Raves

My husband and I hired Smitten Chickens to shoot our July wedding, and it was without a doubt the best hiring decision we made for the whole wedding. Regardless of the type of wedding we could have had (and when we hired them, there were still a bunch of variables up in the air), we just had this gut feeling they were the best people to document the day. And we were SO. RIGHT.

Looking back on it, I'd consider us "difficult" clients. We were pretty unorganized with the wedding planning, had chosen a venue completely outdoors with inconsistent and unpredictable lighting, and there was even a secret event that my husband planned for the day to surprise me (that he didn't tell Sarah and Chris about till a couple of days before the wedding). They completely rolled with the punches, with the best, most positive attitude ever. And they were just so sweet and wonderful the whole day.

Then we got the pictures. They blew our expectations right out of the water. Not only did they capture every emotional moment between us beautifully, but got amazing candids of our friends and family that we'll treasure forever. And they did so with amazing technical expertise. But I think the greatest testament to their skill was that we've had multiple friends and family members ask for their info, and then hire Smitten Chickens for their weddings and family portraits.

They were just so, so great.

"Sarah was kind, funny, and a great listener. We never felt posed or forced. We had worked out a loose plan of things we'd like to shoot on our day, but there was so much spontaneity that we ended up with shots that are absolutely priceless. 

Not only was Sarah the kindest and friendliest person I think we could have hired, but she has such an amazing talent. Our pictures were BEAUTIFUL. I cry every time I look at them.

She is amazing, and I could say nice things about her all day."

Shortly after our engagement, my partner and I decided it made more logistical sense to have our wedding in my hometown--but we met in New York, and it feels like OUR CITY in really important ways, and we wanted some way to document that. As I was idly reading through APW I saw a post about great holiday-season photography deals, and lo and behold, Smitten Chickens seemed amazing AND affordable for a super-short engagement shoot in Central Park. My partner's pretty camera shy, but I managed to convince him that we don't want our first experience with pro photographers to be on our actual wedding day, so we should give this a whirl.

The entire shoot was amazing. Sarah made both of us feel so very comfortable; she could fade into the background and then capture incredibly "us" moments as though no one else was there, but she was also cracking jokes and sharing stories from her own wedding process as we moved around to set up a new angle or shot. Honestly, by the end of that session I just wanted to be her friend, not her client!

She was also really great working with my camera-shy partner - when he told her he always felt awkward being posed, she immediately explained how she would get us to look and feel "natural," always giving us something to do (hold hands like this and walk very slowly across that bridge, lean in and whisper an inside joke, talk about something you're excited about). She wasn't "posing" us so much as orchestrating perfectly natural reactions and then photographing the result.

And, of course, the photos themselves are stunningly beautiful -- of the "immediately bought a billion prints in every size and handed them out to anyone who knew us" variety! I find this to be a crazy accomplishment for an engagement shoot, where essentially a complete stranger walked into one of our normal days together and managed to reveal in less than an hour the kind of partnership we share. So even if you're in a place where you don't think you can book Smitten Chickens for a wedding, BOOK THEM FOR SOMETHING - you will not regret it!!

I think our faces say it all, but I'll add a bit more.

We hired Sarah for our NY City Hall elopement this past summer and we couldn't be happier. She turned what I was anticipating to be a grueling and uncomfortable ordeal (I generally hate being photographed) into a relaxed and downright hilarious experience.

I cannot give enough praise about the quality of photos and will recommend Smitten Chickens to anyone who will listen to me!

I cannot say enough good things about Sarah and Chris (the Smitten Chickens duo). From the moment we found their website we were certain they were the right photographers for us--just the right mix of fun, kind, quirky, and incredibly great at what they do.  This care and skill showed up in all of our photos - we had an engagement shoot with them as well as the wedding shoot--and we are sure they will become treasured mementos. 

Sarah and Chris are particularly good at putting you at ease in front of the camera. We can go a little deer-in-headlights when a fancy camera is pointed our way, but they are both so friendly, down-to-earth, and calm that everything felt natural. I hardly noticed Sarah as she snapped her shots of our entire wedding and reception, always present but NEVER in the way, always right there to capture a sincere smile and candid moment. 

I strongly recommend Smitten Chickens for any event photography you need. The final results are breathtaking and the experience went far above my expectations. We will absolutely use them again in the future.

Sarah was our photographer for our nyc elopement, and she was fantastic!

