Frequently Asked Questions

We currently offer:

• Photography

• In-Studio Sessions

• Videography

• Live Streaming

• Photo Booth

As of July 2024, we have been so blessed to have captured over 450 weddings.

Absolutely! Regardless of the session involved, there is always extra equipment traveling alongside.

At a minimum we bring:

• 60-Minute Sessions: 2 Cameras

• One Photographer: 3 Cameras

• Two Photographers: 5 Cameras

• One Photographer + One Videographer: 6 Cameras

• Two Photographers + One Videographer: 8 Cameras

Keeping your images/video safe is at the forefront of our practices and procedures. While it is impossible to ensure that images/video can never be corrupted or lost, we take serious precautions to ensure that we do all we can to prevent these circumstances from occurring.

Below is an outline of the practices in place through each stage of the image-capturing and editing process:

• We Use Multiple Camera Bodies Throughout the Day. Images/video are taken across multiple camera bodies. This helps ensure that if a total camera body loss were to occur (i.e., a camera body is stolen), images would still be available from our other cameras. However, to help deter equipment theft, our equipment is also marked with DNA technology to assist police in tracking and recovering equipment.

• All of Our Cameras Used for Photography Have Dual Card Slots. Let’s face it, card corruption is always a possibility in our industry. To help combat this issue, we only use camera bodies that support two card slots which allow each image (please note that video, shot in 120fps, does not support simultaneous storage due to file sizes) to be stored on two separate cards.

• Video GoPro. As video is limited to one card due to the file sizes we capture, in addition to using multiple cameras throughout the day, as an extra precautionary measure, a GoPro is mounted underneath our primary gimbal camera throughout the day. While this GoPro footage is not the best quality, the goal is to ensure that we at least have some sort of footage of these key moments in the event of card failure on this primary camera.

• During the Editing Process. Once we have returned from your event, we copy files from your day onto a solid-state drive (this is used to edit from) and a RAID system. In addition, one SD card from each camera is then stored in a fire resistant safe until the day after your images/video are delivered. This means that during our editing process, your files are stored on a total of three storage devices.

• After the Editing Process. Once your images/videos are delivered, backup files of images and video delivered to you are stored on our RAID systems for a minimum of two years. Only after this backup has been successfully completed are files removed from our editing SSDs and original SD cards are recycled back into use.

Our photography style is photojournalistic with an editorial flair. We want our clients to have fun during their time with us and are drawn to photos where couples and families are smiling (or crying) in a more natural and candid way. We approach all of our sessions and events using our 3 P’s standard below:

Planning

We understand that planning is one of the most important things we can do to maximize the time we have with you and ensure we capture the moments and people most important to you. This is why our roadmap of touch points includes frequent check-ins, questionnaires, and a pre-wedding/session call where we dive in detail through the things most important to you, the style of photos you love, and your timeline so you know exactly what to expect before the day.

Prompting

While each session and event is slightly different (it is so important to us that we spend a lot of time learning more about the way in which you envision your day to be captured), we are naturally drawn to a more prompt-based style of photography designed to create more candid and emotion-driven photos that pull out natural interactions of laughter, joy, and tears rather than stiffly-staged/serious photos.

Placement

Have you ever been to or in a wedding where moments are stopped and moved in search of natural light? These stops and movements can really add a lot of time to your timeline, make things confusing for the wedding party, guests, and family, and pull you out of the natural emotion you’ll be feeling for the day. This is why we consistently challenge ourselves to continually grow and learn throughout our experiences and place a large emphasis on obtaining the latest in equipment and technologies so we can photograph in even the most challenging conditions quickly and accurately.

Absolutely! Subject to availability, you can add on additions at any time. We do provide a pricing guarantee to ensure pricing for additions remains the same as those listed on your original contract.

128 South
400 St. Andrews
801 Ocean
The Atrium
Bakery 105
Beaufort Hotel
Brooklyn Arts Center
Butterfly Kisses Pavilion
Cape Fear Vineyard
Copper Ridge on the Neuse
Courtyard by Marriott, Carolina Beach
Duplin Winery
The Firehouse Co.
Ironclad Brewery
Islander Resort
Luxury Lodging by Laura
Malachi Meadows
The Maxwell
Meadows Farm
Mike’s Farm
Neuse Breeze
Ocean’s Edge Event Center
Old Homestead Farm
Poplar Grove
River Landing
River Lodge at River Landing
The River Room
The Robin’s Nest
Rustic Barn at Half Moon
Station No. 2
St. Thomas Preservation Hall
Topsail Manor
Wrightsville Manor

Your online gallery provides professional printing through some of the best printing vendors in the industry. Printing options include:

Standard Prints — High-quality prints available in a variety of sizes and papers.

