Planning a Wedding Booking the Right Photographer
Planning a Wedding Booking the Right Photographer
Don’t just trust the lowest bidder as your wedding photographer.
When the government looks for a contractor to do a service they put out a notice to all the qualified companies and then asks for bids from them. The lowest qualified bidder gets the job. This may work for the government, but you should not employ this method when you are looking for your wedding photographer.
Just because someone has a nice camera and some experience does not necessarily mean that they will be the right person to take your wedding photos.
Every professional photographer should have a portfolio, which is basically a showcase of his or her work for you to review before making the decision to hire him or her. You should look through the portfolio carefully and ask yourselves some serious questions.
- Do the photos in that portfolio all look like those same cheesy poses but with different couples?
- Do some of the shadowing on the various photos look a little off?
- Do all the pictures look unnaturally posed and a little stiff?
- Do you see all the same themes represented in the portfolio repeatedly?
These sorts of things should clue you off that this may not be the photographer for you, even if he or she is offering to shoot the wedding for a bargain price. On the other hand, if you notice that you really like the poses in the portfolio and the photographer seems to do a great job of capturing a person’s expressions and personality in the photos then you have probably found the right photographer for your wedding. Hopefully this is the same person who is willing to shoot your wedding for a reasonable price!
Make a list of wedding photograph poses you would like ahead of time.
You might have some great ideas for the pictures you want. Maybe you fully intend on getting a generational photo of you with your mother and grandmother, but then when the time comes you may completely forget about this particular pose.
Remember that you will be quite busy on your wedding day, not to mention the emotional high you will be enjoying when you tie the knot with the man of your dreams. With all this going on, how can you possibly be expected to remember all the photographic poses you want?
As with all the other details of your wedding it is best to get everything worked out way ahead of time. Getting an actual list of desired poses together for your photographer not only takes some of the burden off you on your wedding day, but it also prepares the photographer in the event that you have some special requests. For example if your wedding day rolls around and you mention to your photographer for the first time that you would like an outdoor photograph when he or she was only expecting to take indoor photos you may find that the photographer is ill equipped to fulfill your request.
By getting a list of poses to your photographer you will also avoid any awkward moments on your wedding day if the photographer has to take you aside and inform you that you are exceeding your budgeted amount of poses. It is much better to have everything planned out ahead of time so that you have one less detail to worry about on your wedding day.
Get a contract!
Just because the photographer happens to be a friend of your uncle doesn’t mean that you should enter into a business agreement without getting it in writing. You needn’t worry that you will offend your uncle’s pal because as any professional photographer will tell you there should always be a written contract in place.
You never know what might happen… maybe your uncle and his photographer friend have a big dispute the night before your wedding so the photographer decides to be a no-show just to spite your uncle. Or perhaps the photographer decides that printing up all your photos is simply too much work so he will instead give you the film and you can handle it.
Having a written contract in place will ensure that you have legal grounds to seek recourse in the event that the services you paid for are not provided properly. It also protects the photographer in the event that you suddenly have a case of amnesia regarding what services he promised to offer. Getting a contact extends beyond the photographer and should be accomplished with every person providing a service for your wedding and reception. Any professional who is offended by you suggesting a contract is a professional whom you should probably avoid.
A wedding ceremony can be compared a Broadway production. There are all sorts of people who are intricately involved in making everything run smoothly whom the audience never sees. The same goes for your wedding ceremony and reception. The person conducting the ceremony may not get very much attention, but the ceremony wouldn’t happen without his or her presence. I the same way the photographer may stealthily glide in and out of the reception unnoticed, but without them there you won’t have a bunch of great photos to remember the day.
You should attempt to get the very best “supporting cast” for your wedding day as you can, without breaking the bank, of course.
No Comments
Planning a Romantic Wedding
 |