About this vendor
Mei Lin Barral Photography is a Chicago & France eco-conscious and LGBTQIA+ affirming wedding & elopement photographer for couples who lead with love, inclusivity, and a passion for the planet, including your four-legged family.
Here to create a safe, affirming, and meaningful experience for every love story, especially those who are often under-represented. Specializing in intimate wedding and elopement photography for queer couples and dog parents; here to preserve your love for one another in its truest, most genuine form—just as you are.
Website: www.MeiLinBarralPhoto.com
Inquire: www.MeiLinBarralPhoto.com/inquire
Instagram: www.instagram.com/MeiLinBarral
Journal: www.MeiLinBarralPhoto.com/journal
Email: MeiLin@MeiLinBarralPhoto.com
Details
Business Attributes
- Asian-owned Business
- LGBTQ+-owned Business
- Woman-owned Business
Destination Weddings
- Destination Wedding Packages
Photo Shoot Types
- Bridal Portraits
- Day After Session
- Engagement
Photo & Video
- Digital Files
- Photo
- Printed Enlargements
- Social Media Sharing
- Wedding Albums
Photo & Video Styles
- Classic
- Documentary
Wedding Activities
- Getting Engaged
- Rehearsals & Parties
- Wedding
Awards and Affiliations
Reviews
Your trust is our goal. Our community relies on honest reviews to help
you make those big decisions with ease.
5
out of 5.017 reviews
Review photos
Showing slide number 1 out of 9
Mei Lin did dog and couples portraits for us and they were fantastic! She was very friendly, responsive, and helpful leading up to the shoot with plenty of guidance on what to brin...
g and things to consider. She even got one of her assistants to come to the shoot just to watch our dog when we had to go inside for the couples portraits! As a protective dog mom, I was nervous about leaving her with a "stranger", but everyone involved was so professional and kind, I know she was in good hands! Our dog is a covid dog and slightly anxious, so I wasn't sure how she would do, but Mei Lin was able to pose her and get the most adorable shots of her alone and with us! I highly recommend Mei Lin for your photography needs!
With Mei Lin’s guidance, we marched through a foot of snow to get the perfect shot. I had a portrait session with Mei Lin in the winter and I could not have asked for anything bett...
er. The portraits were stunning and bright, and the whole experience was comfortable and welcoming. The session was professional yet casual, which helped me to loosen up and allowed for really natural looking pictures. My time with Mei Lin was so fun, it felt like we were just “hanging out”. Thank you for your help with making my portraits a reality. Your quick responses and excellent communication made the process so easy.
My wife and I were married this past spring, and Mei Lin was phenomenal! She took the time to listen to our vision, regardless of how chaotic it was, and she made us feel comfortab...
le and confident on our big day. I am still in love with all of the pictures from that day, especially because we included our dog in the celebrations. We will cherish these amazing photographs for the rest of our lives!
We took engagement photos in November 2023 with Mei Lin in Chicago, and we couldn’t have asked for a better experience. She took great care to get to know us and to get our little ...
dog comfortable with her. She was easy to coordinate with and plan with, and she had great options for us to take photos (we are new to the area!). She made us feel comfortable taking pictures and it was great to get to know her! The sneak-peek pictures came surprisingly quick and we’re PERFECT. When we got our full gallery, we loved all of the pictures and immediately ordered prints. We definitely recommend Mei Lin!!
My wife and I worked with Mei Lin for our small wedding on June 2023 in Cambridge, MA. We initially approached her because we were captivated by her portfolio that resonated lightn...
ess and happiness, with subtle color contrasts that we simply could not take our eyes off.
Even before we met her, we were very impressed with Mei Lin's effortless professionalism while communicating over email while we were setting up everything for the big day. But most of all, Mei Lin is an exceptionally talented photographer and an absolutely lovely person to have around. As we were walking around on the morning of our wedding and having us pose at various spots, including at one of our favorite cafés, we felt like Mei Lin was an old friend; she has a charming and disarming way of making us feel comfortable with taking photos, that made the whole experience go very smoothly and was simply fun!
There are so many other moments that we can think about that made working with Mei Lin a wonderful experience, but I will just add that she was also really good at making wedding guests feel comfortable and natural as they were posing for family portraits.
