9 Essential Questions To Ask When Choosing Your Wedding Photographer
Your wedding day is something going to be very special in your life. To make sure you could see the day unfold perfectly after your wedding, finding the right wedding photographer is the top 3 things on most brides list.
Thanks to Google, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and other online tools, the artistic and timeless wedding photos are easier to find than before. However, there are some wedding industry secrets hiding behind them. Below is a list of the questions for you to ask and choose the right wedding photographer.
1. Image Quantity Matters
As a wedding photographer, this is one of the most questions I have been asked by the brides, “How many photos we could receive after the wedding？”
People always say Quality over Quantity. However, when it comes to capturing the bride’s wedding day, it is not true. Both the Quantity and Quality matters to this once in a lifetime event.
For 8 hours of photography coverage without a second shooter, you may find some photographers offer about 400 images, some more-professional-look photographers have 600 images, and some professionals offer around 1000 images for the couple.
There is a reason why we talk about the numbers here. If a wedding photographer takes less than 100 photos per hour during the shooting, most of the brides may have a doubt about some moments missing when they received the photos.” To be honest, I had been in this type of situations early in my wedding photography career. It is always a lesson I want to share with the couple and other wedding photographers.
2. Business Locations And Operate Hours
There are basically three types of wedding photographers in terms of business locations. The first type, they do everything online-only, all the final productions will be posted to you. The second type, they run the wedding photography business at a co-work place. The third type, they set the studio in a renovated shop or office with fixed business hours. Now, here comes the questions to ask yourself, “who do you think is more trustworthy and provide solid after-wedding-day service “
3. Backup Plan On Your Wedding Day
Backup is always an important topic to cover. Wedding is once in a lifetime opportunity that allows no mistakes. whether your wedding photographer has a backup on your wedding day is crucial. when they are sick, get involved in a car accident or have some other issues to make him unable to attend, it is important to have the backup photographer coming to capture your moments. As a professional wedding photographer, the backup cameras and lenses are essential. The bottom line for photographer’s gear on a wedding needs to include the two pro cameras, two pro lense and one flashlight.
4. How Long Your Wedding Photos Will Be Back-Up
We always suggest the newlyweds bring a portable hard drive to back up everything. It is common to see couples who cannot find the USB disk or hard drive with their wedding files. Check with your photographer to see how long the images he captured will be back up on his end.
5. Experience Counts:
We know experience count for most jobs, but how this works for wedding photographer？ When A wedding photographer says “I have 5 years experience, you can totally trust on me”, it is a bit tricky. Quite a few wedding photographers are doing this job part-time. They have another full-time job during the weekdays. Each year, they captured about 10 to 15 weddings, most likely in the busy seasons while other popular photographers have been booked out. To be regarded as a professional, capturing 40 weddings every year can deliver decent experience and industry trending for wedding photographers.
6. Travelling Fees, Parking Fees and Accommodation Cost
No matter you are organizing a wedding in the CBD, at a place with a few hours driving or a destination wedding in another state. It is always better to figure out who pays the travelling, parking and accommodation cost. To make it simple, always ask your wedding photographer to include these in their package and work out an overall price before you confirmed the booking. Make sure there is no surprise bill after the wedding can really protect you and make your wedding planning smoothly.
7. The Lead Time To See Your Photos
This is basically to ask your wedding photographer, “Are you doing the post-editing overseas or local？” For any wedding photographer who delivers the photos to you more than 2 months, no matter it is a busy season or not, they are either sending the images to overseas for editing or too lazy to do the post-editing work. A 2-4 weeks wait to see the photos after your wedding day is feasible.
8. Pre-Wedding Consultation
No Matter you have already met your wedding photographer or just book him online, I would suggest organizing a consultation with your photographer about 1-2 months prior to your wedding. You could go through the rundown details, discuss your preference and concerns, and know each other a bit better. All these can help you to have a smooth wedding photography experience on the day.
9. Edited Photos or Not
This is a question about how your wedding photos look like. With digital technology improvement, lots of work can be done for post-editing images. When you hire a professional wedding photographer, you pay for capturing images and editing them as well. Confirm with your photographer, what level of editing in their packages.
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