Choosing a wedding photographer is as important (nearly!) as choosing the person you are going to marry!
And it’s tricky. We all have different ways of charging for what we do. It can be really difficult to compare quotes and to understand what you will get after the event.
Here are seven things that I would want to check (and DID check!!) when deciding who to book as a wedding photographer.
1. CHECK THAT YOU LIKE THEM
This sounds ridiculously obvious – but make sure you MEET your wedding photographer before you book them and make sure you like them. Make sure you gel with them and that you feel that they’re on your wave length.
Don’t forget that they are with you ALL DAY on probably the most special day of your life. If they’re starting to get on your nerves by 11am you’re in trouble.
Perhaps consider doing an engagement shoot with them before you book. I love to do a complete and separate engagement session with my couples before they book me so that they can get a real feel for what I’m like as a person, and what I’m like to have on the other side of the camera.
2. CHECK THAT YOU ARE GOING TO GET FULLY EDITED WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHS
The world has changed a lot since I became a wedding photographer. Back in the day we would put 20 rolls of 35mm film in our bags and go and photograph a wedding. When we got back, we would take the film to a professional lab and leave them to do the rest.
When the world went digital, that changed beyond all recognition.
Photographing your wedding day is just the absolute miniscule tip of the iceberg. The majority of your wedding day ‘work’ comes sitting at the editing desk afterwards and editing your final images. Most wedding photographers shoot raw files, which means they are not actually finished in camera – they are dull, and flat and totally uninspiring. Editing is NOT done to make you look 3 stone lighter, to retouch your Mother in Laws double chin or to airbrush all of your Bridesmaids to the point that they look like melted wellies. . Editing is simply FINISHING your images and toning them beautifully.
Be wary of the super cheap package that promises 1000 images on a CD. That may be EXACTLY what you’re getting – 1000 images, straight out of camera, slightly dark (because we always expose for the wedding dress, which makes the rest of the image a little too dark – but then we ‘lift ‘ the shadows in the editing) , with wonky verticals and slightly poor cropping. I have seen more than one devastated bride bring her wedding photographs to me to ‘check’ because she is absolutely horrified with what she’s got back from her wedding photographer only to discover that what she’s got is absolutely fine. She has been given exactly what she purchased – all her digital files. Unedited.
Unless you’re a whizz at post production, have some sort of editing suite and are happy to do all this work afterwards yourself – make sure you are paying for this to be done.
And you will pay for it. It’s a long process. with my own weddings every single image is retouched individually.
So if you are getting all the digital files on a USB for £300, trust me, this kind of process isn’t happening for you!
3. CHECK THE SIZE OF THE DIGITAL FILES YOU ARE RECEIVING AS PART OF YOUR COLLECTION
Digital files come in a lot of different formats and sizes. As I’ve already said, most professional photographers shoot raw images, because this gives us more control in the editing process. Personally, I then convert them to jpeg files to give to my clients.
However, jpeg images can be resized. And they can be made very very small.
This is fine if you are looking at them on your phone or posting them to socials. But they are going to be rubbish for printing, making albums or for that 30×40″ canvas that you’re having in the living room.
If you are getting digital files, ask if they are the full-size, high-resolution images. These will be suitable for any purpose.
Some photographers charge extra for these files.
4. CHECK IF A WEDDING ALBUM IS INCLUDED AND , IF NOT, HOW MUCH IT WILL BE AFTER THE EVENT
This is always a somewhat pricey ‘optional extra’ so a lot of photographers don’t include the album up front
If you are going to do your own wedding album, it’s fine. Just make sure you are getting the right size files (see ‘3’ above) but also …… make sure you do it!! It’s actually really time consuming to lay out and make a wedding album. Years will go by and it just won’t happen.
I know a lot of mummies who have vowed to make a family album every year after their first child. They usually do the first year, they maybe do the second year, but it’s probably late. By the end of the third year, they are so far behind and they have got so many photographs on their phone, they don’t know where to start and it just stops happening.
