Wedding Photographer Spotlight: Steven Miller Photography

It’s Spotlight Day, where we introduce you to incredible Orlando wedding vendors and share the stories behind these companies who help Wedding Venue Map couples have their best wedding day. 

Hiring the right wedding vendors is so important on your wedding day. The photographer captures all of the special moments of your day. 

It gives us great pleasure to introduce this week’s vendor spotlight, Steven Miller of Steven Miller Photography.

When people ask “what do you do?” how do you answer?

It’s hard to say this without sounding mushy-gushy, but in the grand scheme of things, we are responsible for capturing some of the most important days in people’s lives!! It’s a pretty humbling responsibility to be asked by a couple to “show us how you see our wedding.”

We take our roles in weddings and events very seriously, but we also have a responsibility to make sure everyone is having a great time and relaxing around us. In addition, we try to protect our planet by providing free trees and pollinator plants to our couples and advocate for light pollution awareness through unique dark sky portrait sessions.

How long would you say you’ve been doing what you do today?

Technically, we captured our first wedding back in 2008, but we officially started our company in 2012, capturing corporate events and a handful of weddings right away. Since then, we’ve grown not only our business but our team of amazing photographers and a family of clients.

What is your favorite thing about what you do? What’s your WHY?

We LOVE experiencing the first reactions of our couples when they see some of their wedding or engagement session images for the first time! It’s honestly so rewarding to us when we know we’ve captured their wedding day exactly as they envisioned, which is a true testament to great communication and relationships between us and them.

Years from now, we want our couples to really appreciate the photography decision they made and enjoy looking back at a moment in time we captured for them. Other than videography, we are their ONLY preservation department! 🙂

What’s the best part of your job?

The people we meet, and the places we go! It’s truly such a great career!

Tell us about your most memorable event so far and why it was.

My most memorable wedding to date was at the Grand Canyon National Park, where we spent sunrise through a full-moon evening with this couple, exploring the canyon! We actually captured portraits of them in nothing but moonlight, quite an amazing experience for us!

What motivates you to do this every day?

I truly get a sense of purpose in capturing weddings! When you really step back and think about it, someone is hiring us to show THEM how WE see their wedding day! To say that they love our style is quite a compliment in this sense!

What fun fact would people be surprised to learn about you?

I am terrible at using photoshop!

What is the best compliment you’ve received from your clients?

We truly felt like family at their wedding! So many couples insist on seeing us again after the wedding, just to hang out and build our friendships.

How did you decide on the name of your company?

Well, we can’t give too much creative credit to the name of our company lol! The company was created by Steven Miller, and at the time in 2012, the team consisted of…well…Steven Miller. Now we’re a full-size team of amazingly talented artists, so perhaps a name change is in order. 😉

What is important for clients to know about your company before they book you?

We are very honest with our imaging and capturing style. We want couples to know what we are great at and what our limitations are prior to booking, so there are no surprises and they know whether we are the perfect fit for them right from the start.

What is the most unique service/product you offer?

The most unique service/product we offer is our Starry Night Sessions! We try to raise awareness about the issues of light pollution in our populated cities by taking couples outside of these places into, what are called, dark sky places. The light pollution is so low, that you can actually see the milky way with your naked eye!! We capture our couples underneath this amazing night sky while educating them about what we can do at home to help lessen our impact!

Use THREE words to describe your business.

Caring. Responsible. Fun.

What makes your business stand out from others in your category?

Not only do we offer unique, natural sessions, but we also give back to our fragile planet with free trees and pollinator plants.

Tell us about your ideal client.

Our ideal client simply puts a lot of stock into picking their photographer and caring about their photos! We don’t enjoy being shopped solely on price! We want our couples to also care about who we are, what’s our personality, how do we edit their images, etc. Couples who truly care about their photos, also truly care about us, and we end up sharing a great experience together because of it!

The best piece of advice for someone that just got engaged.

Do…your…research!! Take your time, make sure you get to meet some of these people in person or on a video call! Don’t jump into a deal right away, you might regret it later!

Why do couples hire you?

Couples hire us for a number of reasons, but if we could bullet-point the most important reasons, couples book us because:

1. They love our organic, natural photo style.
2. They enjoy our personalities and know that we will blend well with everyone at the wedding.
3. Our prices are competitive and structured simply.
4. We take our roles very seriously, in both capturing and file management after the big day.

What does your most popular package include?

Our most popular package includes one photographer, a photographer assistant, an engagement session, a digital download of edited images, and a free tree/pollinator plant native to Florida.

What do you think are the biggest misconceptions that people have about your vendor category?

One of the most popular misconceptions about wedding photography is that all photographers edit their photos extensively, especially with Photoshop. We personally believe that if you put the time and effort into capturing the best images you can in-camera, you won’t need to follow them up with a lot of editing, preserving their natural colors and overall quality of the images.