She put us both completely at ease, and it was a pleasure to have her capture our special moment. We got our 'sneak peak' photos quickly and the final edit well within the timeframe. The photos were stunning. We were so pleased with them, they were beautifully shot and captured our day perfectly.

A fantastic company. Would definitely recommend.

Love love love working with Smitten Chickens!

You will not be disappointed! I worked with Sarah for a Christmas time elopement and from the jump, she made everything so much easier! She knew exactly what to do, when to do it, and helped explain a lot of the process to us.

We did a City Hall elopement, so there were a lot of things we didn't know! From the moment Sarah arrived, she was helpful, kind, and pretty hilarious. She immediately contacted my Maid of Honor when she arrived. It was like having an extra friend there who was taking pictures and I felt really comfortable during all the shots.

Without any hesitation, I would recommend Smitten Chickens to anyone who is looking to work with an incredibly talented photographer and genuinely great person. Our photos turned out amazing and we could not have been more thrilled with our experience with Sarah!!

"Working with Sarah was simply a joy.

She was my wedding photographer and I can honestly say that from beginning to end she was honest to her word, easy to communicate with, available whenever I had a question, flexible, fun, and above all caring.

I think that if I had to pick a word to reflect what working with her was like, I could say that I feel that Sarah really LOVES what she does. And by loving what she does, she is able to show that bond among the people she portrays. In my wedding pictures, you not only see people saying their vows, but also people exchanging their love for each other. Everyone that has gotten to see my pictures says the same thing: You can tell that you were genuinely happy and genuinely and absolutely in love. This is what her work shows!

You can almost relive every moment, and FEEL what the moment was like by looking at the images. To Sarah, this is a life work. I can attest to the fact that she is experienced and respectful of everyone, as the wonderful pictures she took of my brother, who is developmentally disabled, show. She was able to capture the emotion and love that overcame us as I am stepping down the aisle. She was able to portray the incredible bond I have with my daughter, with my mom, with my now husband, with the people I care for.

These were not just any pretty pictures. This was a work of LOVE."

When I was planning my wedding, a piece of advice that I received was to pick a photographer that you actually like because you will be spending a lot of time on your wedding day with that person. I am so glad I chose wisely by going with Sarah from Smitten Chickens.

I found that as a bride this is so true. I am happy that she was the person we were with. She had creative ideas for us for natural photos, while still managing the "must have" shots I sent prior to the date. She also gave a lot of feedback before the event about the shot list that I found very helpful.

I have to admit, when I got my pictures back, I teared up. She captured a lot of beautiful moments in a natural, elegant way. Would highly recommend!

We could not have been more thrilled with Sarah and Chris from beginning to end. We were initially excited to speak with, and then book, Sarah and Chris caught our attention for their positive, informative, inclusive, and quirky approach.  After one meeting, we knew we didn't need to meet with anyone else.

Our excitement was validated with our engagement photos, which came out amazingly and felt completely natural to us. Sarah has a way of putting you at ease and helping you concentrate on your partner and the moment rather than her camera. In an era where taking pictures is so ubiquitous as to seem a throwaway, these pictures were something special.

The wedding day itself was an amazing experience for us, and the photography was just fantastic. Sarah and Chris were amazing at capturing all the little moments throughout the wedding day, even ones we never knew about or saw, all while remaining so unobtrusive that one guest referred to them as "ninjas." 

Overall, Sarah and Chris were amazing partners in our wedding celebration, and we felt extra good that part of their fee was donated to charity. We can't recommend Smitten Chickens enough!

We flew to New York from Glasgow, Scotland to marry in a City Hall elopement. It was just the two of us and Sarah from Smitten Chickens, and we were so, so very happy to have her as our photographer and witness, she was absolutely brilliant! 

We booked Sarah for three hours, arranging everything online, and she could not have been more helpful. From our very first inquiry she supplied us with all the information we needed around bookings and the City Hall procedures in general, arranged a Skype call so we could speak "in person" about what we were looking for and kept in regular contact about our arrangements to meet on the day. This communication was very reassuring given we weren't able to meet with her in advance of our ceremony.

On the morning of our wedding, Sarah put us at ease straight away. She was great fun to be around, a very warm person who made us feel very relaxed in front of the camera and completely understood what we wanted from our pictures. The whole process was very natural and didn't feel at all posed (which was our biggest fear) and this was largely down to Sarah's ability to make us feel comfortable and capture all the right moments. 