You will probably get more than 800+ images from your wedding photographer. Sifting through those, uploading them to some kind of software or getting prints will take ages. And this ‘time’ – not to mention skill and a bit of artistic flair that comes from YEARS of designing albums – is one of the things you are paying for when your wedding photographer gives you a jaw dropping figure for including a wedding album.
Leave it to a professional. Most of us are using beautiful Print Houses for our albums who won’t even supply direct to the public. You are purchasing an heirloom.
All Annie Bee weddings come with an Italian wedding album as standard. I use the Rolls Royce of Print Houses – GraphiStudio in Italy – and if you don’t want a wedding album, then I’m afraid I’m not a photographer for you.
And that is not just me trying to put my prices up. That is me knowing that 15 years ago, I was giving my couples their digital copies on a CD. Just 15 years later – not decades later , not lifetimes later , just 15 years later, – you can no longer buy a computer with a CD drive.
I’ve swapped to USBs but already I’m having couples say to me that there is no point in them having a USB. Because they have nothing to plug it into. They just have an iPad and an iPhone – and they don’t have a USB slot.
Digital files are just about the unsafest way to store your precious memories. Digital media changes all the time. And it changes rapidly. In 20 years time, there is no guarantee you will have the hardware to even LOOK at your digital files. And by the time your children are your age, I can almost look into my crystal ball and guarantee that that is a fact. The only safe way to store your memories is to have them printed.
And for weddings – that is an album.
5. CHECK YOUR WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHERS KIT BAG!!
The other thing that you need to know is that Memory Cards fail. Admittedly not very often, but it does happen. And since I’ve been shooting on digital, I have had it happen twice. You get home, you try and download your images and it says they are corrupted. You get no warnings.
Yep – Memory Cards fail.
Because of this, most professional cameras have slots for two memory cards, side by side. And most professional wedding photographers will be shooting to two cards at the same time. Therefore, if one fails on your big day, there should be another card in the camera on which your images are being recorded.
It’s always worthwhile just checking that this is the case with your own photographer.
6. CHECK WHAT HAPPENS IF IT RAINS
Again, professional photographers will have a backup for this.
They should know your venue. And most of us will do a pre-wedding visit to a venue that we’ve never covered a wedding there before. There are many reasons we do this and not least so that we can ensure that if the heavens absolutely open on your wedding day, we know what we’re going to do.
We’ll know whether we will need to have studio lights with us, and a backdrop ….. and basically we’ll just have a plan. This is probably one of the biggest differences between having an amateur shoot your wedding and a professional. So just bear that in mind when you’re comparing costs. Kit is not cheap, and learning how to use it tends to be even more expensive. And although it’s a little bit of a hidden cost within your wedding’s pricing, it is relevant.
7. CHECK YOU’VE BEEN SHOWN IMAGES FROM A FULL WEDDING DAY
If they were photographing the bride getting ready in her parents conservatory did they cope with the sun streaming through the windows? Are the photographs well-lit and nicely composed? Did he or she then cope when they went to the pub and met the boys in that dark, snug little bar? Did they manage to get beautiful photographs in that dark 15th century church after the vicar had demanded that they don’t use flash during the ceremony? Did they then cope with a couple walking down the aisle? Was it is focus despite the only light being from the stained glass windows and the candles at the end of the pews? Did they quickly manage to change from shooting in the dark to shooting in bright light as the couple walked out into the brilliant August sunshine? Do the group shots look like the photographer was managing to cope with 100 slightly tipsy guests? And did they manage to get a decent First Dance shot – despite the disco lights covering you in red and green and yellow splodges of light??
Ask to see a FULL wedding!!!
Hope this helps!! It’s very tempting at this stage to budget for a slightly cheaper option for your wedding photography. Just be clear on what you are getting (and even clearer on what you are NOT getting)
Don’t forget that the day will go so quickly that you won’t get to see half of what is happening. Capturing everything that happens is your wedding photographer’s job.
And when you wake up the day after your wedding, the only things you will have is a new husband or wife and your wedding photographs
You need to make sure that both of them are good!!
From 2023 Annie Bee will only be accepting bookings for Small Intimate Weddings with less than 30 guests or for Elopements. To get in touch to tell me about your amazing plans CLICK HERE