Ashley,

A contractor who specializes in windows any other exterior applications should be able to provide you with a clearer path from start to finish and most likely better applications and products.

Most of the guy/gals that specialize in this really spend the time looking through the products to get the best.

Window selections are as personal and vast and any home finishes touch so you will need to decide what you want in terms of look and feel.

Once you have figured that out, we can make recommendations inside of a given family of products.

I would agree with windowonwashington that the potential best result will be with a window specialist. That said there are great ones, ok ones, and bad ones.
Always keep you BS meter turned on, hopefully you will not have to kiss any frogs.

theWindowNerd...

I wonder how I can go about finding a window specialist? We have a Marvin store near by, but everyone said they are very expensive.

Are you set on Wood or Fiberglass already?

What do you want the window to look a feel like?

What about high end vinyl? Not the cheap stuff at homed depot but the high performance brands such as Okna , Himark, Soft Lite, Sunrise, Affinity, and Quantum. All of these windows have MUCH better performance numbers than marvin or andersen and probably more affordable. They also look nice and do not detract from the home.