How To Choose The Right Wedding Photographer | Wedding Photography

8/12/2019 How To Choose The Right Wedding Photographer | Wedding Photography

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How To Choose The Right Wedding Photographer

Daniel James Photography www.danieljamesphotography.net

How to choose the rightWedding Photographer

So youre now engaged! firstly congratulationsand secondly allow me to

give a shamelessplugfor our Engagement Portraits(complimentary with all of

our Wedding Photography)

Now comes a big question, who will capture my big day?

Choosing the right Wedding Photographeris a crucial choice that boils

down to a number of questions that you need to ask both yourself and also

any of your potential Wedding Photographers. This article is designed to try

and help you to have a clear picture of who you are looking for when it comes

to your wedding day.

How much will my Wedding Photographercost?OR How much should I spend on a WeddingPhotographer?

The answer to both of these questions will

vary depending on any budget you have in

mind, your location, the time of year you're

getting married and many other factors.While this is true please do me a favour?

don't go straight to the prices page of a

photographer before going to their

gallery/portfolio page first. It truly saddens

me when I receive an email direct from the

contact page with a bride just asking about

our prices. Money is such an ugly thing and

while I know it's certainly a consideration

you have to think about please choose your

photographer based upon if they are a goodfit for you all over, not simply that they are

the cheapest.

The amount of times i've heard about a

bride who asked a friend to take pictures or

an uncle who was a keen amateur and then

the results have been less than perfect or in

some cases brought the couple to tears, it truly upsets me. This is your


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wedding day, it's a special and perfect day to you that is meticulously planned

and you deserve to have every detail captured perfectly to look back on for

years and generations to come.

Ok and breathe. Sorry I just dislike discussing prices however you can, on

average expect to spend between 800 up to 2,000 on your Wedding

Photographer. There are exceptions to this both sides of course. (Just as an

FYI , we start at 850 for our West Midlands Wedding Photographybut will

happily shoot further from home including internationally)

How do I find my Wedding Photographer?

Now the fun begins, searching Birmingham

Wedding Photographeralone will yield 1.4

million results so expect to need a cup of tea

when the search begins. Of course there's

also dedicated Wedding Fayres (though

experience has sometimes delivered shark

like pressure sells), specialist Directories and

mobile phone apps as well.

Truly one of the best ways you can hope to

find your photographer is through a referral

from a friend whose got married, however

what do you do when, in my case, my friends

photographer was no longer working as a

photographer? I literally sat in front of Google

and pulled around 50 pages of Google (thank

god for tabs in browsers!) searching Midlands

Wedding PhotographerGalleries until we

found our Photographer at which point I thenchecked her prices and booked.

So how do you dwindle down the thousands of photographers out there? I

recommend you to choose by style.


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What style of Wedding Photographers are there?

A Wedding Photographer's style is there

absolute core, it's what they take with them,

knowingly or unknowingly to each and every

wedding they capture and it is that style that

you will wish for them to place into every one

of your photographs.

Now it seems logical to take style buzz words

such as 'modern' 'reportage' 'magazine'

'traditional' and incorporate them into your

Google search however unfortunately not

every Modern Wedding Photographer

describes themselves as that, perhaps they

have put Reportage Wedding Photographer

and so it can be both a help and a hindrance

to add buzz words into the search.

Ultimately you will know what style you like

and be on the look out on photographers

websites. I believe that when you see the

right photographer then everything fits

together but it's important not to rush to

quickly or fall for that photographer too fast.

What should I expect and what will I receive from myWedding Photographer?

When you think you have found the right photographer or short list of

photographers from their Gallery's/Portfolios it's time to start looking at their

main wedding information. Now this can be presented in the form of a PDF

downloadable brochure, in bullet points on their website, a FAQ page, in a

video introduction or perhaps in a 'request more information by filling in your

details' (though I am not a fan of these as I would rather have all the

information in front of me prior to making contact). When you have got the

information you're looking for some important specifics:-

Coverage- when will they startand finishcapturing your Wedding day (some

Photographers will put 'unlimited' and actually mean 8 hours), some may offer

extra charges to cover past certain key times.


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Amount of Photographs - how many edited images will be delivered to you

(usually you can expect 300+, we promise 300+ but often deliver 500-700

images depending upon coverage)

How will my Photographs be viewed?- often Photographers will deliver

your Wedding Photographs via an Online Gallery (such as we do) which willalso allow guests from the Wedding to view and purchase prints through.

Will there be any effects included?- Colour is always important however

some Photographs look stunning in Black & White or other effects such as

Vintage Wash which is included in addition to Colour & Black and White with

our work.

Will any digital files be included? -

Whether delivered via email, USB or

CD/DVD, digital files of your WeddingPhotographs is by far the most common

option for modern weddings, allowing the

happy couple to print what they want and

whenever they want to (make sure you

receive a Print Licence to alleviate any

potential copyright issues when taking

them to be printed)

What equipment do you use and whatbackup strategies do you have in place?

- Professional grade equipment including

an extra camera body should be standard

for a professional photographer as well as

a strong backup strategy. Personally we

use 1x external hard drive as a main

backup, 1x external hard drive as a library

and then 2x more external hard drives

which are mirrored and stored in a different geographical location as well as a

DVD archive of all of our work.

How often should I meet with my Wedding Photographer before the

day?

Now this is a difficult question, if you have a Photographer based far away

then it may be difficult to meet face to face, however technology is there and

there's no reason why you can't Skype with them to have a good chat about

your individual needs. Where possible though we meet with our brides and

grooms at least 3 times prior to the Wedding, first we have an initial meeting


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at our Shop to discuss their Wedding, show them some examples of our work

and albums and talk about our Wedding Photography Packages.

Secondly we see them in the Studio for their

complimentary Engagement Portrait which is a

fantastic opportunity to get used to having yourpicture taken professionally (something many

people have never had done). Finally we

arrange a Venue Visit to have a good look

around the Venue for the Wedding to discuss

what in particular the bride and groom like

about it, why they chose it and ideas we have

for where we would like to capture their

photographs. This all comes together to help

the bride and groom to feel relaxed and

confident with us as their Photographers.

Aside from this we are available by e-mail,

Skype and phone if they feel they want to meet

more frequently or to discuss any questions

they may have.

In Summary

Ultimately you need the right Wedding Photographer as this is a once in a

lifetime day that you will look back on to re-live the day and you need

Photographs that capture every detail perfectly. If you compromise and get a

friend to do it, you may end up regretting it and also your friend will not enjoy

the day in the same way if they're worrying about getting your Photographs

right. Make sure that you get a contract with your Photographer to seal

everything together so that you're both clear on what you need and what you

will be receiving.

We hope this has helped you to work out which Photographer is right for you

however if we've missed anything please feel free to comment below and we'll

try and add it to the article.

Information Page Links: WeddingPhotography, Engagement Portraits, WeddingPhotography Portfolio


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How To Choose The Right Wedding Photographer | Wedding Photography