Congratulations!!!! You’re engaged!

Now the task begins of planning the details of your wedding day and getting all the necessary suppliers booked up. The first thing you’ll need to do is sort out the venue. Without the venue there is no wedding. As soon as you have booked your venue, which will also give you your firm wedding date, it’s time to start looking at photographers. Wedding photographers often get booked a year in advance, sometimes even longer. That’s not to say you won’t find a photographer at shorter notice – you will – but if you want to be absolutely certain that you get the photographer you REALLY want, you need to book them as early as you can.

But where to start?

There are literally thousands of photographers and the choice can be overwhelming. A good place to start is to google “your  venue + photography”. Start book-marking the sort of thing you like, but don’t get too bogged down in the labelling. Photojournalism, documentary, traditional, reportage… these are all terms that people use to label themselves but one photographer’s “Reportage” is another photographer’s “Traditional”. So ignore the labels and just look at the photographs on the websites, and particularly the blogs. Blogs are often a much better indicator of a photographer’s recent work than their website galleries.

Also ask your friends for referrals. It is always good to work with someone who has been recommended to you. But keep in mind that just because your best friend thought this was the greatest photographer on earth, doesn’t necessarily mean they are going to be right for you.

Then what?

Once you’ve short-listed a few names, get in touch with them by phone and have a conversation or a meeting with them. It is really important that you not only like the photographers work, but you also like THEM. If you don’t like them in your meeting, if they’re not friendly and open and interested in you and your day, then they’re probably not the person you want to have around you for 8 hours on one of the most important days of your life.

And yes, do ask them about their pricing but don’t get too hung-up about the opening numbers. Each photographer has a different way of structuring their packages and until you have detailed information about what is really included in the pricing, the headline numbers can be very misleading. The photographer whose packages start from £1800 could end up working out cheaper than the person who quoted you £800 a day.

At the meeting:

Expect to travel to them for the meeting. Keep in mind that they will have lots of albums and prints to show you and often it is not practical, or for that matter professional, to travel all over town with them. Can you imagine having your wedding dress consultation at Starbucks? Well, bringing high quality prints and albums to Starbucks is no more appropriate than that. Also, remember that they may well have another couple booked in to see after you.

At the meeting, be sure to look at as much material as you can. Ask to see complete weddings. Most anyone can pull 50 decent images out of a full day’s shooting to put an album together with… but you need to see consistency in the quality of the work over time.

Look at the style of the images and be sure that that is what you want from your wedding photography. There is no point in really admiring someone’s work and then asking them to shoot it in a style that’s different from what they have shown you. Listen to what they are saying to you about how they work. If they say they are truly unobtrusive throughout the whole day, and you already know you want 25 formal family groups, then you are not a good match.

A good photographer will be interviewing you as much as you are interviewing them to look out for any signs that you might not be a good fit. If there is any doubt that the two parties have a good understanding of what will be delivered in terms of style, product, quality and service, then you should walk away. Also consider that the relationship with your photographer will often extend long beyond your wedding day, sometimes developing into a lifelong relationship whereby the photographer goes on to photograph your special family occasions and new arrivals as your family grows over the years.

Why is photography so expensive?

It can sometimes seem that photographers make 1000s of pounds for a day’s work. However, this impression is misleading. Photographing your wedding will involve a great deal more time than just the number of hours they are shooting on your wedding day. There is the pre-wedding consultation, the post wedding editing of your images, which can take several days, the design for your album, etc etc., not to mention the years of training which have gone into making your photographer as good as they can be, and the long term investment in equipment. 

So, good photography won’t be cheap. If it is, there is ALWAYS a reason. Keep in mind that after your wedding the dress is in a box, the flowers are gone, the food is eaten and the venue has moved on to the next wedding. The photography is one of the few things you will keep for life – and it is irreplaceable. So it is important to find someone who is experienced and professional, who can consistently deliver high quality work.

There ARE cheap photographers around, but you get what you pay for.

Always check that the person you choose:

a.)  Is a full time photographer.

b.)  Has public liability insurance.

c.)  Has backup photographic equipment, in case something breaks on the day.

d.)  Has a backup workflow in place for your images in case of a technical hitch.

 If the above do not apply, chances are they are a hobbyist/amateur who fancies making some extra money on the weekend, or wants to build up their portfolio. If they mess up on the day, YOUR WEDDING DAY, they have nothing to lose.

“My friend/uncle dabbles in photography, and he won’t cost a penny.”

Lots of people enjoy photography as a hobby nowadays, and many have very nice cameras. But owning a nice camera and taking decent holiday snaps doesn’t make you a wedding photographer any more than owning a nice pan and knocking up a tasty Sunday lunch makes you Gordon Ramsey.

Wedding Photography is hard! It requires a great deal of skill and experience to deal with a constantly changing and unpredictable environment, not to mention the additional pressure of  knowing that you absolutely CANNOT fail. There are no re-takes in wedding photography.

So if you choose your friend or relative to photograph your wedding, do ask yourself in advance what the long-term effect on your relationship would be if they mess up and leave you without usable images from this most precious day. Sadly, it happens all the time, but you won’t know until it’s too late. Only you can decide if it’s worth the risk.

So how much should I budget for?

Well that depends on your overall wedding budget. But generally 10-15% is a good minimum indicator. But of course it depends on how high a value you place on the photography versus your cake or your flowers.

Beware that package prices can be deceiving and you are rarely comparing like for like between photographers. Wedding Albums vary considerably in quality and therefore in price. Digital Files may be high resolution (i.e. printable) or low-resolution (i.e. only useful for internet use). Files may be “straight out of camera”, which means they will look flat and nothing like the finished print you have ordered from the photographer, or they might be fully edited, and print ready.

Anything that claims to be “free” usually isn’t. It will have been priced into the package price already. This brings me to the next point:

Don’t get too bogged down in “stuff”, especially, if you’re on a budget. Photographers often include a lot of stuff (prints, albums, disc, nick-nacks etc) to make their packages seem more attractive. However, there is no point in having a fancy album if the photographs inside are rubbish. So if you can’t afford everything you want right now, no matter how tempting the product mix might be, book the best photographer you can afford for their time (or time and files) only and consider buying an album 6 months down the line, or ask your friends and family to contribute towards your album as part of your wedding gift. 

Summary:

So in summary, do lots of research and decide what style you like, set a ballpark budget, meet a shortlist of photographers and be sure you know what you’re getting for your money. Buy the best photographer you can afford, stay away from amateurs and hobbyists, and remember that personality counts for a great deal on the day.

Choosing your photographer is one of the most important decisions you will make for your wedding, if the photography goes wrong, it cannot be fixed.

Good luck and have a wonderful wedding!