[INFOGRAPHIC] Complete Guide For Choosing a Wedding Photographer
Much like your luxury wedding invitations, the photographer is one of the most important parts of your wedding. The photographer will capture the memories that you and your significant other will cherish and look back on for years to come. Choosing a wedding photographer can be a difficult task for any bride and groom, but knowing which questions to ask when meeting with them will help you choose the best photographer to capture the special moments of your big day.
The infographic below will help guide you in choosing the best photographer for your wedding. This infographic includes: the average cost of a wedding photographer, tips for great poses for your big day, questions to ask your potential photographer to ensure you get the best one, and a checklist for different photography moments from preparing for the wedding day through the ceremony and reception.
This is kind of a sad infographic for us professional photographers to see. If you have to hand over a detailed list to your PROFESSIONAL photographer that includes photographing the first kiss among other “opportunities”… then well they aren’t a professional! Please hire a true professional whose work you admire and whom you trust to capture your day. It’s too important to risk it to someone whom you don’t trust. We’ve all heard the horror stories. To us this is akin to handing a list of “how to do your job” to your brain surgeon. Would you do that? Of course you wouldn’t.
Also, this information on “Do you correct your photos” is very misleading. There is a difference between basic editing and major retouching (which double chins fall into). You should definitely ask about the photographer’s post-production process, but expecting a photographer to spend hours in Photoshop “correcting” every photo of a a double chin or removing wrinkles would be insane. Also, asking if they have shot a venue before isn’t a bad question, but making it a dealbreaker would be silly. Or even really requiring a walk through is not necessary. Any professional photographer worth their salt should be able to show up a few minutes early, scout the area and do an awesome job. Bottom line, hire a true pro (which by the way, will most likely cost a little more since it’s how they put food on their table) and then trust them to do an awesome job.
Also, while vidographers are important, I feel like this article puts it on the photographer on whether they will “play nice”. Many photographers have less than stellar relationships with videographers because some of them have developed a reputation for ruining photography by being invasive (and vice versa) It should be about selecting a team of professionals who all respect and work well together. Get referrals, don’t leave it up to a price decision. I feel like this read really one sided. I’ve worked with some amazing and talented videographers in my career and some really TERRIBLE ones. It’s not just about asking do you work well with videographers? It might be more of a good question of “I’ve hired or considering hiring xyz company, have you ever worked with them?” I’d definitely be very careful when hiring an inexperienced or “uncle Bob” type videographers. They can sometimes be the fastest way to ruining the beautiful photography you paid a lot of money for.
Thanks for your input Kristin, good points!