Brea Photography

azing. She did our consultation over Skype and accommodated our west coast schedule. She squeezed us in for an engagement session which scheduled last minute over Easter weekend. Even offered to do it on Easter Sunday! Our engagement photos were amazing! My husband and I both come from blended families and my biological parents had not seen each other in many years. Brea was able to take photos with each family member while while gracefully managing complex dynamics. She does require a list of shots with specific individuals, that list took some time to make. But, we would have regretted not having one in the end. So, we're glad to have taken a detailed one. To add to it, I was five months pregnant at my wedding. She was super sensitive to my needs as an expecting mother and included amazing maternity shots. Many of my friends from all over the country commented on how kind, she was and what a pleasure to have at the wedding. My husband and I are incredibly pleased with our photos! We both reared up when we saw them for the first time. We will treasure our wedding photos for years to come. Thanks, Brea!

back. Her passive-aggressiveness, disorganization in the lead up, lack of direction (and warmth) the day of and terrible photos to boot have left me in such a state of sadness and confusion about how this happened. Brea's photography and pictures online looked exactly like my taste and style and we decided to hire her for my wedding after an acquaintance posted her wedding photos that Brea had done. My fiance and I are from St. Louis but live in Chicago. We had a whirlwind romance and (somewhat?) whirlwind planning (9 months). My husband and I work incredibly demanding jobs, so "planning" wasn't something we had the luxury of sadly and honestly...we didn't know what we were doing. I guess I assumed that when you hire a professional photographer they can help guide you the day of, pose you and help you get all those "wedding shots" that you want and again, stupidly assumed wedding photographers took (ex. getting ready photos, posed "portraits with veil, picture of the groom alone, candids, pictures of the bride and groom with rings, etc). But working with Brea, she made me feel guilty, terrified to ask anything, at times threatened us in one email prior to wedding day, complained that holding a bottle of water for my groom as we walked to the car was "not in her contract". She didn't necessarily start off mean...but she got there. Brea is very strict about her timelines and filing out your shot lists wants, but not very good about keeping track of them. I filled out her paperwork 3 times per her request because she first said a computer glitch and the other times...I'm not entirely sure. I think in this process I somehow upset her. And, the passive-aggressiveness began. I would be happy to provide details, screen shots of her emails, etc. But I think the MOST telling thing....is that she didn't post any pictures of our wedding. Because our pictures turned out so horribly, it has been the most disappointing and destructive experience. The worst, is that it felt intentional. My father is deceased, I am an only child and my mother requested one picture - a picture of her lifting my veil. There were many pictures that were missed...I actually don't have ONE picture of my mother and I (having already lost one parent, I know that capturing these memories through photos can later bring you joy in times of pain. But, it was the fact that we shared all of these things with Brea herself and she didn't. I will never get that day back or those moments. She didn't capture most of my ceremony or my mom or my first kiss with my husband or our first dance (even though we paid her extra to stay). She made me feel uncomfortable the entire day and to top it off, we used her recommended videographer who she then blamed for being unable to capture the ceremony and who has still yet to produce a video even though expected delivery was 4 weeks. I didn't know how important it was to have a GREAT photography. Please, do not make the same mistake I did. I'd be happy to give anyone more details.

fun, lighthearted, and stress-free. Beyond taking the most beautiful photos, she is such a help on the big day (finding people for pictures or toasts, carrying around lipstick and bobby pins, bringing snacks, being generally supportive...). Brea was such a wonderful addition to our day.

h. That all changed when I met Jessica at a bridal show. I got really good vibes from her and LOVED her photos. The price was fair and I knew that I was probably making the right choice. However, when we had our engagement session, I knew for a fact that she was the right choice. All of our photos for both the engagement session and the wedding were amazing and my Facebook feed blew up for weeks with people commenting on how amazing they were (that always makes you feel better). Jessica is professional, personable and extremely talented. I would definitely recommend her to brides who don't want commercial/tacky photos, but want authentic, creative and beautiful photos to treasure forever.

