5 out of 5 stars and 12 reviews
5
(12)Cleveland, Northeast Ohio, Columbus, and beyond
About this vendor
Based in Mentor, OH The Golden Hour Photography captures weddings, engagements, and rehearsal dinners. Owner Kelly Kruse believes she is the luckiest person in the world that she gets to be part of couples’ special days. She knows that this is an honor and a privilege and works hard to document all your exciting moments as you live them. Kelly hopes that years from now, you will revisit your wedding album and see the happiest and most authentic versions of yourself and your partner.
Originally from Northeast Ohio, Kelly moved to Kentucky after graduating from Bowling Green State University with a degree in Fine Art. This photographer’s favorite part of her job is meeting new people, and she guarantees you will always work with her, not an assistant. When she’s not snapping pictures, Kelly can be found watching RuPaul’s Drag Race, reading, and hanging out with her three kids. A true Renaissance woman, she was also the lead singer in a band for more than 10 years.
Kelly believes in building strong, trusting relationships with clients. She therefore offers consultations ahead of the wedding, during which you can get to know each other. For your big day, The Golden Hour Photography provides streamlined packages and unlimited communication. If you choose to book your wedding date with Kelly, you will automatically receive a complimentary engagement session! Kelly can even capture your rehearsal dinner, which she has found to be an intimate occasion that results in some of the most heartfelt moments. In addition, she can bring a photo booth to your reception, complete with beautiful backdrops and fun props.
Details
Business Attributes
- Woman-owned Business
Destination Weddings
- Destination Wedding Packages
Photo Shoot Types
- Boudoir
- Bridal Portraits
- Engagement
- Trash The Dress
Photo & Video
- Digital Files
- Photo
- Second Shooter Available
- Social Media Sharing
Photo & Video Styles
- Artistic
- Classic
- Documentary
- Dramatic
- Lifestyle
- Modern
Wedding Activities
- Getting Engaged
- Rehearsals & Parties
- Wedding
Awards and Affiliations
2022 '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.
Reviews
Your trust is our goal. Our community relies on honest reviews to help
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5
out of 5.012 reviews
Kelly was amazing to work with! My Fiancé and I have only done our engagement shoot so far but we just got the gallery back and to say we are obsessed would be an understatement! K...
elly was flexible and made the whole shoot comfortable and easy. We cannot wait to see the gallery she creates for our wedding day!
Kelly has been an absolute DREAM to work with!! Throughout our wedding planning process she was always organized, very responsive, and professional. She was incredibly understandin...
g and accommodating to the fact that we were located in Washington state and even allowed us to exchange the engagement session for her coming to one of our pre-wedding events because scheduling was too complicated. Being an interracial and multicultural couple, it was so important to us to capture both aspects of our upbringings and families and Kelly was just so wonderful in making sure she understood our vision and absolutely exceeded all expectations! She made sure to ask questions about things she was not familiar with and she made sure to get every shot we asked for and more. Her husband, was also so sweet and did a perfect job running the photo booth at our reception. I HIGHLY recommend Kelly as she is a talented photographer and an even more wonderful person!
My fiancé and I had our engagement photos done with Kelly and she was great! She made us feel very comfortable and took amazing pictures. She is very responsive and got our engagem...
ent photos back to us so quickly! We are looking forward to having her take our wedding pictures!
Our wedding was 9.17.22 and we had such an amazing experience with Kelly! She makes everyone feel comfortable and makes the whole process fun. She uses a variety of different poses and backgrounds which make the pictures even more amazing. We both really enjoyed working with her and would highly recommend her.
We had the pleasure of working with Kelly for recent portraits. We didn’t have a “vision” in mind of what we wanted these to look like, but our main focus was to capture our true s...
elves. The staged, positioned, “cheesy” photos were something I feared but the moment we arrived at the shoot, Kelly put us at ease! Not only was she easy to talk to and understanding of our objectives, but she also shot the session in a way where the camera wasn’t even noticeable. It was just a casual conversation amongst friends all while she captured the essence of who we were…down to earth, relaxed, normal, people. These are photos that did not have a “theme”, they didn’t represent one moment over another…instead they represented us. Kelly was not only professional but guided us through some of the visions she had for the day and was also receptive to our feedback. She was enjoyable to be around and made, what could’ve been a long day of photos into a fun afternoon! I will be using Kelly for years to come for all family photos and would give her a 10/10 recommendation to anyone looking for her to capture their life moments!
Kelly was very easy to work with, stayed in contact with us, and was great at capturing moments that we would have missed during the hustle of our wedding day. My now wife and I w...
ould highly recommend Kelly and the Golden Hour Photography to friends and family. Hope to have her as our photographer for future life events as well.
We are pretty laid back and didn't want engagement photos that portrayed us differently than our true personalities. Kelly was willing to listen to us and make sure we were getting...
the shots that mattered most to me and my partner.
Bella L.
OK---so first of all, I adored every image Kelly gave to me and my fiance. They were so "us." We have not set a date yet, but Kelly is OBVIOUSLY doing our wedding. I cann...
ot praise her enough for her ability to make us laugh and feel so comfortable. I can't wait to see how she makes our wedding day look perfect!!!!!
Golden Hour Photography was so awesome and professional!! She was so kind, fun, and easy to work with!! I absolutely loved our engagement session with her! The turn around time wa...
s so reasonable and her work was absolutely flawless!!! I felt she truly cares about us and out big dAy!
We had an amazing time with Kelly! She was super flexible about the location of our shoot, and hauled her gear farther than she would have probably preferred to meet us exactly whe...
re we wanted to have our photographs taken. She put us at ease with her humor and general demeanor, and helped pose us to get some great shots, and also captured a lot of candid images that really showed exactly who we are. The turnaround on the delivery of our album was way faster than expected, and we have so many worth printing that it was almost hard to narrow down the ones we wanted to frame. I'd recommend Kelly and The Golden Hour Photography to any friends, family members, or Internet Strangers looking for a photographer, and we'll definitely use her again to photograph our family as it grows.
Kelly with the Golden Hour Photography was an absolute dream and I cannot say enough great things about her! I always get a little nervous before my photo is taken. Kelly made me f...
eel comfortable- she was so funny and relatable! She was always quick to respond to questions, and was timely and well prepared. And the pictures...OMG! Just amazing, and I have never loved a picture of myself! Kelly has a true gift and I would not hesitate to book her for any future photo needs!
Kelly has a personality that makes you feel so relaxed. We were laughing throughout our entire session. She was super professional and her turnaround time with our engagement image...
s was lightning fast! We were so shocked! She definitely underpromised and over delivered, best experience---would highly recommend.
Coming from a small town in rural Ohio, my partner and I were struggling to find vendors that wanted to be a part of our ceremony. A friend of a friend referred us to Kelly and she...
was beyond amazing and made our engagement session a blast. We cried when we saw the album she created for us.
Contact
Cleveland, Northeast Ohio, Columbus, and beyond
The Golden Hour Photography