Karen Loudon Photography

Best of Weddings (1x).

Big Island Hawaii, Inter-Island: Oahu, Maui, Kauai

About this vendor

I want people to smile every time they look at the pictures I take of them. My style is very casual and my goal is to capture the joy and emotion of the day. I'm flexible and I like input from my subjects--this is what ultimately brings out their personalities in the images I take of them.

Details

Business Attributes

Woman-owned Business

Destination Weddings

Destination Wedding Packages

Photo Shoot Types

Boudoir
Bridal Portraits
Day After Session
Engagement
Trash The Dress

Photo & Video

Digital Files
Online Proofing
Photo
Printed Enlargements
Second Shooter Available
Social Media Sharing

Photo & Video Styles

Artistic
Classic
Documentary
Dramatic
Lifestyle
Modern

Wedding Activities

Getting Engaged
Rehearsals & Parties
After Party
Wedding
After Party

Awards and Affiliations

2013 'Best of Weddings'

out of 5.0

21 reviews

Search reviews

Hayley E

We did a destination wedding to Kona, Hawaii and found Karen thorough our wedding venue's blog. When first looking at her photos compared to other photographers, we instantly knew ...

she would be the best fit for us and deliver fantastic photos as well. All the positive reviews which describe her down to earth, personable and professionalism are spot on. We've never hired a photographer before and wasn't sure what to do and how to pose, but Karen and her assistant, Hannah, were great with guiding us along the way and making us feel relaxed and at home. When spontaneous things happened (tearing up before the wedding and impromptu dancing), Karen and Hannah would spring out of nowhere to capture the moment. Even with her computer in the shop and on a loaner laptop, she was extremely punctual and gave us sneap peek shots within a few days. And of course, the shots looked amazing!! We are excited for all the shots to come our way. Thank you Karen and Hannah! So do yourself a favor and book her now! :)

CYNTHIA L

Karen is not only an amazing photographer, she is also a beautiful person inside and out. I got married in Big Sky, Montana back in July of 2019. She captured some pictures that w...

ere just simply breathtaking. She does beautiful work and is very professional. I couldn't have asked for a better person to capture my special day.

Alexis N

We did both our engagement photos and wedding photos with Karen. Tip - if you do multiple sessions with her, she offers a solid discount, which saved us a fortune! Not to mention...

- our photos are stunning. We've only received our sneak peek of the wedding photos so far, but I'm literally DYING to see the rest!

Taylor T

If you are looking for a photographer who is professional, passionate, punctual, and captures all the special moments with stunning photos, look no further! We have worked with Kar...

en twice, first for our engagement photos and most recently for our wedding. She is always prompt to respond to our questions and is very creative with her photo ideas! Her assistant Hannah is equally wonderful to work with. We would recommend Karen unconditionally and hope to be back to the Big Island for a future photography session. Karen and Hannah, you guys rock! Thank you so much for capturing our special day; we will cherish these photos for many years to come.

Anita S

Karen was the photographer at our recent wedding on the big island. She was absolutely amazing to work with and captured the most beautiful moments from our special day. We were pl...

anning a destination wedding and Karen was always available and very responsive by phone and email. She had us pick out shots we really liked and post it on Pinterest, and then had a copy of those images with her at our wedding and was able to capture everything we wanted. When we arrived on the big island, we met with her in person to go over all the details of what we envisioned. She came fully prepared and had great ideas on everything. She and her assistant took getting ready photos and truly exceeded my very high expectations. She is very easy to work with, calm, organized, and captured light and sunsets in a way I had never seen done before. She even drove us in her car to another site to get sunset pictures. Despite unplanned delays and flooding at our wedding, Karen was very flexible and made sure we got all the images we wanted. She was very efficient and such a pleasure to work with. I also did a lot of price comparisons before we booked her, and she was very reasonable for the high quality of the product you get. We got a sneak peek with around 50 images from our wedding the day after our big day. She also provides the print release for everything and a USB of all the images, making it super easy and cheap to get the pictures printed from any site. We also have an online gallery that our entire family was able to view and order from. Karen is also making our wedding album where we get the final look and pick of the pictures. She has such creative, artistic ideas and we cannot wait to see the wedding album. Hiring Karen as our photographer was one of the best decisions we made for our wedding. She went above and beyond in every single thing and even came to our rehearsal, so she knew my family and friends before our wedding day! I would highly recommend her to anyone for their special day!!