We were given a 'sneak peak' of a small selection of pictures within a couple of days, which was a lovely touch as it meant we could share these with our family back home who weren't with us for the wedding. It also made us excited about receiving the finished article. We got our full gallery of pictures very punctually (around a month after our wedding day) and were absolutely over the moon with them. We simply adore them.

We have received so many positive comments about the photos from our family and friends and we are very happy to show them off to people when we get the chance! 

We consider ourselves very lucky that we landed such a wonderful photographer and are so glad we chose to book Sarah. We wouldn't hesitate for a minute to recommend Smitten Chickens to anyone; they're awesome!

"We were fortunate enough to have Sarah and Chris photograph our wedding a few months ago, and we couldn't have asked for a better experience.

We are so delighted with the photos they captured, and they were an absolute pleasure to be around on our wedding day. I was anxious about being the center of attention for an entire day, so the fact that they were able to put us at ease and be unobtrusive while still capturing our wedding in such a lovely manner was no small feat.

In every sense, Sarah and Chris went above and beyond what we expected. They made the trek all the way to Bar Harbor, Maine as a NYC-based business, made us and our similarly camera-shy guests feel comfortable, addressed complicated family dynamics with grace, and crafted better wedding photos for us than we'd ever imagined possible.

All in all, Smitten Chickens did a fantastic job and are genuinely great people, and we would recommend them in a heartbeat."

"We spent a lot of hours searching for a photographer we were comfortable with for our elopement and needed someone we could trust to do the best job on short notice.

Sarah ticked all of our boxes. She was professional, trustworthy, and a great help in our planning of the day - locations, recommendations for hair and makeup etc. and was more than happy to act as our witness on the day.

The photo's we received were amazing to say the least. Sarah's focus on keeping us relaxed, allowing us to enjoy our day, and ensuring the best shot possible- especially the 'crowd management' as she referred to it meant that we were provided with amazing shots that we are very proud of.

Our family and friends were so pleased with the visual timeline and felt they had a great view into the way our day played out. We could not be happier.

Sarah has also been very focused on assisting us even after she has provided us with our final shots, and communicating with her has always been a breeze despite being on the other side of the world!

We would recommend Sarah's work to anyone who would like unique, thoughtful, classic, and relaxed photo's which truly tell the story of their special day."

Not only did our pictures come out fabulously, but Sarah was really sweet. We did our first look and couple's photos before the ceremony, so we got to know her, and I never felt like I had someone in my face! It felt at times as if there was no photographer there. Everyone loves the photos, too!

"Working with Sarah and Chris was such a great experience. We hired them for the whole package -- engagement photos, wedding photos, and a wedding video -- and could not be happier with the results. Smitten Chickens offers something way, way better than any of the other photographers we considered, or that our friends have used. 

Engagement photos: Sarah was phenomenal. She made us feel totally comfortable and relaxed even though my husband and I are complete dorks in front of a camera. She gave us gentle instructions on how to pose, and led us from lower Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge, taking pictures against a variety of stunning backgrounds (including several in front of a bright red sculpture that we never knew existed). Her work resulted in some of the best photos we've ever had taken. After the engagement shoot, we both felt so comfortable working with her that we zero worries about photography on our wedding day. (Which, considering all our other wedding-related stresses, was priceless.)

Wedding day: Sarah and Chris were total pros. They met us at our apartment early that afternoon and took pictures and video as we got ready, then zipped over to our wedding site without missing a moment of the pre-ceremony preparations. Chris set up his camera in such a way that I never even noticed him during the ceremony, and Sarah moved around us as if she were invisible -- catching every detail of the moment without making it feel like a photo shoot. At the reception she caught happy, relaxed smiles on our friends' and families' faces, shooting both documentary-style images (which is the Smitten Chickens' general preference) and a ton of more formal, posed shots (which we asked for). People were raving and raving and raving about how beautiful our wedding photos were, and what an amazing job our photographers did.

Overall, Sarah and Chris were super professional and courteous and helpful, and even wrote step-by-step instructions for my computer-challenged mom when she had trouble viewing the pictures on their site. And, even more importantly, they're both real artists. They have a truly special talent for distilling reality in a way that presents it at its best -- happy smiles, flattering light -- without making it seem fake or posed or artificial. This alone is worth its weight in photographic gold."