And finally, the wedding photos are STUNNING! They look just as we imagined based on her initial portfolio. The colors, the lighting, the poses, the detail, the small touches, everything looks superb! She managed to capture with light exactly how we felt! Happy, brilliant, glowing, joyous, and in love!
Mei Lin's talent, professionalism, and personality are a wonderful gift to anyone thinking of capturing an important moment in their lives!
Everything that Mei Lin did was above and beyond our expectations. We are a same-gender couple who got engaged and wanted a romantic photoshoot with our pup in our city, Chicago. S...
he worked closely with us to execute our dream to the letter. We loved every single one of our photos and are using them in our wedding website! Not only that, but she was personally so wonderful to work with. She took the time to get to know us, our story, and our family and incorporated our personalities into the photos. HUGE perk - she is GREAT with dogs. Our pup was VERY excited to be at the beach, but she handled him so sweetly and gently, and we still got some incredible photos with him. We cannot thank her enough for all the personal work and touches that she put into our session.
Mei Lin worked with my boyfriend and me for a dog portrait session on a Fall day at the park. We absolutely fell in love with the experience and are so happy with the portraits. Me...
i Lin was a great guide during the session and my doggie enjoyed her calm spirit. Prior to the session, we were given clear instructions and were excited for portrait day! We would absolutely work and refer Mei Lin in the future.
We were looking for an experienced photographer who would take family photos of us and our dog for our anniversary. Mei Lin stood out from the beginning from her photography alone,...
but when I learned that Mei Lin specializes in photographing couples with their dogs, I was immediately sold!
Mei Lin was so kind and communicative throughout the whole process. On the day of our photoshoot, she was such a friendly and warm presence. Her calming demeanor certainly helped when our dog was a bit anxious about being in a new place and posing for pictures. We really appreciate how she was so patient with all of us!
Of course the photos were fantastic - I would recommend Mei Lin with enthusiasm!
Mei Lin was an incredible photographer and absolute joy to work with. We chose to work with her for our wedding because we connected to her personal, inclusive, and artistic approa...
ch to photography, and we're so glad we did! She was an excellent communicator in the lead-up to the event, and her calm, professional, and easygoing presence was such a delight on the big day. We really wanted to look like ourselves on our wedding day -- not overly posed, etc. Mei Lin more than delivered, capturing so many special moments while making us feel at ease and natural. We especially appreciated Mei Lin's talent for capturing the diversity of our family and friends in terms of age, skin-tone, gender expression, body shape and ability. Not every photographer we considered demonstrated a commitment to diverse sitters and needs, and Mei Lin stood out because she did, and did so beautifully! Thanks, Mei Lin, for helping us make such gorgeous memories :)
Mei Lin is an absolutely amazing photographer and a fantastic human! I found her online by looking at photographs for a venue I was interested in and instantly connected with the w...
ay that she plays with light in her photos and the etherealness of fog, sunsets, and edison bulbs twinkling in her photos. She was our wedding photographer and also our engagement session photographer. She's incredibly responsive, competitively priced, and an artist with the camera. My fiance and I were a bit nervous going into the engagement session, and her instructions were incredibly helpful in directing us and calming our nerves. By the time of the wedding, we were pros. She worked incredibly well with other vendors at the venue and coordinating the photography schedule for the wedding day. I really appreciated that during our wedding based on our comments on her questionnaire that we wanted some great photos of our friends that she went out of her way to make sure everyone who wanted to be featured in the wedding album with their own photos got the chance. She was also game for a spontaneous decision to take a big group photo with all the guests on the patio of the venue. After the wedding, she was also very fast in providing a blog post of highlights within a few weeks and the full album about a month later. I would absolutely recommend Mei Lin to be your photographer!
Mei Lin was wonderful to work with and made us feel very comfortable, she picked out the perfect location and even got the dog to listen! 📸
Mei Lin is such a joy to work with! She is incredibly professional, timely, and makes you feel right at home in front of the camera. I have had the good fortune to work with Mei Li...
n for our engagement photos and cannot WAIT to see the beautiful photos I know will be coming once our wedding day arrives! I would highly recommend booking MLB Photography for your big day.