Name three unique venues that you enjoy working at and why.

Danville Bed and Breakfast – It’s quite a drive away from the city to arrive at this venue, but we cherish the solitude and rustic feel that Danville provides. Not to mention the BIG surprise waiting for guests during the reception introductions! Plus Danville is owned by such a sweet family that also supports our dark sky initiatives, allowing us to use their airstrip for night sky portraits after the wedding.

Club Lake – Oh the scenery you can photograph at this venue! Every inch of this venue is filled with awesome, rustic details, even the groom suite, which is converted from a horse stable! Definitely one of our favorites!

Highland Manor – LOVE photographing within a historic house, and their ceremony location is under a massive, old oak tree, and we love trees! 🙂

What some of their previous couples had to say….

“My name is Tim Baker and my wife recently found some of Steven’s work online. She was absolutely captivated by the “nighttime shoots” he had done and loved his work. She was looking for something creative to do for our son’s senior year high school photos. When I say I’m not an artsy person I mean it. I normally just go along with whatever she wants and I could care less. It’s just not my thing as long as she’s happy. These pictures Steven took blew my mind. They are incredible and manage to capture more than just a neat picture. They somehow were able to bring out my son’s personality.

On top of that, we were so fortunate to get the NEOWISE comet in the background of one of the shots. I didn’t even know the comet was there but Steven did. That is literally a once-in-a-lifetime shot. It won’t return for 6800 years. My final commentary is more about his personality and ability to be comfortable with anyone. I generally don’t care for people and I’m pretty insular. Steven made me laugh, was easy to get along with, and had me joking and laughing with him within 10 minutes. The guy is a talented and class act. If you are looking for some great photos there is simply no one else you should go to. The guy is phenomenal!” – Tim B.

“When we started looking for a wedding photographer, I was scouring Instagram for pictures of our venue (Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress), and I was constantly drawn to pictures from Steven Miller Photography. They were so vibrant and full of life, which is exactly what I wanted in our wedding photos.

I had many “dream” photos that I wanted to be taken throughout the day, and our photographer, Nelson, absolutely nailed them. And, not only is Nelson a great photographer, but he was also a ton of fun to hang out with both for engagement photos and our big day! I can’t say enough good things!!!” – Alyssa & Shane, Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress

“Steven Miller and his team (we specifically worked with Steven and Megan) are a dream, which is why I am writing my first ever review for them. We met Steven just over 3 years ago for my sister’s wedding, and my whole family was SO pleased with him and his work that we prayed he would be available for mine. Luckily he was, and there was no question as to what we would spend for him! Steven has a personality like no other. He is gracious, friendly, comforting, and optimistic. He makes you even more excited for your wedding and treats you like a friend right off the bat. He graciously took the time to have dinner with us to get to know my fiance (we elected not to do an engagement shoot) before the wedding, and he is the first person who actually walked me through the day-of-the-wedding process and made me feel very comfortable with it.

It is so clear that he is a professional and knows exactly what he is doing. He also took the time to encourage me to think about some things differently, without being pushy or offensive. For example, I did not plan to do a first look, but he explained that considering the circumstances (we were getting married in the evening on a boat), we would get the most use of him and his team if we did the first look and got portraits beforehand and that it would probably make us (aka me – who was getting anxious) more comfortable before the ceremony. Steven also took the time to talk with the wedding coordinator and help us plan the exact schedule of things. I really trusted his input and appreciated how involved and thoughtful he was leading up to the wedding. There are no words to explain how great he is the day of. Steven and Megan met us while we were getting ready, and they arrived joyful and ready to work! They snap photographs non-stop, and they came up with such creative and different ideas!!

Megan was SO sweet to work with and she made me feel really comfortable as the bride. She was very attentive to me all day. They took the time to scout out some unique areas for photographs the night before and morning before meeting us, and they made sure to sneak us around the property without guests seeing us. They also worked through the off-and-on rain without hesitation. I was so excited that my wedding would be the first yacht wedding that Steven photographed because I knew he would be excited to try new things, and he did not disappoint!! I saw some of the pictures on his camera and I am IN LOVE. He took the standard, necessary portraits, but he also got creative throughout the night and got really cool pictures of us in the darkness with city lights behind us on the bow of the boat, with amazing sunsets, etc. And, he made me individually feel like a supermodel princess! The boat was 3 levels, and the guests were all amazed that it seemed he was on all 3 levels at all times! He did not miss a beat. They had to have been exhausted at the end of the night because they got everything.

I would recommend him to anyone for any occasion. They were more than I ever could have asked for. Honestly, I was never too excited about having a wedding, but that all changed when I realized what Steven and his team turned it into and how special they made me feel. I could never say enough words about how pleased we are with their work and how happy we are to now have them in our lives.” – Jenna & Jason, Galler One

www.StevenMillerPix.com | Steven Miller Photography Orlando