"I can't even! We are obsessed. These are amazing.

And, if you really want to know the true meaning of these pictures: both our moms cried."

"We had the wonderful luck of finding Sarah as we were planning our NYC elopement from the Washington, D.C. area.

We picked her because, from her very first email back to us, she was so warm and caring - she simply exuded positive vibes. During our first introductory phone call, Sarah made us feel like all of our ideas for where we wanted to take pictures (and believe me, we went all OVER the city!) were absolutely perfect - after that call it wasn't even a question that we had found the right person to share our wedding day and capture our special moments.

The night of our wedding Sarah sent us five "sneak preview" images from the day, and I still remember the goosebumps I got from viewing those images - the emotion that Sarah was able to capture in our faces and our gestures was simply overwhelming. We have never, ever had so many pictures taken of us where we looked as beautiful/handsome.

Last week, Sarah sent us our full wedding album, and I am still going back to look at it almost daily, in awe, at how perfectly she captured the day.

Thank you, thank you, thank you - we could say it a million times over and it still wouldn't do justice for how grateful we are for finding Smitten Chickens Photography!!"

My wife and I decided to celebrate our 10 year anniversary in NYC, and as a gift to each other we hired a professional photographer to take us around the city for a portrait session. We found Smitten Chickens online (possibly the best name ever) and were very impressed with their work. We booked the session several months out and through email developed a plan with Sarah for the session. We had some basic ideas but neither of us had ever been to NYC, and she offered invaluable advice that made us change our plans. Looking back, if we had gone with our original plan the photo shoot may have been a disaster (we live in Arizona and have a hard time understanding that other places may be cold in December). Sarah went above and beyond to listen to what we really wanted and gave us a number of options for our session. We felt very comfortable with the plan by the time the trip arrived.

Sarah met us at our hotel and proceeded to give us what turned out to be a three hour, exciting, amazing, and personal tour of Manhattan. She captured the moments beautifully, and we were able to get photos at a wide variety of locations with a number of outfit changes along the way. Sarah captured the excitement of New York with the well known backdrops, but also helped create many playful scenes and quiet moments (who knew that a few candid photos while riding the subway could turn out so well?). She also played the role of tour guide very well, sharing information about each location and giving valuable advice on how to move around the city.

We said goodbye at the end and had enjoyed ourselves so much that we tried to book more time for the next day! Sarah was already booked but it is a telling sign that after three hours with a photographer we wanted even more time. Sarah stayed in touch with us and was able to turn around our pictures and get them back to us very quickly. Our expectations had been high, but Sarah exceeded them by a wide margin. We now have them framed and throughout our home, marking our 10 year anniversary and our NYC adventure.

Many thanks to Sarah and Smitten Chickens for making our trip so special and memorable. We can't wait to book you for our next trip!

"Smitten Chickens photographed our NYC City Hall elopement. We are absolutely thrilled with the photos and video and feel that they really captured the spirit of the day. The quality of the photos was even beyond our expectations.

With the photos, we love so many of the candid shots as well as the ones that we knew Sarah was taking. We all felt really comfortable with Sarah and her directions about the shots were really helpful, easy to follow and not bossy at all (my friend had the opposite experience with her wedding photographer, so I know this is important). Neither of us have posed for photos before, so were surprised that we did not feel self-conscious with Sarah. We also appreciated that Sarah had already clearly put thought into the shots that work well in City Hall and other places that we had told her were going.

Our friends were in awe of Sarah’s photographs and commented that they felt as though they could really understand how our day was, even though they weren’t there."

"The photographs are beautiful and we have had great pleasure showing a few lucky family members before our wedding party and already they're fighting over which ones to have!

We had a truly magnificent day and think Sarah captured how wonderful it actually was."

"Sarah was all that we could have hoped for.

She really understood the style and vision that we were going for. In the weeks and months leading up to the wedding, she was very organized and gave us ideas for what types of photos might work best.

During the wedding, we barely noticed her, but knew that she was always there capturing all the key moments. After the wedding, she followed up very quickly with some of the pictures so that we could share them with friends (which were all stunning) and sent us the rest soon after. 

Couldn't recommend more!"

"

My husband and I were so happy with our choice to have Sarah do our wedding photos.    

The photos were amazing. Sarah is friendly, fun, professional, and easy to work with.  I liked how easy it was to view and order pictures. I would highly recommend Sarah for your big day."