Save-the-Date, Thank You & Holiday Cards — Available in various designs with a drag and drop editor, templates are pre-designed for holiday, wedding, baby, graduation, and seasonal occasions.

Large Format Prints — Turn life’s meaningful moments into frame-worthy poster prints.

Square Prints — Printed on professional-grade archival paper, these prints come in one of our favorite shapes.

Fine Art Prints — Fine art prints have a matte appearance with excellent image sharpness and optimal color density and gradation.

Mounted Prints — Chose from various mounting options designed to provide a durable backer for larger-sized prints. Canvas — Printed on premium fine art canvas, canvas prints are a contemporary way to showcase your images.

Metal Prints — Using an innovative dye sublimation process, they are printed directly onto high-quality aluminum for a clean and lasting finish.

Standout Prints — A contemporary wall display option with clean, paneled edges and pre-made holes for easy hanging. Sleek and slightly textured, it is a beautiful and lightweight option for showcasing large prints.

Gallery Frame — Give your images the presentation they deserve with remarkable, handcrafted frames.

Metal Frame — A contemporary look made from colored aluminum for a metallic finish.

Framed Canvas — Mounted with a space between the frame and the canvas so that your print appears to be floating within the frame.

Wood Frame — With the timeless quality of a wood finish, wood frames are a classic choice for modern displays.

Bamboo Panel — The beauty of bamboo lends character to placing your images front and center with an eco-friendly touch.

Wood Print — The beauty of wood grain comes through on your image's lighter colors and white areas, giving it a soft and warm feel.

Engraved Flash Drive — Personalized with your names and the date of your wedding/session.

We do! We offer a 10% discount on sessions and events (excluding in-studio mini-sessions and prints) for active-duty military and first responders.

We’re a team of three with two emergency fill-ins. With every event or session we do, Amanda or Lee (husband and wife) will always be there as the lead for your day. For sessions, unless there has been a reschedule request made by a client, both Amanda and Lee are there.

With the exception of advanced Photoshop editing, all of our editing is done in-house using the latest in technologies and software.

Since 2011. Amanda picked up her first camera, a Nikon D3100, in 2011 and transitioned shortly after, working primarily in the digital and print advertising space marketing for luxury restaurants, hotels, and wedding venues (of course, upgrading cameras along the way). This led to her work being used for Town & Country, Men’s Journal, Dujour, and The Huffington Post and in print for WeddingWire, The Knot, local magazines, and other print publications. She continued photographing for small weddings, couples, surprise engagements, events, and families on the side until transitioning full-time into photography in early 2018.

• Studio Mini-Sessions: 20 Images

• 60-Minute Sessions: 60 Images

• Studio Fine Art Sessions: 65 Images

• Intimate Weddings: 300 Images

• One Photographer, Large Weddings (7 Hours or more of Coverage): 600 Images

• Two Photographer Large Weddings: 1,000 Images

All amounts listed above are approximate. Please keep in mind that factors such as the number of details, the size of the wedding party, traveling between locations, and the time provided for formal photos can impact the number of images delivered.

Access to your personal website/gallery will be sent to you approximately two to four weeks from your session or event. Think of the gallery as your own personal space for all of the amazing images for your day where you can control visibility to others, share and download your images, and even order prints. Also, this online gallery is full of features like:

Access and download your images in both high resolutions (print) quality and digital (social media/website) quality.

Easily sync your images with your Dropbox or Google Photos account.

Quickly design and order prints, wall canvases, greeting cards, and more prints available for shipping in as little as two days.

Easy sharing with your family and friends using your gallery URL or through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or email.

Favorite your favorite images for easy ordering, album creation, or your slideshow video.

Using your client-exclusive gallery password, you’ll be able to hide images you don’t want others to see quickly.

Best of all, your gallery is fully mobile-friendly, making it easy to download and share while on the go!

You are always welcome to choose any printing location you would like. We encourage purchasing prints from your online gallery as the vendors used through your gallery have been carefully vetted to ensure the best and most accurate picture quality. For this reason, we do provide a replacement guarantee for images purchased through your online gallery.

Absolutely, we love in-person sales!! We also have product samples and albums for viewing when visiting our office in Jacksonville, NC.

Nearly all of our images range in a pixel size of 5700-6000 x 3800-4100 and are designed to be under an ISO point of 1,000 (we’ll talk to you about the option of adding flash anytime we will be exceeding this point on photos). This allows images to be printed at a minimum of up to 20”x30” with very little to no pixel loss.

