5 out of 5 stars and 9 reviews
5
(9)Portland, Oregon, New York, New England and Traveling
About this vendor
When I married my husband, it gave me a lot of insight as a photographer and helped me understand what moments and experiences were truly important to couples. For you, I strive to be a calm presence in the noise, capturing the beautiful, emotional connections between you, your partner and your guests. All the small moments you won’t remember in the rush of the day.
Your wedding is about you, not me. I shoot in a way that lets your day naturally unfold without being intrusive. But I will also tell you where the best light is and capture you from the most flattering angles, promise. I think pretty portraits are rad, but so is that candid of grandma cheersing your best friend. Let's capture both!
Details
Destination Weddings
- Destination Wedding Packages
Photo Shoot Types
- Bridal Portraits
- Day After Session
- Engagement
Photo & Video
- Digital Files
- Online Proofing
- Photo
- Second Shooter Available
- Social Media Sharing
- Wedding Albums
Photo & Video Styles
- Artistic
- Documentary
- Lifestyle
- Modern
Wedding Activities
- Getting Engaged
- Rehearsals & Parties
- After Party
- Wedding
- After Party
Awards and Affiliations
2021 'Best of Weddings'
Best of Weddings
The Knot independently assesses vendors for this award—it’s never self-reported. We base it on firsthand experiences from real couples and guests, and they must have a 4.5-star average across 7+ reviews in the qualifying year.
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Reviews
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5
out of 5.09 reviews
Review photos
Showing slide number 1 out of 7
Gahhh what can we even say about Kate? That her photos feel easy and natural and yet somehow incredibly polished? That she is kinda the coolest and kindest person you could meet an...
d you’re secretly like “please be my new best friend” but then you’re like “play it cool, play it cool…” but then is the chillest person ever? That she will wholeheartedly absorb all your priorities and directions (we don’t care about long portrait sessions, we hate that background, we like these colors/edits) while infusing her own strong gut instincts, talent, and vision? All of that and more. We just received our sneak peek photos, and we are so blown away by her ability to capture the beauty and poignant moments in our wedding weekend.
Some highlights of working with Kate:
- First, we loved Kate’s down to earth energy. She is direct but generous, and this made us feel that we could trust her to cut the fluff and get to the good stuff.
- She has a way of giving you a prompt if you feel awkward or aren’t sure of what to do with yourself, but never made us feel forced or posed - if anything it always felt like she was making space for us to open up and show our truest selves to the camera.
- She was super receptive to the look/edit that we were going for - our photos felt like us and were the right tones of brown and blue etc, but also felt like her.
In short, we were blown away by our engagement photos and wedding photos, and would hire her again in a heartbeat. We felt so so lucky to work with her and recommend her wholeheartedly. Kate, we can’t thank you enough!
I hired Kate the summer of 2019 for a 2020 wedding. Yup, you can probably tell where this is going. We postponed twice but ultimately had a small wedding in my backyard August 2020...
with a larger reception August 2021. It was so important to me to work with Kate for both of these events because not only is her work amazing, she is just so great to work with. Kate was responsive, honest, and fun to work with (we were both nervous about photos in general but she made it fun and easy). It was definitely a bit of a rollercoaster but I'm so happy with how everything worked out. Some of our guests even commented that "Kate was able to capture EVERYTHING! How was she able to be everywhere at once?" Kate is just the best :)
I have only glowing things to say about Kate - we started from scratch and spent a long time looking at photographers. We chose Kate because her work, her style, her transparency ...
and her professionalism seemed so compelling online, and when I actually met her and worked with her I was so pleased to find my gut instinct about her was correct. Kate is super talented and just as importantly, very on top of her own business and work. All of this makes you feel safe and relaxed through the entire process of working with her and shooting with her. (She even flew to California for our engagement shoot!) Thank you, Kate!!
Kate is not only an extremely talented photographer - I mean that’s easy to see through a quick browse of her photos! But she is also just a gem of a human! She made my now husband...
and I so comfortable with getting our photos taken all throughout our big day. Half of the time, I didn’t even notice Kate shooting (during our ceremony and dinner/dancing); she just blended right into the crowd. The photos she took of our day are beyond stunning and I have been told by many friends that they all belong in a wedding magazine. In fact, there are so many good ones it’s been tough to choose which ones to get large prints of! She has an impeccable eye for angles and lighting, and her style and vibe were exactly what I always dreamed of from a wedding photographer. We will forever treasure these photos and are so grateful we chose Kate as our wedding photographer!
What can I say - Kate is phenomenal.
She is fun, level-headed, creative, and just really *really* good at what she does.
When my partner and I were searching for a photographer f...
or our wedding, I told him upfront that this was going to be the hardest vendor for me to find. I am exceptionally picky when it comes to photography. I worked closely with many event photographers as the Events Manager for Seattle's NPR station and that set the bar unbelievably high. But thank goodness for Kate. She happened to be the photographer for my best friends' wedding and when I saw how she worked first-hand, I knew that we had accidentally found our wedding photographer.
Kate is communicative, honest, and kind. And she has handled the whole current crazy situation with Covid-19 like a total pro. We haven't had our wedding yet, but we have had our engagement photos (which we love) and I'm completely confident that she will do phenomenal work at our wedding, because she is just that good at what she does.
Hire her for your wedding, you definitely won't regret it.
We spent SO LONG looking at photographers. We tended to like pretty different styles, and I was starting to get worried that we’d never find someone we both were thrilled with. I f...
ound Kate on the #pdxweddingphotographer hashtag on Instagram, and it was a done deal. We both loved her shooting and editing style, and the genuine story she told in each gallery. Our package included engagement photos, 8 hours of shooting on the day of, and we added 2 extra hours so she could stay through the end of the reception. Worth every single penny. Our photos are beautiful and I relive our day every time I look at them. My maid of honor hired her for her own wedding next year!
Choosing Kate Ames as our wedding photographer was one of the best choices my husband and I made for our wedding. Kate made us feel comfortable in front of the camera, was very fle...
xible to work with, and took amazing photos! She was able to capture every moment of the wedding perfectly. I highly recommend Kate Ames Photography.
My husband and I chose Kate to be our wedding photographer because we were absolutely blown away by her photography skills, but the deal was sealed when we met her and found out wh...
at an amazing person she is as well! Kate is so easy to work with: laid back, funny, flexible, and professional- she made us both feel so at ease and captured our best moments together. I was so happy to have an engagement session included in our wedding package- it was great to meet Kate and have a practice run at taking photos together. I think it made our wedding day photos so much easier. Kate was so helpful in recommending vendors and had great advice that made me so much less stressed about the wedding. Even though she is in the middle of a crazy busy summer, she took some time to send a bunch of sneak peek photos to us on our honeymoon, which was so fun and special! I LOVE how our photos turned out- Kate does an amazing job and I’m so glad we chose her to capture the best day of our lives!
Kate was absolutely amazing. We couldn’t have asked for a better photographer! Not only did she take stunning, creative pictures but also she was able to capture intimate moments...
we didn’t even know were happening. Her pictures are above and beyond what we were expecting and on top of that she’s just a great person. She’s relaxed and laid back and multiple friends and family members commented how great she was to be around.
We didn’t realize how essential it was to have a photographer we felt comfortable around. Picture time was a breeze because she put us at ease and we were able to trust whatever she said because she’s a consummate pro. We had a few friends at the wedding that plan to hire her for their weddings and they won’t be disappointed because there isn’t a better option out there!
Contact
Portland, Oregon, New York, New England and Traveling
Kate Ames Photography