Louis for planning. Jessica worked around our schedules to meet in person so that she could hear our story and get to know us before the wedding day. She even brought her camera and snapped a few engagement pictures, which was really nice. The photos were great, and we really felt like she captured our personality. It was the right amount of photo-journalistic and posed shots, and she made everyone feel at ease during the whole day. I'd definitely use Brea Photography again, and would recommend them to my friends.

professional. From our complementary engagement session to the final product of prints and storybooks Jessica made everything a breeze. She was very punctual in returning my calls and emails and she helped my big day go off without a hitch. She was very easy to work with and we loved every single image we received. We are looking forward to having Jessica take our newborn photos for our baby and many family portrait sessions in the future. We truly couldn't be happier with the service and quality provided by Brea Photography.

ry accommodating and helpful on our big day. She added creativity and style to our ideas and proposed shot list. Just what we needed!

lped us walk through everything from engagement photo ideas to the wedding day timeline. She was always prompt on responding to emails and easy to work with. Our engagement photos turned out amazing- our family and friends were blown away! And now that our wedding day has come and gone, the beautiful photos that Jessica took help us to remember each moment. Brea Photography is a wonderful business and we will continue to recommend them to other couples!

ot want to wait through another brutal Midwest winter to get married - so we set the date for September 12th of this fall. We immediately began our frantic search for venues and vendors as we knew that getting married on such short notice could give us limited options when it came to better options. After meeting with MORE than a few photographers, we were starting to become rather disillusioned and I was getting ready to settle - everyone we liked was way out of our pretty tight budget (with no involvement from either of our families, we were paying for this start to finish), and anyone who was in our budget was a JOKE. The cheap guys made me feel like I was being a part of THEIR day. I found Brea Photography when I was searching online, and really loved their portfolio - decided to give it a go and called to make an appointment. Within in the week, Anna made the trip over to where I work to meet personally and go over options. Once collecting the information, and going over it with my fiance', we went back and gave a few of our budget concerns and questions about how we could switch some things around to end up with the service and photo files we wanted. Anna was so accommodating and spent so much time helping me customize things (cutting here, adding there, etc), until she had patched together a package that we knew we could afford and didn't leave us feeling like we would be missing out on memories. My wedding day was an absolute whirlwind of anxiety and confusion for me - from getting out of town guests taken care of, to my ring bearer having the wrong suit, to worries that it was going to rain any second, Anna put me at absolute ease. She probably deserves some kind of sainthood after dealing with me and flustered behavior. Not only did she keep me in good humor, and accommodated all of my weird requests, she went above and beyond with constantly reminding me to breathe, offering me water, snacks if I was getting a little lightheaded, helped me with my dress - ran little errands for me around the facility when I had forgotten to bring something to a different room (once you're in a large dress, moving around a lot is not a joyous task!). Additionally, she put my bridal party at ease. Though I didn't have a large list of "specific" shots, I told her in general I was looking for classy, traditional, romantic, fun and a lot of photos of guests and family (since we had a lot of people from around the country, I really wanted to capture moments with them.) She and her assistant hit the ball out of the park. We just got our photos last week and my husband and I are so excited over them. They are timeless and there are moments they captured that we weren't even aware happened - sometimes even though we were involved! Anna had a way of interacting amongst the guests so that she was hardly seen, definitely not in the way or making it feel like I was being stalked - but somehow we have so many amazing shots of myself and my husband when we didn't even know she was there. In addition to the hours put in at the wedding, we received a free engagement photo session beforehand and a full disc of our wedding photos. I give my highest recommendation and can't wait to use them again for future important occasions!

ars and had fun doing it. Best of all, when a sudden storm rained down on our location in the park, Anna sprung a backup plan into action that resulted in some of our best photos. Couldn't be happier with this choice.

just that! She was taking candid pictures when I didn't even know it and she really captured some beautiful moments. Jessica was so easy to work with and was very flexible with last minute changes. She was an absolute sweetheart and I really enjoyed working with her. The pictures turned out gorgeous!! I couldn't be happier!!

