Bridal Tips: Wedding Photography

Hiring a Professional Wedding Photographer 

A wedding photographer will be a professional third party that will be present on your wedding day to capture moments that you will likely have missed or forgotten in the excitement of the day.  It will be nice to have photographs to remember the faces, reactions, and events of your special day and you can  feel confident knowing you hired someone with experience in taking pictures and editing them to create a memorable keepsake that you and your loved ones will cherish.

Types of Wedding Photography

Find the style that best fits you and the memories you want to create.  There are traditional, journalistic, and illustrative photographers.  Traditional wedding photographers will spend a lot of time posing the wedding party and family members for shots and capture the key moments of the ceremony and reception with a logical progression.   Journalistic photographers will cover events as they happen, and will have a more candid approach to capturing events.  Illustrative photographers are a blend of the two and will offer posed photography, but in natural poses, and can also take candid shots especially of children or nature around the area that would compliment the photos of the wedding ceremony and reception events.

How to Pick a Wedding Photographer to Work With

After you have a picked a style that you want photographed, interview photographers by asking a few questions over the phone. See of they are comfortable shooting in the style you want, what events they will photograph outside of the ceremony (i.e. do you want photos from the bridal dressing chamber, or setup photos from the venue, etc), and gauge if they are receptive to your ideas. Remember the you are hiring them and they should be able to listen to your desires and produce an album that makes you happy. For the budget conscious bride, ask if they offer discounts at certain venues, or combination services (photographing rehearsal dinners and wedding day events, etc) and you may also save money on prints by offering to let your pictures be used in their portfolio.

Three Things to Avoid When Hiring a Wedding Photographer

• Don’t forget to take the photographer’s personality into account. Even the greatest photos in the world can be sullied if you have bad memories of the times they were taken.  If the photographer is demanding or unpleasant, your memories when looking at the photos will reflect how the person taking the picture made you feel when it was being taken. The photographer will be there all day, so it is important that it is someone who puts you at ease and is a joy to be around.
• Don’t choose products over quality. If you choose a photographer because they charge a low rate for the photography and offer you more pictures or fashionable albums, you should question “why”?  It is better to have a hundred beautifully shot pictures in an old shoebox rather than a thousand “so-so” pictures in an ornate album. You can always arrange the photos anyway you want to later, but you cannot recapture that exact moment in time. It is more important to have a picture you cherish than many pictures you wish had been shot differently.
• Finally, don’t expect too much from an amateur.  Sure, your cousin may only be charging you a small amount of money comparatively, but make sure that you aren’t expecting the same results that experience and professional equipment can guarantee. Sometimes it’s just better to spend the extra money so that you know you will get pictures you love and you wont ruin a friendship or family relationship in the process.