“Working with Melissa was such a blast! We had never met her before and within minutes we were giggling and I felt like I was hanging out with an old friend. I left it up to Melissa to find a good place for our engagement shoot (just told her we like country-like stuff) and boy did she deliver! The photos in the field were just what we were hoping for! We had so much fun and didn’t even realize how much time was passing! The whole ride home my fiance and I were talking about how much fun we had and how we wish we could do it again!
Melissa had the preview picture up sooo fast and also had such a fast delivery on all the photos. When they came out we were WOWed by how amazing they looked! Not only did we have a great experience (never a bad thing to be forced into each other’s arms for a few hours) but now we have beautiful photos to display in a guest book and decorate our house with! When my friends and family looked online, the only thing they could talk about when they saw me was how much they loved our photos! We even decided (after the session) to book Melissa for our wedding and we couldn’t be more excited! I know she is going to take even more beautiful photos and be an integral part of completing our wedding day!” -Diane & Andy 2011
“Melissa was such a pleasure to work with right from the beginning. It was immediately clear that she has such a talent with her photography, but it was her continual thoughtfulness and attention to details that made such an impression on us. Planning a wedding as the bride and groom was somewhat stressful and Melissa had a way of keeping things calm and cool! Melissa is well connected in the Fredericksburg area and was able to recommend two other wedding vendors which we also booked and we were very happy with the advice! She has a great balance of a friendly, easy-going personality mixed with professionalism, organization and communication skills. Melissa uses Facebook and her blog to make connecting and displaying photographs so convenient. I think our favorite thing that Melissa did was her blog post about our wedding less than a week after we were married! She hand picked the best photos to create a visual ”snapshot” of our wedding day. This was so meaningful because we could send this out to friends and family who were unable to attend and through the blog they could get a taste of the entire event. We realized how lucky we were when other recently married friends commented it was weeks to months after their weddings before they saw ANY photos from their photographers! On top of it all, we really connected with Melissa on a personal level and feel our relationship was so much more than just a “wedding gig”.” – Rachel & Edwin 2011
“Paul & I are not the average couple…so when Melissa suggested we do our engagement session on our boat, we knew we had picked the right photographer! Melissa captured who we are as a couple in our everyday element. We don’t know many photographers would have gone along with our idea to do fishing pictures as part of our engagement session, but Melissa seemed just as excited as we were about the idea! When our friends and family comment on our pictures, not only do they tell us how much they “love them” and how “beautiful” they turned out, they always mention how the pictures are so “us.” To us, that is the highest compliment. Melissa is such an incredible photographer, and we feel so lucky to have chosen her to photograph us on our big day this coming May! She is not only friendly and easy going, but talented and detail-oriented! We can’t wait to see how our pictures turn out for our wedding day!!” - Jill & Paul 2011
“I absolutely, very highly recommend Melissa Arlena Photography to any brides that feel her style compliments their wedding vision. Her image quality is timeless and elegant, yet still modern and fun. Her hard work and dedication to her clients as a photographer, attention-to-detail and personality make her an all around amazing photographer.” – Amanda & Robbie 2011
“Thank you so much for the wonderful pictures!! We have been without internet all week from our resort, and finally got it back today just in time to look at our wedding pictures and we love them!” – Erin & Dylan 2011
“Melissa has been GREAT! She is just a joy to work with, and was really aware of what we wanted (even if we weren’t!) At the ceremony, she set up a slideshow of some of the photos taken at the ceremony and before. What was really great was seeing the little details/events that I missed. We were married on Sunday, and by Thursday, she had photos up on her blog. It’s great to have something to see while we’re waiting for all of the photos to be ready. EVERYONE (including the hubby’s mom, who is NOT easy to please-she didn’t say this for her other son’s wedding) said that the photographs are just amazing. I would absolutely recommend her!”- Jolie & Greg 2011
“My fiance and I do not live in the same state, as he is currently stationed in Virginia and I still live in Indiana. We knew that we wanted to have engagement pictures taken, but were not sure if we could find someone to take them and do a quality job. Lucky for us, I stumbled across Melissa’s webpage and immediately got into contact with her. She was so helpful in finding a location for our pictures and providing tips for clothes. On the day of our shoot Melissa was just as wonderful as I hoped. She knew John and I for less than five minutes before she began snapping pictures and yet she managed to capture our personalities perfectly. I could not be happier with the way our pictures turned out and I wish it could have been worked out to have her come to Indiana for our wedding and photograph that special moment as well. I highly recommend Melissa to anyone looking for a photographer, especially engagement pictures!” – Allison & John 2011
“Melissa is an absolute joy to work with! She is very personable and flexible, always keeping her clients first. Melissa did our engagement pictures and we are blown away with the quality. The photo session was so much fun and the end results were more than we could have ever asked for. Her work is creative and she spent time to get the style we were looking for. She is the best of the best–great service AND great quality! We can’t wait to work with her on our wedding day!” – April C. 2010