Our Engagment pictures or stunning and working with Jessica made the whole experience natural and fun. I trust her 100% with our wedding coming up in November.

ptures the realness of moments and relationships. Working with her was more like working with a close friend. She is an excellent communicator and will work to make your vision a reality. Our engagement session was perfect. Jessica truly made our story come to life and understood our vision. On my wedding day, Jessica provided a sense of comfort and understanding that I needed after a recent health issue. I was incredibly thankful to have her there as a person, not just our wedding photographer. Our photo booth was a huge hit, and our guests enjoyed having the prints that night. The quality of product and service has exceeded our expectations, and we hope to be able to work with Jessica again when our family grows. Thank you!

side pictures were lovely, but the family pictures are horrible. Everyone's face is in shadow and it could and should have been noticed and fixed by Brea. If she has simply told us to take 2 steps back the lighting would have been fine. As they are now, there is no fixing them. A professional photographer should have been aware of the lighting as she was taking the pictures. Especially in a situation where the lighting could have been easily fixed.

We provided her some examples of what we were looking for & then she gave them her own creative twist. Additionally, Brea's customer service went above and beyond! She re-scheduled our engagement photos due to weather 30 minutes before we were supposed to meet. She was amazing at wrangling our families for pictures before the wedding & when the bustle on my gown broke, she even sewed it for me! We are extremely happy with our choice to go with Brea & are absolutely thrilled with our photos - they are the perfect mix of classic, fun & artistic that we were looking for!

tured everything that we wanted and more. Jessica is very easy to work with and makes you feel very comfortable while taking photos. She is very professional and I would recommend her and Brea Photography to anyone!!

beautiful and exactly what we were looking for. Furthermore, having Brea at the wedding was like have another friend there to help you with all the little stuff. She was always nearby if my train needed adjusting or my veil needed fixing!

! The photos are really fun, and they sent me a CD with rights to the photos.

with Jessica, one of the primary photographers, to talk more about what we were looking for. From Jessica's viewpoint, it might have been a very easy sell. My fiance and I didn't take much convincing that this was the right photographer! The only thing I knew I wanted was a disc of high-res images of the wedding photos; Jessica helped us formulate the rest of our package. They offer a complimentary 1-hour engagement session, which was an excellent idea. Jessica got to know us a little bit, and we got to practice posing for pictures other than "smile and look at the camera" shots. The engagement photos turned out wonderfully; I was so impressed (and after that, there was no doubt in my mind that I had picked the right photographer). Our wedding day was a blur, but Jessica was there to capture those memories and the things we might have missed! We have only seen a sneak peek of our photos so far, but I can tell that I'm going to love them all! Thank you so much!

vity. We had them do engagement photos and they turned them around in a week! And they were great at the wedding to! Jessica had creative ideas, but also let us do more natural things as well. We don't have our wedding pictures back yet (only been 2 weeks since the wedding) but I am sure they are great! I highly recommend Brea!!

your budget and the quality of the final product is above and beyond what we had hoped for.

was absolutely perfect. They were so understanding, and willing to work with us on everything. Their packages are incredibly fair, and you get a lot for your money. We are planning on going back to Brea for all of our photography needs!

ontact. She was friendly, warm and knew exactly what she was doing. I have told her and will tell you, that I will most certainly recommend her to everyone I know looking for professional photography!

photos. We also did engagement photos with Jessica and were really happy with those too. I would recommend working with Jessica to anyone!

to mention- she was my go to girl the day of the wedding: safety pins, munchies, bobby pins- perfect.

ients as though she is their wedding coordinator as well. She takes such beautiful candid shots that really capture the emotion of your moment. The quality of service she provides way outweighs the price of her packages. Brea is FANTASTIC!!! Dont keep searching and comparing... I promise you will not be disappointed- call her today!