Mei Lin did a fantastic job on our engagement and wedding photos. Throughout the entire process Mei Lin was very communicative, asked useful questions, and promptly answered questi...
ons and concerns. On our wedding day she was extremely organized and professional. We’re really glad we were able to squeeze in some photos at home with our dog as well. All of the photos ended up looking fantastic, and she delivered our gallery very quickly. The candid photos taken during preparation, the ceremony and reception were truly amazing and captured the spirit of our wedding wonderfully. We cannot recommend Mei Lin enough.
My spouse and I booked Mei Lin to photograph us for a couples/anniversary session. I met Mei Lin several years ago when she was photographing a book festival I volunteered at, and...
I have followed her career online ever since. I knew when I was looking for a couples photographer that she would be great. Due to Covid, we had no guests or photographs taken at our actual wedding in July 2020, so this photoshoot essentially doubled as our wedding photos, even though we got them around our first anniversary! Mei Lin was incredibly kind, understanding, and responsive about scheduling issues that cropped up due to Covid restrictions and worked with us to find a time and place for the shoot that was both safe AND convenient for us. She was very clear and communicative about how we should prepare for the shoot. During the shoot itself, Mei Lin made us feel more comfortable by giving us plenty of great direction and asking us to tell stories to break the ice. I'm so pleased with the photos she took; not only are they beautiful, but they so successfully capture the essence of our relationship in all of its quirky glory that one friend of mine said, "These are the best wedding photos ever." I would absolutely recommend Mei Lin to anyone looking for a couples or wedding photographer.
My now-husband and I booked Mei Lin to photograph our wedding in June 2020. Of course, when COVID hit, we had to pivot on our plans! Mei Lin was responsive, patient, and understand...
ing as we gathered multiple backup plans for the big day. She was incredibly reassuring and helpful as we figured out what we were going to do. Once at the session, she made us both feel much more comfortable in front of the camera. She also made sure that if we wanted any specific photos we got them. That's why we hired Mei Lin again to photograph our family after we adopted a dog! A year after our wedding, Mei Lin did a couples session with our pup. Our dog is very anxious and Mei Lin took all the necessary steps to help her feel more comfortable. Mei Lin is professional, kind, thoughtful, and produces gorgeous photos. I cannot recommend her highly enough!
I decided early this past summer that I would like professional photographs of myself and my dog, Milo, to celebrate a new job I had gotten and Milo's recovery from heart-worm trea...
tments. Mei Lin was my first choice, because I had been following her on Instagram for years and knew her work was top notch, honestly the most dream-like, beautiful photos I had seen and she specialized in working with pets as well. Which was what I was looking for. Her website is very user friendly and well designed, which was a great help when I was first reaching out. She was very quick to reply to my emails and answered all the questions I had. Because my dog is a rescue, he has some social issues with strangers and gets very nervous, I worried that he would be difficult to photograph and would try to eat the camera. But Mei Lin reassured me that she was ready to wait until Milo was comfortable and make his session as easy as possible, which took a lot of stress off my shoulders. And she was true to her word! Milo had his moments, but we either waited a moment or moved to a different area, or pulled out a toy to distract him and I was blown away with the photos I got from that day. Mei Lin gave me reminders and helpful hints leading up to the day, like things to bring to the shoot for myself and Milo. And it really made a big difference, taking a simple photo and elevating it to a treasured memory for me. I brought extra clothes and matched with Milo, which is very "me" lol and makes everyone laugh when they see us matching. I also brought his favorite toys for some cute pictures and pajamas for a "twinkle twinkle little star" theme. I was able to invite my Mom, sister and best friend to join me in some of my shots, and are now the best pictures I have of my family. All of this magic happened in just about two hours, but for me it will last a lifetime. Her prices are amazing too, if that is something you are concerned with, honestly it is worth every penny and then some! After the day was done, all I could think was that I wanted to schedule another one, maybe in a different season or a different location. It will definitely not be my last! And I recommend Mei Lin to all my friends and family. She is kind, professional, highly skilled, and gets great results.
We hired Mei Lin to photograph our wedding and engagement photos. While we haven't had our wedding yet, all of our interactions with Mei Lin leading up to and including our engagem...
ent photo shoot have been great. She is well prepared, responsive to emails, and very professional. We can't wait to have her photograph our wedding!
Contact
Chicago + France
Mei Lin Barral Photography