Michelle Chiu Photography

Michelle was amazing! I really cannot come up with enough great things to say about both her personally and her work. We booked Michelle for both our wedding and an engagement session and were thrilled with the photos from both. Michelle is very personable and friendly, making both myself and my husband feel at ease during both days. Before our engagement session she sent us a questionairre and asked us to both fill it out separately in order to get to know us both better. She really wanted to zero in on who we are as a couple and tailor her photography to us. Within minutes of sitting down and meeting with her we truly felt how much she cared not only about her work, but also as us as a couple. For her, photographing weddings isn't just a job, and it truly shows in her work and in her demeanor. Any nervousness we might’ve had about taking engagement photos was wiped away quickly by Michelle on the day of our engagement session, and it showed in the photos. Our engagement photos looked natural and romantic without looking cheesy or staged. We took our engagement photos at Disneyland and they turned out both fun and romantic, exactly what we were hoping for. She had such great ideas and was so creative with composition. She stayed for several hours, going above and beyond what any other photographer would do. She even brought a Toy Story toy gun with her to take pictures with in Tomorrowland (my husband’s favorite part of the park)! On the day of our wedding she and her husband Gary (her 2nd photographer for the day) did amazing work as again. They were with us all day through getting ready until we drove off in our just getting married getaway car, never missing a beat. She again was so friendly and put both our family and bridal party at ease, getting beautiful but natural shots again. She was great at directing us and posing us, resulting in beautifully composed shots, yet at no point did she feel obtrusive or take away from the specialness of the day. In reality, she enhanced the emotion of the day. In our questionnaire and at our engagement session we’d talked about what big fans of the movie “Up” we were. Again, going above and beyond the call of duty, she brought a bundle of balloons for the day. We ended up getting the most adorable “Carl & Ellie” shots, something completely unexpected that turned out amazing. As one would hope, we were caught up in the emotion of the day and in the “candid moments” (ceremony, 1st dance, etc) we never even noticed she and Gary were there. Looking at the photos, we were constantly saying, “Wow, I didn’t even realize they got that.” Or “Wow, how’d they get that?” Our families, friends, and various wedding guests all commented how professional, personable, and wonderful our photographers were. And once we got our wedding pictures back we’ve gotten nothing but amazing comments, with many of our friends asking “Wow, who was your photographer?” We got photos from our engagement session and wedding back very quickly, and also received all photos on a disc with written permission to make prints of all photos, something most photographers will not offer until a year after your wedding. Her rates were very reasonable, and her packages were a great value when compared to other wedding photographers. She was definitely worth every penny and then some. Overall, we couldn’t rate her services higher and will definitely be using her services again.