Susan K

We chose to do a destination wedding on the big island of hawaii. So my husband did a search for photographers in the area and we found Karen. We really liked her style of photogra...

phy. And let me tell you we are so glad we picked Karen. She is amazingly talented and our wedding photos turned out amazing. I'm so happy with the way our photos turned out. We hired her for the whole day; she must have been with us for about 12 hours that day. She gave us more than a thousand photos, and I like so many of them that I do not know which photos to post. Getting it down to even 800 photos were hard. I have to cut that down to even less, like 200 to post. Her photos are so good that it's hard to do. She's very calm and kind of on a softer spoken side and she gives really great artistic direction so you don't have to have much experience taking photos. She had me at ease and I was not stressed out at all at my wedding taking photos. She took photos from me getting ready in the morning to our departure with the sparklers around 10PM that night - 12 full hours and still all quality photos from beginning to end. You should look at her portfolio, they speak for themselves.

Allisha N

I chose her because I wanted a photojournalistic approach and her portfolio on her website was just stunning. It stood out from the rest of the other photographers that I researche...

d on. Karen Loudon is professional, on time, engaging, and beautifully talented. Her soft spoken demeanor makes you feel comfortable when you pose for pictures yet her directions are explicit. I am from Los Angeles and my correspondences with her were all via e-mail, yet she was quick to respond. Initial planning was stress-free, she made sure that it was allowed to professionally photograph the location I wanted which was close to St Benedict's Church (where I got married), The Place of Refuge. Also, since I will only be able to meet her the day of the wedding, she encouraged me to send her inspirational photos that I would like to be photographed as and she no doubt exceeded them. Her pictures ended up looking way better than the pictures that I pinned on my Pinterest board! She was also very flexible. I had changed my mind a couple of times on where she would start, and we did make some changes of what to shoot and where along the way. She was very graceful about it. She even let us shoot a little "photo bomb" photo which came out great! Ultimately, I had her for 5 hours for 3 locations (church, beach, reception) for about 20 guests. I did not feel rushed or scuttled along, and she covered almost every detail of the wedding events. My sneak peaks came as quickly as she promised. I got married in November, I got the rest of my images late February and they looked amazing. Everyone who saw them were all impressed. Everything from "This was in studio!" to "You guys look like models" to "Was this shot for a wedding magazine cover?" They were all amazed. It looked beautiful, intimate, soft, romantic, and even little vintage-y. A great experience! Worth the money! Thank you Karen!

Felicia W

For us, we wanted the best wedding location and the best photographer the big island had to offer. We researched photographers and were very impressed with Karen's work. She and ...

her team did a fantastic job the day of our wedding capturing our special day and the beauty that surrounded us in Hawaii. They were everywhere the day of, but at the same time in the background. We've received some "teaser" shots and are very happy with them and anxiously anticipating getting all of our photos in a few weeks. Karen was super easy to work with and we highly recommend her.

Katherine P

I had a destination wedding at Big Island in January. We flew in from New York City and our expectations were very high since we hired one of the best photographers in the city to ...

do our engagement photos. Karen came to the resort for our wedding about an hour before our ceremony started and she had an assistant who helped her with lighting and she printed every single one of the inspiration photos I sent her via email. I was very impressed and loved how she knew what I wanted. Then, she took our rings and took pictures of just me and pictures of the groom and his groomsmen along with me and my bridesmaids. She was very good and professional. She also helped me relax since I was so nervous. During the ceremony, she took pictures of our harpists and many photos of my dad and I. The photos turned out AMAZING. There was a lot of unforeseen delays at our wedding which was very disappointing, however, Karen was very understanding and flexible with the time so she voluntarily stayed longer. Karen had amazing ideas for our wedding photos and they were all better than the inspiration photos i sent her. My inspiration photos were something I sent just so she knew what style I wanted and she did even better!!! Three days after wedding, we received our sneak peek photos and I was absolutely amazed at how they turned out. She did an amazing job and I cant wait to get the rest of the photos!!!