As a standard practice, we do. It’s one of the things that allows us to share our art with others to know whether we might be the right choice for them. However, we understand fully if you would like to maintain your privacy, so please be sure to mention this before signing your contract.

Absolutely! Every session and event includes a complimentary album design within our pricing. Ordering an album can be done online or in-person, with in-person purchasing providing real-life samples of products, page materials, and covers to ensure you purchase the perfect album for you. Album pricing starts at just $115.00.

Absolutely! Everyone on our team has an active North Carolina Photography Privilege License. For insurance, we carry a $1 Million Professional Liability Policy and a $2 Million General Liability Policy. We also carry a $1 Million Event-Specific Flight Liability Coverage Policy for events where our drone is used.

Venues may require your vendors to provide a COI (Certificate of Insurance). This is very normal, and if you need one, please do not hesitate to let us know!

Yes, it is! This is one of the main reasons we can respond so quickly. We are typically in the office Mondays through Thursdays from 11 AM to 8 PM. If, for any reason, we are out of the office or unavailable for the day due to a session or event, you’ll receive a vacation responder right away to let you know.

All of our images are culled through to remove any test shots, duplicates, and potentially unflattering images, with the remaining images delivered in your final gallery. As the most time extensive part of photography, for editing, each image is individually edited to be cropped, straightened, colored, and white balanced to match the images displayed across our brand.

Any additional retouch requests for retouching/body altering (such as removal/adjustments to persons, slimming, teeth, garments, or background elements) are not included in pricing but are available for purchase from your gallery store.

Pricing is based on costs of operation versus the expected number of weddings booked per year. We also consider yearly reports by Pixpa for hourly rate pricing (currently rated at $75 to $250 per hour) along with feedback from couples and inquiries to ensure pricing is in line with our client’s needs and expectations.

Your client portal will include a copy of the following for every project we’ve worked on together:

Your Contract

Questionnaire

Your Contact Information for You to Update at Anytime

Your Invoice & Payments Paid

Your online gallery is guaranteed to remain active for two years from the date of your session/wedding. If your gallery is expired at any point beyond this timeframe, you will receive notifications of the gallery’s expiration. We do not remove galleries without confirmation that our notifications about expiration have been read and confirmed.

Everyone on our team has a very comparable level of experience. So please know, while we still use the term ‘second shooter’ this does not mean they have any less skill or experience.

Absolutely! Your images are free to use and print anywhere you would like. If you need a print release at any time, just let us know.

This is a question we get a lot from those who love photography. So, if you are curious, below is a list of cameras and lenses used to capture all of our photos and videos.

1 - Nikon Z 8
1 - Nikon Z 7 II
1 - Nikon Z 6 III
6 - Nikon Z 6 IIs
1 - Nikon D780
Nikkor 14 to 24mm 2.8 S-Line
Sigma 20mm 1.4 Art
Nikkor 20mm 1.8 S-Line
Nikkor 35mm 1.8 S-Line
2 - Sigma 40mm 1.4 Arts
Nikkor 50mm 1.2 S-Line
2 - Nikkor 50mm 1.8 S-Line
Sigma 70-200mm 2.8 Sport
2 - Nikkor 70-200mm 2.8 S-Line
Nikkor 85mm 1.8 S-Line
Sigma 105mm 1.4 Art
Nikkor 105mm MC 2.8 S-Line
Sigma 105mm 2.8 Macro
Nikkor 135mm 1.8 Plena
DJI Mavic 3 Cine Premium
RODE Mics & Lavs (Wireless Go Pro, Wireless Go I, Wireless Go II, Micro 2 & NTG)
Zoom F3 Field Recorder

As so much of our world today is centered around technology, we try to be as progressive as possible in the way images are delivered to clients. As a standard practice, images are delivered through a cloud-based gallery which provides the ability for images to be accessed and downloaded from any device that has access to the internet at any time. However, there is comfort in having these images available to some couples and family members in flash drive form. For this reason, flash drives are an available option that can be purchased from your online gallery at any time. Engraved USB drives start at just $35.

The unexpected is always something on our mind, which is why we have a core of four photographers/videographers who can step in at a moment’s notice without compromising the experience and quality of the services we provide. But in the event of extreme sickness or fatality that affects our capabilities to perform our services with confidence, we would provide you with as much notice as possible, and any payments of retainers/deposits you have paid would be refunded to you in full.

You can find a full breakdown of our deposit and retainer schedule at https://www.atlantadahlia.com/deposit-schedule