How to Pick the Right
Wedding Photographer
for You
Congratulations! You just got engaged! Aaaaaand.... you're already getting bombarded by questions from family and friends. "When's the wedding?" "Can I get a plus one?" "What do you mean it's out of town??" Beginning the wedding planning process can be overwhelming to say the least. Once you've chosen a venue and a date, it's time to start booking vendors, including a photographer to document the day. But how do you know if a photographer is right for you? Here are a 4 thoughts to consider.
Last fall I received one of the most heartbreaking inquiries. "Please help! Our wedding photographer lost all of our wedding photos. Will you please retake some of us in our wedding attire?" Ugh!!! Can you imagine? Not a single photo from your wedding day!
When speaking with prospective photographers make sure to inquire about their backup systems. Do they shoot dual card in camera? This is when each photo is automatically saved onto two separate SD cards, so if one malfunctions there is a backup. After the wedding, how do they backup your photos? I save all the raw photos onto both a physical hard drive and a cloud based service. I also keep the SD cards with your wedding photos and don't delete them until I deliver your final gallery (in case both systems somehow fail). This is just one way to do it--but make sure your photographer can properly articulate how they're going to ensure the safety of your images. Photographing a wedding day is a big responsibility and I want my couples to always know that their photos are safe with me.
There's nothing more annoying than sending out an email to a vendor and getting radio silence. Businesses are busy, yes, but make sure you pick someone who respects their client's time by responding in a timely manner.
You will hang out with your photographer more than any other person on your wedding day. (Yes, maybe even more than your spouse, depending on if you choose to do a first look or not!) So, it's super important that you get along with your photographer. This is someone who is going to be by your side for one of the most important, vulnerable, and emotional days of your life. Can you see yourself experiencing the widest range of emotions in front of them? Make sure you feel totally comfortable with them... and that they make you feel at ease! I firmly believe that no matter how good your photographer is, if you didn't have a fun and meaningful time with them, you won't love your photos. Magic on camera happens because the photographer behind the lens has curated a wonderful experience from the first email communication to the final exit on a wedding day.
Your wedding day is arguably the most photographed day of your life. You'll be looking at these photos for years to come so it's important to make sure you like your photographer's style. Asking to see several full wedding galleries can be helpful to get an idea of what yours could look like. Are the photos very formal and super posed or more "fly on the wall" documentary style and candid? Dark, moody, and trendy or light and airy or somewhere in between? There's no one way to photograph a wedding, so make sure you can picture your wedding day photos in the style of your photographer.
Personally, I want your wedding photos to stand the test of time, so I try to keep the colors in your images true to what they looked like on your wedding day. I make sure we include plenty of time for posed family and couples portraits, but then I want you to go and actually ENJOY your wedding day. I like to fade into the background and capture honest moments as they authentically happen, so you won't look back on your wedding day and feel like it was just a series of curated photoshoots.
