Honey was the only wedding vendor we had problems with and those problems were significant and costly.
Our venue, caterer, florist and hotels all demonstrated such kindness and were as flexible as possible during COVID. They focused on alleviating our stress and finding win-win solutions in difficult times. Melissa did the opposite.
She lacked any compassion or curiosity about our evolving plans and had no desire to work with us on a modified vision for our wedding day. She went so far as to scold us for getting legally married in another state in 2020 after we had mutually agreed to postponed our contracted date with her to 2021. (My dad was dying so we rushed a private ceremony at the last minute.)
Even in 2021 as we remained under contract with her and confirmed our intent to move forward — she came across insensitive and combative in her emails. We realized too late that we could not trust her and did not want her energy to impact our day.
We moved ahead with all other vendors but opted to fire Melissa around the 90-day mark. This meant forfeiting our hefty deposit (75%) which she was unwilling to apply toward other services. We hired a more experienced photographer instead, which has been a relief. We feel burned by wasting 18 months and $3,500 on a person who never delivered wedding photos but it’s a lesson learned.
Good luck to all the newly engaged couples!Melissa Ferrara Wedding + Elopement Photographer's reply:
Thank you for your review, Danielle. Although Covid has impacted all of us in many different and difficult ways, I’m glad your father was able to be a part of your big day.
From what our email exchange details, it definitively stated that you were canceling your contract with Iron + Honey, with no mention of what your “modified vision” would entail. In 2019, we both agreed and signed that canceling altogether would result in the 75% forfeiture. When a client chooses to cancel within 90 days of their event date, it unfortunately means that there’s little to no chance of rebooking a new event in its place, especially during a pandemic. I understand that planning a wedding with all of these COVID restrictions is not easy and for that, I empathize with you. I would have loved to have been a part of your modified dream wedding as I have been with Iron + Honey’s other wedding clients but I was not afforded the opportunity to do so.
I wish you and Josh all the best!
Are you interested?
Send a message
Are you interested?
Send a message