Alexsandra
Ready for the next adventure
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2011
- Messages
- 1,431
Hi guys,
my husband just surprised me for our 12th wedding anniversary with a trip to WDW for this Sept.
He spoke to my boss and made sure I could get the time off from work and organized for his parents to come down and babysit the kids for a week while we are away. Plus he booked us at the Polynesian!



He decided to tell me in advance so that I could plan out the trip because he knows i enjoy making the ADR and choosing the FPs. For an extra special treat we decided to book the Wild Africa Trek at Animal Kingdom. For $296 each, the 3 hour tour includes a meal and pictures taken by a professional photographer of us on the tour.
I am mentioning this because I was thinking of surprising him with a professional photo shoot of the two of us during the trip. We don't really have nice pictures of just the two of us, except those from our wedding 12 years ago. So I want to hire an outside photographer to come and take some nice shots of us to commemorate the moment. I am not a huge fan of Disney Photographers and find their prices too high for what you get.
I don't know if anyone read my Vow Renewal post a while back, but if you did, you would have remembered that I had to cancel it due to a death in the family. After that we just decided to forget the vow renewal completely since it was just too expensive and decided to use the money on a nice family vacation instead. In the end, I did not regret our decision and we had one of the best family vacations ever! But now, I feel like this trip, is my husbands way of making up for the cancelled vow renewal and I want to make it special for him too.
Ok so here is my dilemma. I contacted a few photographers in the area. One of the photographers I contacted is Jamie DiOrio. As soon as I saw her pictures, I fell in love with her. You can see her portfolio here: http://www.jaimediorio.com/photos/
She responded quickly and after a couple of emails, we clicked right away. She is this wonderful bubbly person and I really would love to use her. The problem is that her smallest package is a two hour photo session that would cost me $475. Since I'm Canadian, I have calculated that it would cost me $600 CAD with the exchange. Ouch! I think her price is very reasonable for what it includes, but it's a little high for my budget. Since I already splurged on the Wild Africa Trek and have planed to dine at a few signature restaurants, this photo shoot will push my budget over my comfort zone!
The good thing is that she can do the photo shoot during the week as to avoid large crowds and is pretty open on her dates which is fun because it give me much more liberty o which day I want to do this. She would take pictures of us in different locations around WDW. Her price included 2 hours and all of the edited digital images (about 45) on an online gallery that I can download.
I did get a second quote from another photographer, Rania Marie Photography, for a half hour session. Her work is also very nice. Here is her website: http://raniamariephoto.com/
Rania's emails were very professional but it was all business. There was no warmth, compared to Jamie. The good thing is that Rania's half hour session would cost me $175 which is much more affordable in my budget. She said that she can take around 25-50 pictures in that half hour time frame. The bad thing is that she's only available on Sundays around sunset. That means that I would need to do my photoshoot on my arrival day. My flight is early that day and I should be at the resort by noon but I don't know if I like the idea of doing it that day since I might be tired from the early flight and I don't want to feel rushed.
What should I do?
Help!
my husband just surprised me for our 12th wedding anniversary with a trip to WDW for this Sept.

He spoke to my boss and made sure I could get the time off from work and organized for his parents to come down and babysit the kids for a week while we are away. Plus he booked us at the Polynesian!



He decided to tell me in advance so that I could plan out the trip because he knows i enjoy making the ADR and choosing the FPs. For an extra special treat we decided to book the Wild Africa Trek at Animal Kingdom. For $296 each, the 3 hour tour includes a meal and pictures taken by a professional photographer of us on the tour.
I am mentioning this because I was thinking of surprising him with a professional photo shoot of the two of us during the trip. We don't really have nice pictures of just the two of us, except those from our wedding 12 years ago. So I want to hire an outside photographer to come and take some nice shots of us to commemorate the moment. I am not a huge fan of Disney Photographers and find their prices too high for what you get.
I don't know if anyone read my Vow Renewal post a while back, but if you did, you would have remembered that I had to cancel it due to a death in the family. After that we just decided to forget the vow renewal completely since it was just too expensive and decided to use the money on a nice family vacation instead. In the end, I did not regret our decision and we had one of the best family vacations ever! But now, I feel like this trip, is my husbands way of making up for the cancelled vow renewal and I want to make it special for him too.
Ok so here is my dilemma. I contacted a few photographers in the area. One of the photographers I contacted is Jamie DiOrio. As soon as I saw her pictures, I fell in love with her. You can see her portfolio here: http://www.jaimediorio.com/photos/
She responded quickly and after a couple of emails, we clicked right away. She is this wonderful bubbly person and I really would love to use her. The problem is that her smallest package is a two hour photo session that would cost me $475. Since I'm Canadian, I have calculated that it would cost me $600 CAD with the exchange. Ouch! I think her price is very reasonable for what it includes, but it's a little high for my budget. Since I already splurged on the Wild Africa Trek and have planed to dine at a few signature restaurants, this photo shoot will push my budget over my comfort zone!
The good thing is that she can do the photo shoot during the week as to avoid large crowds and is pretty open on her dates which is fun because it give me much more liberty o which day I want to do this. She would take pictures of us in different locations around WDW. Her price included 2 hours and all of the edited digital images (about 45) on an online gallery that I can download.
I did get a second quote from another photographer, Rania Marie Photography, for a half hour session. Her work is also very nice. Here is her website: http://raniamariephoto.com/
Rania's emails were very professional but it was all business. There was no warmth, compared to Jamie. The good thing is that Rania's half hour session would cost me $175 which is much more affordable in my budget. She said that she can take around 25-50 pictures in that half hour time frame. The bad thing is that she's only available on Sundays around sunset. That means that I would need to do my photoshoot on my arrival day. My flight is early that day and I should be at the resort by noon but I don't know if I like the idea of doing it that day since I might be tired from the early flight and I don't want to feel rushed.
What should I do?
Help!