[ Vendor ] Q&A w/ Katie Girtman of Studio Kiva Photography
Hiring a photographer for your wedding is one of the first things you start to plan as soon as you get engaged. Sometimes it can be a lengthy research process, with many emails requesting pricing lists, looking through wedding portfolios, or perusing through your friend's Facebook wedding album to see who they used for their wedding day. Either way it's a big decision because who ever you do choose will have that one chance to document your wedding and make sure to tell the best story of your day as possible. That's why we wanted to ask local professional photographer Katie Girtman of Studio Kiva Photography a few questions about the ins and outs of the her wedding photo business in the mountains. [ studiokivawedding.com ]
Q. How many years have you worked as a wedding photographer?
A. I have worked as a wedding photographer for 24 years and I am in my early 40s and still young and fun! The photographer is usually with you a lot of time with your wedding so it is good to like there personality and have some fun!
Q. What's your contingency plan? Do you have a back up camera?
A. We always carry 4 or 5 cameras to every shoot with us as a back up because even the most expensive ones can go down. Speaking of that it is really good to have top of the line cameras and not just an SLR that does not have a two compact flash card system. Reason? Compact flash cards can also go bad and if you have a two card slot system you can back one up directly in your camera, because you can't reshoot a wedding. A lot of the photographers don't have this because they don't want to spend the money. But to me this is all insurance. We back up, back up and back up. We have never lost images due to all our back up plans. We also put back up copies at the safety deposit box at the bank and have had customers call us if they lose a disk or their house burned down in a forest fire we had the back up and made them another copy of their images.
Q. Can we hire you only for the ceremony and part of the reception and not the full night?
A. We have all types of packages from full day, half day and elopement type packages. Couples that are looking for a photographer it is good to meet them in person and feel comfortable with that person along with having a local photographer that has the knowledge for shooting in the mountains.
Q. What's one thing you'd like to tell all the couples talking to photographers about a wedding in Breckenridge?
A. I also would like to say not someone that is going to drive up from Denver and get stuck in traffic coming up here but someone who is local and knows the area and lives in the area to really get the feel of being here in Breckenridge and the mountains. I also believe that a good photographer will give you the images and not hold them over your head since they took the time to shoot them all! We give all our couples the photos in color and black and white and no hidden fees!!
Q. Any unexpected or funny wedding moments recently?
A. We could write a book on all the funny moments! We stay in touch with our couples and they are life long friends. One of the funniest moments is we had a woman forget to put her teeth in for the photos so we had to photo shop teeth!
