Wedding Photographers

[3boys1girl]

Hi Guys
Just doing a bit of research. What do you guys look for in a wedding photographer?
Thanks:)

[Leeny]

You should look around for what you guys want, and make sure you shop around. You need to decide what your after.. Do you want digital negatives? Do you want a professionally bound album, as slide show? Large canvas and mounted prints for the wall? When it comes to wedding photographers, a lot of the time, you really do get what you pay for. If you're paying $500, including all digital negs, the quality of the work is going to speak for itself. There's nothing wrong with low budget wedding photographers, if that's what your looking for, and the quality of work is what your expecting.

That being said, you do need to be wary.. Make sure you read the fine print. I as a photographer would never in a million years supply all digital negatives from a shoot, unedited. A lot of work goes into editing each image separately, and some photographers only choose to provide unedited images, leaving you have to pay them editing fees per image... Where digital negs are offered, you need to make sure you read the contract, what understand what you're actually receiving.

How big of an affair is your wedding going to be? Do you want full coverage? Before, bride and groom getting ready, the ceremony, reception coverage, plus posed shots in between? If you want full coverage, you're going to have to find someone who has a second and third shooter, so that there's a photographer to cover the bride, and a second shooter to cover the groom, then both for the ceremony and reception. This is going to bump your cost up significantly.

Is it going to be a small affair, where you just want coverage of the ceremony, and perhaps some posed shots before the reception?

There's a lot of things to think about.. You'll need to decide exactly what you want, then find a photographer to fit that :)

[JATS]

Make sure you get to see a LARGE selection of wedding photos they have done, a photographer will often take several hundreds of pics of each wedding so be wary if you only see half a dozen from each, not hard to get that many good pics out of several hundred!

Try to make sure their work is consistently up to a standard you are happy with and in a style that you like. For instance its no good hiring a photographer who prefers b/w if you prefer color, no point hiring a photographer who does a lot of posed shots if you want more natural ones or vise versa.

[Leeny]

Just on what JATS said.. You should be expecting a lot of shots if your expecting good coverage, but don't expect hundreds and hundreds. Yes hundreds and hundreds are taken, but you'll be shown the best of the best. Shots with blinks, unflattering looks from any party, someone not looking right at the camera etc will all generally be tossed, and only the best of the best edited.. It can take weeks to proof and edit a wedding.. Its a lot of work. That being said, if you're paying for full coverage, make sure thats exactly what you get :)

[Lil07]

You should look around for what you guys want, and make sure you shop around. You need to decide what your after.. Do you want digital negatives? Do you want a professionally bound album, as slide show? Large canvas and mounted prints for the wall? When it comes to wedding photographers, a lot of the time, you really do get what you pay for. If you're paying $500, including all digital negs, the quality of the work is going to speak for itself. There's nothing wrong with low budget wedding photographers, if that's what your looking for, and the quality of work is what your expecting.

That being said, you do need to be wary.. Make sure you read the fine print. I as a photographer would never in a million years supply all digital negatives from a shoot, unedited. A lot of work goes into editing each image separately, and some photographers only choose to provide unedited images, leaving you have to pay them editing fees per image... Where digital negs are offered, you need to make sure you read the contract, what understand what you're actually receiving.

How big of an affair is your wedding going to be? Do you want full coverage? Before, bride and groom getting ready, the ceremony, reception coverage, plus posed shots in between? If you want full coverage, you're going to have to find someone who has a second and third shooter, so that there's a photographer to cover the bride, and a second shooter to cover the groom, then both for the ceremony and reception. This is going to bump your cost up significantly.

Is it going to be a small affair, where you just want coverage of the ceremony, and perhaps some posed shots before the reception?

There's a lot of things to think about.. You'll need to decide exactly what you want, then find a photographer to fit that :)

:iagree::iagree::iagree::iagree:

We got duped by a very, very well known fotog when we got married back in '02'. He was in all the wedding mags and did a beautiful 'free' pre wedding shoot for us...

...$8k later (our budget was $4k) :eek: and we only just scraped in with pics from the whole wedding.

Make sure you read the fine print and make sure you ask them to show you EXACTLY what you'll be getting for your money.

[Leeny]

Yes.. Remember, wedding packages grow!! You could start off with a 2 or 4k photography budget, but it can blow out very quickly.. For example, you could have a package with a bound album. Just say that album includes 15 or 20 pages, but theres so many more photos you love.. You can end up paying an extra couple hundred dollars easily per extra page. So take into account when your doing your budget for the photography, that you're always going to want extras. Its up to you to find a photographer that can give you what you need as close to that budget, knowing that you're not going to have to pay 2 or 3k extra then what you originally wanted.

[Lil07]

Yes.. Remember, wedding packages grow!! You could start off with a 2 or 4k photography budget, but it can blow out very quickly.. For example, you could have a package with a bound album. Just say that album includes 15 or 20 pages, but theres so many more photos you love.. You can end up paying an extra couple hundred dollars easily per extra page. So take into account when your doing your budget for the photography, that you're always going to want extras. Its up to you to find a photographer that can give you what you need as close to that budget, knowing that you're not going to have to pay 2 or 3k extra then what you originally wanted.

That's exactly what happened to us. We were shown an A3 album with timber cover, at least 50 pages and told this is what you'll get, but they were talking about the 'quality of the pics' apparently, not the album type and page count. Our $4k got us an A5 size album with fabric cover and about 12 pages :(

Sifting through hundreds and hundreds of your wedding photos and having to cull them because each extra page is going to cost you $100 isn't fun :no: