The Great Big Guide To Wedding PhotographySparklers and Smoke Bombs at Weddings
The Ultimate Guide on how to Choose a Wedding Photographer The Great Big Guide To Wedding Photography
How to choose a wedding photographer – Your guide through the minefield of choice.
This is probably the largest and most comprehensive guide about choosing who to photograph your wedding ever written because there’s a lot of nuance and much to mention. It’s taken me 12 years to get around to writing this and I still consider it a work in progress that will be updated over time. This is also part of my larger ‘Wedding Photography Bible’ series (index below) written as a guide so you can avoid some things that might otherwise mess with your wedding day. A guide which while not exhaustive, is fairly helpful.
A great big caveat before you read on. Please note that I’m unable to cover all religions, types of ceremony and gender diversifications. In this entire series I’ll only be covering things I feel I’m experienced in. The terms Bride and Groom are fairly interchangeable throughout within their dynamism. I’ve shot Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Greek Orthodox, Hindu, Christian and Catholic Weddings and there was so much nuance and tradition between each it’s impossible to directly address each of them head on, so I didn’t. Maybe in the future I will, but not today.
INDEX
The internet is full of ‘how to choose a wedding photographer’ guides as it’s an easy search engine traffic grab but many of these are written by people sitting in offices with little or no experience of photography and in many cases copy, modify and paste the work of others and, especially in the cases of bridal magazines, are never really peer reviewed by those who are actually out there, doing the job itself.
This extends to most guides covering all types of suppliers. You have to be mindful the guide you read isn’t biased for the benefit of the person writing it. A lot of what you see online is a facade. For those sticking their head into the world of weddings for the first time it’s easy to be fooled and pointed in the wrong direction because early on in your journey into wedding planning you won’t usually know any different.
Going forward I’m splitting this up into sections.
- Where (and when) to look for a wedding photographer
- What to look out for (good and bad) when you visit their website
- Photographic styles
- How to approach them (and most other suppliers too)
- Understanding value, wedding photographer pricing and packages
- Meetings, online, in person and what to expect.
- The validity of a venue visit
- One photographer vs two and a brief touch on video.
- Booking them, paperwork and what you should be mindful of
- Wedding Photographer FAQ
Disclaimer:
I’m completely against bias however sometimes I’ll relate to what is written here in the first person. I’ll be mentioning how I do things but this is in no way written to promote me or inferring that my way is perfect, because it isn’t. Book whoever you want, I don’t care, I just want you to make the right choice because I’ve seen so many people who didn’t. This guide will help you to do this.
Where to find a wedding photographer:
There’s a lot of places to find us but the main ways are either word of mouth referrals by friends, recommendations by venues, Instagram posts, Google search, Facebook or a wedding directory like Bridebook, Hitched and paid ads online.
Of all these my biggest source of bookings has always been word of mouth. Where couples have either seen me at a wedding or loved the photos I‘ve taken elsewhere which were then shared online. There is a huge trust value to this source but it’s also a little tunneled in that there might be better people out there just that some couples prefer to play it safe. Not everyone has the same standards, what one person thinks is amazing might be low end or sub par to another.
Venue referrals are another good source but you have to be careful because if a supplier shoots weddings there like, A LOT, then you could end up with a carbon copy of every other couple who went before. I say this from personal experience. After shooting the same venues year after year I realized what was happening, it was becoming ‘a job’ vs doing something I love. Every wedding should look unique to the couple even if they walk the same steps as others couples do. For this reason I limited the number of weddings I’ll shoot at the same venue and this solved the issue. Others won’t.
On the subject of venues a photographer does not in any way need to be familiar with your wedding venue in order to do great work. I often get asked about this and it’s frustrating. It doesn’t affect anything at all and in fact a photographer invited to a new venue will often be more motivated into doing a good job for two reasons.
• They’re excited to be somewhere new
• Their work may get recognized by the venue as outstanding and it could generate them more business – so they try harder.
Choosing someone familiar with your venue isn’t that important at all. Choosing a photographer who is capable and has a body of work is.
Other sources like directories and Google have a substantial number of photographers listed. I would say that going by user reviews is a good modifier to your search. As far as I’m aware there is only one place that you can truly get genuine reviews and that’s Google. A lot of online directories allow suppliers to vet their reviews and Facebook ones can be turned off or faked.
Not that people do this en mass, but a photographer trading for a year can look like they’re more established than they really are. ‘Fake it until you make it’ is present in all trades.
What to look out for when you’ve found a wedding photographer you’re interested in:
When you find any supplier online, not just photographers, you will see the very best representation of ourselves. Which stands to reason. You aren’t going to pay full price for a car with flakey paint and a door missing. We want you to fall in love with us and close all the other tabs you have open in your browser and click CONTACT so we’re going to want to look our best for you.
With everyone looking so manicured it’s really hard to find definition and contrast between suppliers and as this decision is such a big one the anxiety about making the right choice is real.
This is where going with your heart and your gut matters. Photography is one of the few things that should sell itself. Wedding photos are less of a product but more of an experience that you go through. The images you see should connect with you on some fundamental way.
You should fall into, and in love with, the photos you see online. Can you see the personality of yourself, friends and family in the images? Do they comprehensively show photos not just of people, but the spaces and things couples spend so much time deciding on? Are they representative of the running order of the day. If they are important to you, are the detail shots as good as the portraits / ceremony / moments / dance floor?
Does the photographer’s personality show in their about me page or does it seem impersonal and orchestrated? Is there enough relevant content online to get into, or is it made up of a lot of lifestyle shoots featuring models?
Are there recent blog posts or have they not updated their website for a year? Or at least, are they active elsewhere on social media?
These things matter as what we show online is a true insight into who we are. We are the photos we take. Couples often cut corners here thinking they just need to ‘book a wedding photographer’ but these images are going to be the only tangible thing left after your wedding and one of the few things in life that increase in value as they age.
I used to advise couples to ask photographers for a full gallery or three from their considered wedding photographer but privacy concerns are making me second guess that which is why I show maybe 15-20% of all the photos I took on galleries online instead as I know I have permission.
The need to see an expanded portfolio of a photographer’s work is an important one. I’ve seen a lot of photographers who are great at portraits, but suck at details. Others who are great at details, but suck at the dancefloor. Finding someone who is good at shooting all aspects of a wedding is a lot harder than you would initially think. There’s surprisingly few of us out there relative to the total number of photographers available.
Awards:
Many suppliers use awards received as a signal to promote their abilities. Know that blog and photography awards are ten a penny and almost all wedding blogs, if you used them for paid advertising, give a rosette to the suppliers for their website which appears more credible than it is.
There’s also various photographer’s awards but the winning images are usually highly edited beyond a normal wedding collection and is in part made up of lucky shots. It doesn’t indicate skill or ability in the truest sense and isn’t representative of the complete set of delivered images.
Watch out for the styled shoots:
A lot of photographers, particularly those starting out or who have a small portfolio will sign up to workshops or classes or work with other wedding suppliers on styled shoots and use the images to promote their work.
You can easily spot these once you’re aware of them:
- Impossibly good looking couples
- The images look like a wedding but with only two people in the entire set
- Everything looks perfect, the light, the flowers, the Macaw on the grooms wrist while they kiss (the models not the Macaw).
- Their blog posts of their other weddings look completely different
Images like these are often put on the homepage or used as lead images for pages covering pricing, contact, about etc but aren’t really going to be how a run and gun wedding with a significant number of guests is going to look like. These shots were taken in perfect conditions with experienced set design and models. Weddings aren’t like that. Weddings are crazy, out of control events that we somehow manage to loosely keep to a timeline.
Wedding Photography – Different Styles:
When I first started to professionally shoot weddings (vs hiding at the back of a registry office, scared, pretending to be one) there were some distinct styles:
Fine art photography (60 wistful images showing your love to be the only one true love that ever existed)
Contemporary (Like fine art but more photos, with you both looking slightly upset with each other)
Reportage (Lots of photos, many tilted at an angle, from a distance or really close up and nowhere inbetween)
Traditional (Kiss, Register, Family, Cake)
Alternative (Often involves rude gestures and face masks in the woods. Crimes of editing were informally reserved to this style, faded blues, dirty yellows).
10 years later there is pretty much one style….
FUSION
With every single couple I meet or speak to over the web they always ask for Fusion, just that they describe it rather than call it by name. In that they would like the photos to tell the story of their day (reportage) with some family formals (traditional) as well as some fun shots (alternative) with a hero shot or two (Contemporary / Fine art).
Loft Studios in London
Things have changed a lot in ten years. Initially when digital finally started to mature and become affordable a wealth of editing suites appeared and with them some really questionable one click editing presets. Yellow snow, spot / selective colour and my personal enemy ‘Domestos haze’ which showed a pale blue mist over everything making a sunny July day look like a dirty, rainy evening in February.
When you look at the photos of others take into account the ‘look’ they have as what you see online will usually be somewhat representative of the look of final product you receive. Images shown online are usually edited a little further than what is delivered because it takes so long to get images that 10% better. The ‘look’ is more how the overall image sits on your vision. Is it hazy? Is it overly warm or cold, is it noisy? That sort of thing.
Instagram filters look great on Instagram, but tastes change like the weather and any edits delivered will be hardcoded into the files. You can’t really undo this unless it’s minor, you can’t just put colours back into flowers, you can’t fix blown highlights when the details are no longer there to rescue. Super punchy contrast filled images with added grain can’t just be flattened out once applied. There’s no one click fix to a bad edit and images with heavily stylised editing date rapidly.
Wedding Photography editing styles – What to look for online
Because every style is different there isn’t too much to mention here but often you’ll be comparing photographers so things to look out for are as follows:
- Skin tones – are you happy with them? Some editing styles leave skin looking slightly green.
- Contrast – Sometimes the white balance can leave an orange smear on everything
- Grass – Does it look like grass or radioactive?
- Are the images straight and framed well. Are a lot of photos at a slant?
- Noise – Do the images look overly grainy?
- Vignetting – are there super dark patches in all four corners of the images?
Often, some of the above things are deliberate and intentional but the reason I put the above as a question is, ‘are you happy with this in your photos or do you actively want that’?
First contact – How to email a photographer for the best results:
‘Wedding suppliers aren’t toasters’.
One thing I can hand on heart say is that I still love my job as much as I did in the first year. I feel personally connected to all my couples on the day of the wedding and I have as much fun as they do. It’s a super intimate space to be let into. You’ve welcomed me into a bubble reserved for close friends and family and I greatly respect that. Plus, (puts down fork) the cake’s amazing.
As a result we’re very individual, we have a genuine interest in your day wanting the very best for you and each of us is unique. Most of us don’t treat this as a job.
For many, when they go looking for wedding suppliers it’s all brand new. There’s no decent guide on how to do this (although maybe now there is) and as a result a lot of couples make a lot of incorrect assumptions when emailing us.
On average, a busy photographer will get 20-60 enquires a month and there’s two common things we see that are worth mentioning.
- Sending an enquiry to us without addressing us by name usually indicates you are copying and pasting the same email to several other photographers.
- Emailing us for a price without telling us the venues or ceremony time involved.
We like to think when an email arrives the sender is in some way connected with our work. That something has sung to them on a personal level enough for them to email us. When the email comes in asking quite literally, ‘How much’ it kind of kills the vibe.
The thing is, in order to do this job properly we have to be excited about it. We’re a sensitive bunch as it is but boiling your enquiry down to a price, the lowest common denominator, isn’t going to get you the best deals. You’ll just get standard pricing.
If I had two enquiries for the same type of venue and cover duration but one was four hours away I wouldn’t charge any extra for the drive and subsequent overnight stay if the content of the email sold me the wedding as one I’d be able to do great work at with people who really wanted me there.
It’s also important to give us as much detail as possible regarding locations and timings if you know them. On a basic level the ceremony time, venue and reception venue location are usually what we need to quote. I shoot weddings all over the UK and sometimes overseas and the amount of times I’m asked for a quote without a location is really high. How this translates into a problem for you is that if you require 5 suppliers and you email the same request to several of each you’re going to get 50 emails back asking where the wedding is and that’s a lot of admin you didn’t need to do.
Another common thing people overlook purely by accident is that they can sometimes come across as though they’re the only couple a photographer is going to shoot that year. 40-50 weddings a year is average for me. I get over 250 enquiries a year and a lot of those dates compact into weekends in the summer. I can get enquiries for the same date 2-3 times in a week and it’s not uncommon to get an enquiry which after I reply to it they don’t come back for another 4-8 weeks and by then the date has usually gone.
Wedding Photography pricing, packages, value and negotiating.
There’s no avoiding it, pricing and affordability is the most important decider when booking a wedding photographer. This section is written to help you understanding our pricing and why we charge what we do better.
No matter what is written here, I’m not endorsing reckless expenditure. Money doesn’t just appear from thin air. If you’ve a strict budget then that’s it. Telling you to spend £XXXX on a photographer isn’t going to help so I won’t be doing that and truth be told there’s photographers for all budgets out there in the wild, just that if someone is good enough to ask a higher rate they will and with lower prices they usually up being lower in quality. It’s just how it is.
Have you gone to a website and seen the terms investment, pricing, fees… only to find a load of text and no actual content there? After looking at around 300 photography websites that’s the case 50% of the time. Personally, I find this really frustrating to not have at least some guide there but hey, it’s what they want to do……
First let’s address something I’ve encountered since I started doing this. When I ask a couple their budget for wedding photography they almost always say £1000. Since 2008 to the present it’s been steadfast at £1000.
This says to me that it’s a figure plucked from the air. But, as I found out when I got married, there is a certain level of price shock with weddings. This can present itself as a problem when you first start booking people because a wedding photographer is usually the second thing to book after the venue. At this point couples are still learning about pricing and often end up booking a photographer who fits and amount of money ignoring style, content and duration of attendance on the day. They just want to tick the photographer off their checklist and that’s a fundamentally bad thing to do becuase it’s only later on that they realise they might have picked a lemon because of all the suppliers at a wedding the photographer is going to be there along for the ride with you both, amongst your friends and family, usually all day.
As a guide, from a large sample of photographers with their pricing online, the average price for all day cover with a single photographer and image supply only on a weekend is £1695. This may sound cheap to you, or expensive, but that’s the average price.
From that info you can say that anywhere from £1395 upwards is going to get you someone experienced, competent and the higher you go (to a point) the better they will be. To confuse things further, there are some wedding photographers with all the top end equipment and others who use one main camera, carry an inferior backup and do all their editing on a laptop and a single external storage drive. I turn up to a wedding with two £4000 cameras with a third on standby as a backup, several flashes and 8 lenses all specialised for different parts of the day but I know someone who charges 20% less than me who rocks up with one camera worth £400 and two non professional lenses and one flash. It’s one of the background costs couples don’t see.
When it comes to pricing and packages there’s a lot of variation as soon as you start adding additional photographers, albums and pre-shoots.
Albums – The actual, physical cost price of a cheap 12×12 album is about £150, head off to a premium brand such as Jorgensen or Queensberry and you’re looking at upwards of £500 cost which after the time involved in designing the book, editing the images further for print, production and delivery you could be paying double that. Some photographers charge £300 for an album, some £1000. That’s where the difference comes from there.
Additional shooters – I pay my second photographers £350-£500 depending how long they’re in attendance for and they are all working professionals. But I regularly see people offering £75 for trainees to shoot a wedding with them.
Pre-shoots – There’s cases where some are given out for free but the reality is they often turn out to be a 30 minute shoot in a dead woodland in the winter vs a chargeable professional shoot spanning 90 minutes, timed with the weather and featuring multiple locations.
The devil is in the detail. You might think you’re getting a lot when really you aren’t. Not all albums are the same and neither are all second photographers.
The album on the left is made in Poland, the one on the right made in the UK. The album on the right is twice the cost to produce and three times as thick but I only charge 30% more for the it
That being said. There are a lot of photographers starting out who are working extra hard to become noticed. These are hard to find and ultimately while they might be great value it’s worth noting that great photos come from experience, excellent camera equipment and the shooters personality (as well as yours). All stuff that builds up over time. You might be getting a deal but your photos might suffer from mistakes on the day and ones that cannot be rectified after the fact.
In light of this, one photographer at £2000 may be a better choice than two photographers, an album and a pre shoot for the same money. It’s one of the reasons wedding photographers and by extension suppliers in general are difficult to pick. You don’t do this every day and are going into the process blind.
Negotiating the fee:
Most fees are not set in stone. Personally I’m flexible with my fee and will change it to suit the needs of a couple, the duration of the wedding and it’s logistics. I normally charge af basic cover fee for 8 hours and an hourly fee on top. When it comes to different seasons and days of the week my base 8 hour fee drops a little for Mon-Thursday weddings but the hourly rate stays the same. This isn’t to be viewed as penalising people getting married at the weekends, more that I can’t charge my full rate on weekdays as less people get married then.
I’ll never drop my prices withough good reason though. Wedding photography is fun but it’s also HARD. If ever I discount it’s a justifiable one. I can start later, finish earlier and I’ll adjust accordingly.
Firstly, it’s because most wedding suppliers feel they are charging a just fee for the work involved. Slashing money off says they are either desperate for business or were deliberately overcharging in the first place. It’s also quite insincere and unfair to other couples paying the normal rate.
Wedding Photography may be a premium product but I’m not driving a Jag as a result of it. The real benefit is being my own boss and having a fun place to work.
Sometimes we’ll get an email trying to work on an exact hourly basis but weddings always over run. If a couple insists on paying for 8 hours they will end up going to 9.
There’s also those who try to split the hours 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the evening but we’re going to be there all day. We can’t rightly go home for the two hours in-between.
It’s best to look for someone to cover all of your day or most of it. Otherwise it starts to get nit picky, corporate, impersonal and it limits the freedom of the photographer. Some photographers will offer discounts for early payment up front, it doesn’t hurt to ask and if they accept card payments it’s a fairly solid thing to check.
Just because it’s the Winter doesn’t mean it’s cheaper.
Winter weddings are harder to shoot than Summer ones so discounts aren’t as available as you might think. It’s colder, we’re fighting the light, your venue timings and surprising to some, December is often as busy or busier than August. A lot of couples get married on NYE and the week between Christmas and New Year. Harder shooting conditions means a greater level of technical ability is required and more equipment brought.
What’s involved in shooting your wedding and how the costs stack up.
Wedding photography isn’t cheap, but it is an investment and the photos you get will appreciate in value over time. It’s all you’ll have from the day moving forward and holds its value over the flowers that dried up, the food that was pooped out and the dress sat in a box somewhere.
These are just words about the finished product. Getting to the point of delivery is another thing entirely.
I’m not going to get all Mills and Boon on you. I’m not going to say the photos I take are a cumulation of all my life experiences leading up until the moment I took the photo or big up the spiritual side of things because you can’t put a £ sign to that.
But each camera I use is £4000. I have to have three. Two to carry around with different lenses on (£2000 each) and one in the car as backup in case one falls over and dies.
I also have 9 other lenses worth around the £2000 mark as well as £2000’s worth of flash and LED’s for the dancefloor and winter weddings.
The computer I have to edit on has to be top of the range. The backup system I use to doubly safeguard your images is £3000 alone along with a cloud service to back it up further.
That’s around £40,000 spent across three years as I have to renew equipment to ensure its continued reliability.
Truth be told though, once factoring in cloud storage, electricity, internet providers, accountancy, advertising, venue supplier commissions, consumables such as ink, the list goes on, the cost to run the business is around £20,000 per year. Around 25-30% of all my booking fees go in costs.
What’s left is spread across long continuous working days because being self employed means you’re always working even when you’re not. In reality it’s more like one really long day at the wedding and 4 long days editing as well as the admin leading up to the wedding day.
Yet, sometimes we get told we ask a lot of money for ‘just one day’. The reality is we ask a fair wage for 6-10 days professional work.
On the day though, there’s an enormous amount of pressure to capture everything regardless of the situation we’re in, to be supportive, entertaining, to work non-stop for up to 14 hours. It’s incredibly stressful. It’s fun, hilarious in fact, but still the day after the wedding we’re pretty much non-functional. In bed. Eating carbs, wondering what the hell happened to us yesterday.
Wedding Photography Image Resolutions – What you need to know:
Up there near the top of importance when booking a wedding photographer is how the images are delivered to you.
Some photographers will offer an album package or send you a USB with your images on and some will offer your files as a download. There are also a few who will offer an album only service which means you select the images from the day to go into an album and no more beyond that (very few do this).
The resolution side of things though isn’t usually asked about.
High Resolution vs Full Resolution
When an image is edited sometimes the photo isn’t completely straight or it was quite a loose frame so it was cropped down to show intent and focus on the subject matter. If after editing and cropping this image was exported and delivered as is, without downsizing, that’s considered ‘Full resolution’ – It’s the largest possible pixel size available from the file. (Image sizes are measured in Pixels).
High Resolution ‘technically’ means the photographer has resized their images down to a set size. Not to cheat you, but because some cameras shoot crazy large files they become a problem at the point of delivery. Some album companies won’t allow you to upload images over a certain size because it takes too long to do so. If it takes you 7 hours to download your photos and a massive amount of time to upload them or email them to family then file sizes end up working against you.
Ideally, anything that prints nice on A3 is going to be good enough. A3 paper size in pixels is 4961 x 3508 px. Pretty much all cameras deliver these pixel dimensions as a minimum. What you have to watch out for are those offering you the high resolution files at something smaller like 1024 pixels on the longest edge. Those will only print well on a 6×4 inch print. Printing that size larger looks soft.
Wedding Photography Editing Differences – What to look for:
I touched on styles further up, but this is more specifically the final stage editing. The retouching side of things and yes, the image above is an extreme example, most images aren’t processed to that stage as it take HOURS to do.
However, I personally have a deep seated, almost visceral dislike of heath and safety signs in photos. The bright green fire exits, the red fire alarm buttons, the sockets and loose cabling on walls. These things really detract from the photo and you end up looking at them almost as much as the subject matter because by design they are meant to be noticed.
Yet, a lot of photographers leave these things in.
This is just one thing. Others can a picture of the couple with an empty wine glass in the background, or hand bags left by people feet during the formals. crazy, silly but small things like that. Some things can’t be removed, like supermarket bags in the background during prep but it’s a good indicator for how far the editing goes.
Wedding Photography – Copyright / Right to copy:
When it comes to image use and copyright of your images there’s a lot of confusion when it comes to defining what copyright actually means, who owns it and how to define it.
Copyright belongs to the creator:
In the UK, whoever takes the photo owns the photo. They may be images of you, they may be in a private hire venue you paid for but the images belong to the photographer. The photographer in nearly every case gives you a ‘right to copy’ – to make your own prints, to share the photos online and with others.
Another way to look at it is like this. You’re reading this on a computer, laptop or phone. You bought the device, but the software running on it? You don’t own that. It’s not your Intellectual Property (IP).
This isn’t a worry as in nearly all cases it works like this. For us, these are your photos in all but law so we tend not to be bothered how you use them. It’s only if you put a dodgy instagram filter over the images or edit them further that it becomes a problem because this can imean, to those who don’t know, that we deliver photos that way and it can be bad for business. Or if used commercially like sell them to a magazine.
If you see a photographer say you get copyright then either they think copyright means something that it doesn’t or that’s ownership outright, giving you complete control over the images. To the point you can start charging them for using the photos to promote their business.
Image use by the photographer:
Spend any amount of time on social media and you’ll have seen photographers showing their work on social media. This will be likely be a space filled with you at some point too.
If you’re a private person it’s a good idea to find out how the images will be used. Me personally? I tend to post one image on Instagram, or maybe a series of 6 images in one post after wedding so my couples have some previews and then a blog post of around 60 considered photos chronologically a month or two after you’ve seen the photos on my website.
Then some photographers spam photos across all social media regularly, all the time.
It’s important to accept that these days the only way any visual medium gets work is to show that work. If you went to a photographers website and didn’t see any photos whatsoever would you book them? No. You’ll book a photographer because another couple were good enough to allow their photos to be shown, so it’s reciprocal and photographers aren’t going to show you in a poor liight. That would be counter-intuitive to the reasons for displaying anything.
If you are privacy sensitive there’s other ways around this. For example you could ask the photographer not to use your names, just some random initials. But it’s something you should be prepared ot accept at least on the sporadic side of things.
Exceptions to the rule:
There are certain instances when a photographer will absolutely not use the images. Usually the reason given is ‘we just private people’ but here’s a non-exhaustive list of reasons I’ve seen that qualify:
- We’re a same sex couple who work in Dubai
- I’m a high court Judge
- We’re in witness protection
There’s also other considerations, i.e. sometimes I’m asked to filter what I show. As in, one of the bridesmaids has a stalker ex or there was an adopted child present that they didn’t want publicised. These are all unquestionable reasons to not allow photos out.
If prvacy is your thing though the photographer isn’t going to be the only camera there. Your hair, makeup, video if you have it, dj / band, venue co-ordinator, florist and cake maker are going to be taking photos of their work, usually to post online too. I lost 10 minutes of a wedding because the hair and makeup were making instagram reels for everyone to see before the bride had walked down the aisle.
Meetings, online and otherwise:
Sometimes couples will be confident in their choices that they will book a supplier over the email but many will choose to meet via skype, zoom, facetime, whatsapp or in person. A few years ago most couples wanted to meet in person but lately everyone seems to go with the online route.
When doing this ask yourself what kind of format would work best for you:
Whatsapp : Usually small mobile device only but available on a computer now too. Your face, tiny screen, harder to read faces, personality and intent.
Skype : Great for all devices but most couples forget their password because it isn’t connected to their mobile number.
Zoom: Works well, like skype but without the faff.
Facetime : Apple devices only. Most phones are now Android.
Other things to prepare for is that most consults range between 30 minutes to an hour. Does your device have enough charge? Are you heavily backlit by a window because if you are, I won’t be able to see you, your expression and context! Is the camera on your device going to show you in portrait mode cutting one of you out of the frame and is it angled so I can see your face or your nostrils? Are your phones on DND so as not to disturb you?
When in the meeting:
There’s a lot of places that generate lists for you to ask questions of potential suppliers but before I offer guidance about what to ask during the meeting here’s a simple truth when it comes to the discussion.
It’s not about me or photography, it’s about you.
It’s not about you or photography, it’s about me.
Sure, we can get on to the details of your wedding but the initial stages of any meeting is getting settled in with each other, making a little small talk and seeing if we’re on the same wavelength and who the people I’m talking to are all about.
The couple might be the ones hiring but this is a two-way interview. You don’t have to hire us and we don’t have to take your booking if we don’t feel we can deliver for you as failing a client is something any good supplier will dread doing and try to avoid at all costs.
Once things are flowing then we can cover the day as you see it, what’s important to you in regards the photography and that the photographer comes across to you as a nice fit. You’ll be putting them in amongst your closest friends and family. so personality counts.
Personal note – Photography isn’t just about the clickety click. It’s about empathy, timing, reading emotions and it’s also about crowd control, people skills and presence. You also need to be good humored and patient to do this job well. It’s exceptionally stressful and timings are often against you.
Here’s some questions you can ask that are always useful to cover:
Are you insured?
What happens if you are sick?
Roughly how many images would be reasonable to expect?
Do you have backup cameras on the day?
What do you usually wear? (Important – this never gets asked, it could be full tweed or a black polo neck with ‘Jimmy Snaps Photography’ on in big white letters, jeans and trainers).
Finally, it says a lot if the person in front of you seems genuinely excited. It says they aren’t worn out in the job yet and that they’re high energy enough to go the distance on the day.
I really don’t need to go to The Shard to know how to shoot it. If anything, I need to find out where to park for the day for less than £50.
Venue visits:
Sometimes couples ask if I’ve shot a venue before and if not, if I can do a venue visit. I don’t mind, but if it’s two hours away from me it involves writing off a working day to walk around a venue which is incredibly similar to most other places I’ve shot at then no, it’s not beneficial.
Sure, the gardens may be different across venues but as most wedding venues are sets of rooms that hold 60-120 people they are all fairly simple places to work out from a shooting perspective. Prep area, ceremony room, reception area, dinner and dancing area. If I feel a reccy is beneficial I’ll usually arrive early to have a look around instead of a dedicated visit.
The biggest external influence on someones wedding photos is not the venue but the weather and quality of light on the day. You can’t check that out or prepare for that in advance.
For many couples they think a venue visit will benefit their photos but the biggest determiner of their images is not the venue but the time of year and the weather on the day. I’ve shot a wedding at the same venue in October, where one year it was 25 degrees, still and sunny. The following year a winter storm blew the brides veil 40 ft from her head and the formals were completed in 7 minutes due to 60mph gusts. Same date, different year, completely different outcome.
There’s also the environmental impact to consider and rising costs of travel. Travelling to a venue burns fuel and not only does it cost money but asking a photographer to take up time in their day travelling when they don’t need to is wasteful of that persons time. Sometimes couples are really insistent that a supplier sees the venue but honestly, leave it to the supplier to decide if they need to or not. If a full time wedding photographer has to travel to a venue for each and every wedding that’s one month of the year, every year they won’t get back.
Second photographers, guest comfort and the impact of too many suppliers and video.
I briefly touched on the subject of second photographers earlier and this is something that occasionally pops up. These are sometimes confused with assistants when really nobody uses them anymore and are largely confined to the film era when everything was super cumbersome to work with. Now though, you can pretty much carry all the kit you need for the day with you with maybe some stuff left in the car.
There are benefits and risks with having a second shooter on the day. On the plus side if it’s a wedding where the groom is getting ready miles away from the bride or groom the second photographer can focus on one person and follow them to the ceremony. From that point onwards though, the value of having one falls off sharply. You’ve essentially got two photographers shooting roughly the same things throughout the day and the lead photographer usually does the better technical capture so the second photographers work isn’t used as much.
This is not in any way taking from photographer couples / teams who always work together. They’ve found an effective way to split the responsibility of what images to shoot so it’s easier on both of them during the wedding. Then there’s other photographers who do just as well working alone, myself falling into that category.
Too many cameras:
There’s also the ‘supplier footprint’ in that one photographer is less intrusive and visible to your guests as two would be. Especially if you have video. Imagine 4 camera operators at your wedding. I’ve had several experiences like this with guests mentioning they felt like they were being watched. It’s hard to lose yourself on a dancefloor when there’s a camera ever present vs one that just pops up every now and again. It’s also tricky for us to avoid videographers and second shooters all the time and they WILL end up in your photos. I can’t just delete them in post-production like I would do an exit sign or a fire extinguisher.
Second photographers also cost extra. There are ways around this though if you have one photographer. Often, I’ll suggest starting earlier or with one side first then bouncing to the other a bit later. Or, if say, the groom is really far away, ask them to arrive 30 minutes earlier to finish getting dressed in a room at the venue.
I’ve seen a lot of full weddings from solo shooters and teams, there isn’t very much difference between them as we’re all shooitng the same things. It’s up to you. Just consider your guests, how they will feel and what you’re willing to spend out on.
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I've a list of '82 must have images for your wedding' from a Wedding Magazine, should I give this to my photographer?
No. Because you’re taking the freedom to create away from them. These sorts of lists don’t always relate to your day, and decent photographers will know to shoot them anyway. Also your timeline may not allow for all of them to be taken.
In fact, any lists found online aren’t all that helpful. They may be helpful to you to picture the day but when it comes to photography, cut us loose.
It’s always better to highlight what images are important to you. When I got married, other than family photos, the flowers were important as were photos with my mum and dog. Making your photographer aware of things like that make a difference.
Should we feed our photographer, when do we feed them?
You don’t have to feed your photographer ( we charge enough ). But that doesn’t mean to say we don’t appreciate it when you do. It’s most welcomed.
It’s handy to know if we’re being provided for or not so we can cater for ourselves. This is especially important if your wedding is in a field in the middle of nowhere.
Timing of the food is also important. Suppliers are seen as second class citizens at weddings yet we’re the only people running to a set timeline. Often we’ll get fed after all the guests have received their meals but that’s when the speeches start so we have to miss the food. Generally it’s ideal to eat when everyone else does because that’s when we won’t usually be taking any photos.
A lot of venues don’t really get this. Outside caterers definitely don’t so if you want to free us up to take as many photos as possible let your venue know that you either want your suppliers fed their main before the guests or fed before dessert because later than that and the food you are paying for is also costing you part of the hourly rate you’re paying us to shoot.
I’ve literally had to swipe spare cheese off the top table (with a permissive nod from the best man) during speeches because the outside caterers gave us cold leftovers directly from the plates of the wedding guests. The couple were charged for this and we didn’t want food poisoning so grabbed the cheese.
How many wedding photos should we expect from our wedding photographer?
Generally, and I mean really generally you could say 1 photo for every minute of the day.
On that basis 10 hours = 600+ images.
The total number of photos isn’t necessarily determined by the duration of the day but more what goes on. I’ve shot 10 hour weddings and delivered anywhere between 600 and 1100 images, the most from a wedding being 1500 because they were actors who had a flash mob in the evening and I covered both sides of prep. They also had the longest confetti aisle ever and party games before speeches.
It all adds up.
How many formal photos is too many?
Allow three minutes for each grouping and see how the time stacks up. I always recommend a limit of ten groupings because you’ll be in every single one while your guests are drinking all the Cremant.
There’s a section in my wedding guide, that covers Formal Photography specifically. It’s worth a read.
Do awards matter when booking someone?
Broadly speaking, when it comes to wedding supplier no, they don’t. What it does show is that the supplier is committed enough to enter them and to reach an end point in doing so.
Personally I don’t enter them because most awards either involve hassling the couples for votes which takes up their time or the awards that are out there usually give them out to people who are highly stylised / pay a fee / or win through lucky shots.
A good example is The Wedding Industry Awards. If you pay a fee to enter pretty much everyone becomes a ‘finalist’ and at certain times of the year social media is flooded with suppliers waving them around.
That’s not to say there aren’t excellent awards out there, it’s just that they’re drowned out with all the other questonable ones. Everyone is an award winner these day.
The only awards I show are the ones that I was awarded without entry!
How long should I have photography cover for?
Over the last decade most couples have booked 8-10 hours cover and this covers pretty much everything, including prep.
Sometimes couples decide not to have the preparations photographed but generally 2 hour pre ceremony through until at least the first dance is the most common level of cover.
Micro weddings are also a thing with the ceremony and reception covered but these are usually scaled higher in pricing because a photographer has to give up a full day to cover it as they can’t work anywhere else.
Should I have a pre-wedding / engagement shoot?
I quite enjoy pre-wedding shoots but rarely do them. Why? Because they’re difficult to arrange and often (8 times out of 10) get cancelled by the couple last minute due to the weather or something comes up that means they have to rearrange.
It’s further complicated because a lot of couples can only do weekends and I only do these in the warmer months where the backgrounds are more interesting and the weather, more predictable.
Because of this the fee to do this is high. One cancellation = two days taken up. There are some photographers who offer shoots included with their packages but these can be short duration ones, done at all times of the year and often not as considered as paid shoots are. However, mileage does vary based on the photographer, shop around.
Also, a lot of people who ask for a pre-shoot are sometimes driven by a fear of how they’ll look in their photos. A worry with this is that if a couple sees something they don’t like they’ll carry this fear of how they’ll look over into their wedding photos and pull them down as a result.
Should I book a photographer local to me or one I like far away?
Photographers love to travel. One of the benefits of our job is we get to see some amazing spaces and it keeps our work fresh. As much as it’s work we try not to see it as such. Travelling around helps that feeling along.
Cast a broad net and if you find someone whose work you absolutely love but they’re miles away from you then it’s still worth getting a quote and if asked, paying the travel supplement to reach you.
I've been recommended a photographer by the venue, should I use them?
In these instances I’d say to look at them like any other photographer and forget they were recommended by the venue. Just add them to your list of people to contact.
Granted, it does help when a photographer is familiar with a venue but that benefit is taken away when all their photos from that venue look the same. Sure, you’re walking down the same aisle and having your reception in the same courtyard as previous couples but if the photographer isn’t adventurous to try new things or at least attempt to show this online then you’re possibly just booking ‘safe’.
