Choosing a wedding photographer is one of the biggest decisions you'll make for your wedding day. When the wedding day is over your photos will last as a lifetime long reminder of the memories you made on your big day. So, when you're in the booking stage and doing all of the initial meetings and phone calls you want to be prepared! These are some of the most important questions you'll want to ask your potential wedding photographers.
And I'm sharing my answers to these questions too, because why not?
1. What is included in your packages / collections? Every photographer has a different approach when constructing their wedding collections. They may include anything from hours of a coverage, multiple photographers, prints, and album, and more! This is a great starting point so you know exactly what you are getting when you book with them.
My photography collections vary, but my most popular includes 8 hours of coverage by myself and a second photographer, an engagement session, unlimited digital downloads of a minimum of 500 images, a custom USB drive and 4x6 photo box, and a $250.00 gift card to spend on anything in my print shop: including albums, prints, and more! I also have a 4 hour collection, 10 hour collection, and design custom collections.
2. Can we meet you beforehand? Your photographer is going to be with you for a huge portion of your day - you want to make sure you get along! Meeting beforehand is the best tell of how your wedding day will go. If you're meeting for your engagement session, that will also be a great trial run to working together. I highly recommend opting for an engagement session for this exact reason. But, if you're deciding against an engagement session you can always meet for something like a coffee date!
You can absolutely meet me before your wedding day! I offer an engagement session with all of my full day wedding collections. I can also schedule coffee dates and venue walk throughs. Availability varies on the time of year.
3. Can we see a full gallery? Social media and website's are a great look into the work of your wedding photographer: but they're definitely a highlight reel! Seeing a full gallery will be the best representation of your photographers work. While two galleries won't ever be the same, asking for a gallery similar to what you're expecting of your wedding: beach wedding, summer wedding, fall wedding, etc. will give you a great visual.
I'm always happy to send over full galleries and try to send those that are as similar to what you're envisioning for your day as possible! I also blog a ton of my weddings and my blog posts give a bit of a deeper insight than what I post on social media.
4. Do you carry backup equipment? Technology is an amazing thing, but unfortunately nothing is completely foolproof. On a day as an important as a wedding day, you want to make sure your photographer has a backup plan.
I personally carry a full set of backup equipment: backup camera, multiple lenses, SD cards, batteries, and a spare flash. I also hire second photographer's who do the same.
5. What is your backup system for images? As we've established, technology errors can happen. The best defense against data loss is a good backup system.
On wedding days, I record my images to two cards simultaneously, so if something happens to one card I have the second as a backup. I also change these cards out throughout the day so the entire wedding day isn't resting on just one SD card. By the Monday after the wedding, I backup these SD cards to my hard drive, which saves a physical copy and backs up to a digital cloud service. By this point, the wedding images are backed up to three places and they stay that way until the gallery is fully edited and delivered. After the gallery is delivered I format the SD cards for future weddings, and the images stay in two places: my hard drive and cloud storage indefinitely.
6. How would you describe your style and approach to wedding days? This question is a great one to ask to give your photographer the space to describe their wedding day approach and style in their own words. Their answer will tell you a lot about what you can expect not only on your wedding day but from your final images! This questions is a great tell on if they will be the right fit for what you are envisioning.
I would describe my style as a mix of candid and editorial. With over 8 years of both wedding and fashion photography experience I am extremely comfortable with posing, and during the formal portraits section of the day I am very vocal and directional with posing. Outside of that section of the day, I may make small adjustments like asking you to move into better lighting, removing obstructions from the frame, etc. but for the most part I aim to capture things as they are happening. I would describe my style as film inspired with true toned but muted colors. Always up for a good moody vibe.
7. What is your average gallery delivery time? Like the different collections photographers offer and approaches they take to wedding days: gallery delivery times vary as well. I know of photographer's who deliver in four weeks, and I know of photographers who deliver their galleries within ten to twelve months. That's quite a big gap! Whether you'd like your images back quickly or are okay riding out the wait while your photographer works their magic, this is an important exception to set from the beginning so you know the next steps following your wedding day.
I deliver a preview gallery within two weeks and the final gallery within eight weeks.
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