Heather T

Karen lives on the big island, Hawaii, but when we were looking for the perfect photographer to capture our Maui wedding - she agreed to fly over to the neighboring island to cover...

our day. She is very laid back and easy to work with. But on your wedding day - she seemlessly is able to "take charge" and "direct" to ensure your timeline needs are met as well as the pictures you want to see! I really appreciated her guidance to us as well as our wedding party & family. I know this wasn't the norm, but as she had travelled for our wedding, she even offered to join us on our sunset sail the night prior to our wedding and take some more "candid" photo's. We were fortunate and lucky that she was able to join us for that special occasion as well. We both felt that she was genuinely invested in our day and ensuring we had a ton of fabulous images. I've seen just a few of the shots thus far, and they are wonderful! I requested that the finishing touches be on the "beachy/vintage" side and she was able to accommodate that request for us and capture that style. I would definitley recommend Karen Loudon for your Hawaii wedding!

sheri s

I am also a photographer in Kona, and chose Karen Loudon to shoot my engagement photos because her work is always beautiful and unique. I am completely comfortable being around Ka...

ren and trust her every move as a photographer. She will be my "family photographer" as I have big plans for her to shoot our engagement, wedding, boudoir, future pregnancy, infant and family portraits! I highly recommend her and her professional talent, I could not be any more happy with the photos she produced!

Laura C

When people tell you that your wedding photos are so beautiful that you look like you should be on the cover of a magazine, you know you have a fabulous photographer! Karen is tha...

t photographer. She was so helpful when planning my wedding and was a joy to work with on my wedding day. My photos are simply breathtaking, and I'm excited that I get to have such works of art on my mantle forever.

Susan L

We were fortunate in finding Karen's website as we planned our destination wedding on Hawaii's Big Island. Finding the right photographer to capture your wedding is challenging en...

ough to do locally but trusting one from miles away is even more challenging. We were so lucky to have found Karen for our Hawaii wedding at the Four Seasons Resort. Karen was great to work with even before the wedding sending me emails with thoughts about photography style and what I was looking for. We had a pre-wedding call before I flew to Hawaii to discuss ideas and then she took the time to meet myself and my fiance the day before the wedding to do a site visit so we could go over final ideas and choose locations on the resort property. She was great in asking specific questions to make sure she knew exactly what we wanted. Neither myself or my fiance are keen on being in front of the camera but Karen had a way of making us feel comfortable having our photos taken. She did a wondering job posing us and even telling us how to hold our head or position us to get the best shots. One of the nicest surprises was receiving some gorgeous sneak peek photos via email from Karen the day after the wedding. They were stunning! Karen was extremely accomodating to us and put up with the bride making last minute changes to things and even acquiring a second photographer to give my guests more time to have their individual photos taken at our beach wedding so that we could have Karen all to ourselves for our wedding photos. We were very happy with Karen's patience, planning and expertise with our photographer. It was the most important day and photos of our lives. We would highly recommend her for anyone looking for wedding photography services.

Anna B

I used Karen for my Hawaii wedding in July. Before the big day she was already planning and emailing me with thoughts on what kinds of photos I was looking for and what photos I ha...

d to have. I thought her pre-planning was really thoughtful and honestly I never would have thought to give her half of the information that she asked me - she really knows her stuff! It was so easy to pose in front of her. She has a way of making you feel comfortable and excited to have photos taken. I had a feeling they were going to be amazing before I saw them just based on her guidance and style throughout the evening. I received my sneak peek 2 days after the wedding and was blown away by the photos. They are beautiful and so perfect. Karen was able to capture exactly what I wanted and go above and beyond what I had hoped for. I am SO thankful that I used her for my wedding and would highly recommend her to anyone looking for wedding photography services.

