Trying to trim wedding costs? Then WriteShot is not for you.
The small Manhattan Beach wedding photography company has found success with a sophisticated take on wedding albums that can drive up marriage costs by thousands of dollars.
Call it journalism meets Taschen-style coffee table book.
Founded and run by two photographers, the company charges $6,500 to $12,500 for albums that go far beyond the traditional snapshots of newly married couples eating cake from each other’s fingers.
The albums run 100 pages, weigh up to 4 pounds and are shot in photojournalism style. If a couple chooses, it can include pictures of spa days, showers and even the bachelor’s party. Add candid shots, interviews, headlines and captions, and the book reads like Vanity Fair magazine.
“It’s very, very personal,” said co-founder Natasha Chornesky, formerly a freelance photographer. “We’ll tell the story of how you guys met, the story of your wedding.”
The company has shot some 32 weddings since Chornesky and partner Chris Cozzone – who’s had his work published in the New York Times – came up with the idea two years ago while thinking how they might go into business together.
They collaborate on the writing, while Chornesky does most of the interviewing and Cozzone specializes in the photography. The two produce the entire album – with the exception of printing, which is outsourced to a high-end shop – from their home office. Albums are completed within a month after the big day and an iPad version is now available.
The duo, who have since become a couple themselves, have been flown to weddings and parties all over the country, from New York to Las Vegas.
Newlywed Lauren Birden hired the couple to shoot her Houston wedding last month, and said the couple spent days interviewing friends and family.
“They were out of our intended budget, but after seeing the product and understanding everything that was going to get done, you couldn’t put a price on this,” said Birden, who also had her bachelorette party and her husband’s bachelor party – both held in Sin City – shot for the album. “It’s like a time capsule of your life.”