Dana L

I can't say enough about my photos! Karen did my bridals as well as the ceremony and reception photos. During my bridal shoot, Karen gave great instructions on how to position my b...

ody and face to make me look absolutely stunning! I didn't know I could look that good! That being said, I didn't look posed or unnatural. I looked relaxed, like a person would see me if watching from afar. During the ceremony, she was not distracting at all. She got some really awesome shots of us during the ring exchange and our first kiss. The reception photos were also great. She got all those candid shots of people dancing, eating and talking. She also made sure to ask us if we wanted any others shots of us with our friends. Overall, Karen was better than words can say! I would give her more than five stars if possible. I would recommend her to anyone looking for excellent photos of their once in a lifetime event!

Ashley K

I found Karen online, as we live in British Columbia, Canada. Much of our discussions were via email and she was always very quick to respond. She offered great advice with weddi...

ng location and any other questions we had. Karen was very professional with our wedding day. She gave us helpful advice on where we should look for her to capture the right shot. The day after our wedding we had our sneak peak photos available online. We didn't notice at the time, but my dress had bunched up and I was horrified, but Karen was very comforting. She photoshopped the picture to correct the flaw. We would recommend her to anyone that is planning a wedding in Hawaii.

Anonymous

We came from Michigan to the Big Island for our honeymoon and wanted to get our photos done. We didn't have any photos done for our engagement or our wedding so we wanted to get th...

em done and done right. We looked online and Karen came highly recommended. She made the process very easy and also informative. She was very up on technology making payment and viewing of pictures just a click away. Our pictures turned out great her service was great just an overall great experience my wife an I highly recommend Karen :)

c b

If you're reading this review because you're looking for a wedding photographer in Hawaii (or elsewhere), I suggest you stop reading and book Karen immediately. She captured our w...

edding on the Big Island and we couldn't be happier! Karen was fantastic to work with. She met with us the day before the wedding to go over possible shots and made sure she knew the exact schedule so she wouldn't miss a thing. She listened to our preferences and took them into account while shooting (natural light, casual, not too much flash). Her experience with our wedding venue was also obvious as she had tons of great ideas for shots. I really can't say enough wonderful things about her. Her assistant Morgan is a gem, too! On a side note, Karen also happily recommended vendors on the island since it was a destination wedding for us. So helpful since there aren't a ton of reviews (or people, really) on the Kohala Coast!

Sarah R

Karen was amazing. She read us well and portrayed our personality through her photographs. She made us both feel comfortable and did not interfere with essence of the moment. Throu...

gh her photos, we will relive the emotions and memories forever. Thank you Karen!

Caroline A

Karen was superb in everything about our wedding. We had a destination ceremony on the Big Island in Hawaii, and working with Karen was a great experience even from California. S...

he really captured my bride in a way that no other photographer has been able too in the past. We were very relaxed having Karen at the wedding, and almost forgot she was there. She got some incredible pictures of moments we probably would have missed without her. I would recommend her to anyone, and we plan on having anniversary photos done with her in the future. Absolutely 5 stars.

Beth M

Karen was great about communicating with me in the months leading up to the wedding, and especially the last few days before the wedding day so that I was comfortable and confident...

that everything would go well. She was very easy to work with on our wedding day and helped put us at ease in front of the camera. She had a lot of good suggestions for photos, and really took advantage of the beautiful surroundings and weather we had that day. I've only seen the "sneak peek" pictures so far, but they look very professional and beautiful. I'm excited to see the rest of her work! I would recommend Karen to any couple who is looking for a wedding photographer on the Big Island. Update: Just received the link to all of our wedding pictures and they are amazing! She managed to get great pictures of everybody who was there and captured the day perfectly. They are all absolutely beautiful!

Contact

73-1172 Ahikawa Street, Kailua-Kona, HI | Big Island Hawaii, Inter-Island: Oahu, Maui, Kauai

Karen Loudon Photography's photos

Karen Loudon Photography

Wedding vendors in Kailua-Kona