Guest blog provided by Cindy Roth, Cindy Marie Photography
It’s such an exciting time! You are freshly engaged to the love of your life, and you finally get to start planning your perfect wedding day. One of the most important vendors you will hire for your wedding is a photographer. This person will spend most of your wedding day with you and will be capturing some of the most precious memories of your life. Your photographs will be the only thing you get to take away from the day, aside from your amazing new spouse! It’s very important to choose carefully a photographer that aligns with your vision, values, and vibe.
I’ve included a list of 10 important questions to ask your prospective photographer before hiring.
How long have you been a photographer?
This is one of the most important questions to ask any photographer you are considering hiring for your wedding! Your wedding is a once in a lifetime event, and you need to understand if that photographer has the skills and experience to capture it how you envision. There are always a lot of moving parts to a wedding, and seasoned wedding photographers have seen it all. They should know how to “roll with the punches” and adapt to any situation that arises. An experienced photographer will reduce stress levels by having confidence to get their job done well no matter the lighting, weather, timeline, etc.
Another good question to ask is how many weddings they have photographed, and if they will share a couple full wedding galleries with you. Being able to see a sample gallery is really important to understanding how your final gallery will look (and not just the highlights!).
What equipment and personnel do you bring to a wedding?
The camera brand itself is less important than certain features their equipment may have. Do they use digital or film cameras (or both?). If the answer is digital, one of the most important features to make sure your photographer’s camera has is “dual card slots.” This allows a photographer to save your images to two storage cards at once, creating an instant backup. Though it is uncommon, storage cards can become corrupted or broken, lost, etc. and having that initial backup is essential in ensuring your precious memories are safe.
In addition to their main camera equipment, what else do they bring to a wedding? Back up cameras? Alternate lenses for varied imagery? Are you having an indoor or after dark wedding or reception? They may need to bring flash equipment. Will they be bringing an assistant or second photographer to help manage their equipment and/or capture additional camera angles? The overall idea with this question is to make sure your photographer is using professional quality equipment and is ready for any situation that may arise at your wedding.
What’s your approach to creating images and what is your editing style?
Part one of this question will greatly influence your experience of taking photos on your wedding day. Does your prospective photographer have experience posing people? Large groups? Couples? Kids? Having knowledge of posing is essential to creating beautiful imagery. There are different approaches to posing, and it’s important to learn how a photographer prefers to lead it. Do they pose people with a more formal approach or do they give you prompts and activities to help create candid moments? Both are great, their approach just needs to line up with how you want your final images to look.
In addition to the posing aspect, how does this photographer edit those images? Most photographers have a specific style that they edit their body of images in, such as true to life, warm, cool, moody, or light and airy. There are endless editing styles, but as the couple choosing, you need to make sure their main style is what you like! Again, it’s helpful to see a full sample gallery to get a good feel for a photographer’s editing style.
Another important consideration is whether this photographer does retouching or not. Retouching is different from standard editing and generally includes edits like blemish removal, skin softening, fly away hair removal, etc. Some photographers will offer basic retouching in their packages, and some photographers do heavy retouching as standard practice. Know ahead of time what they offer and if that’s what you are looking for.
Are you familiar with our venue?
Although in my opinion it is not essential that a prospective photographer has worked at your venue before, it is definitely helpful if they are at least familiar with it! An experienced photographer will be capable of working with any venue skillfully, but from personal experience, it’s really helpful to have previous experience. If you’re deciding between two photographers, this could be the question that tips the choice towards one or the other.
A tip: If you’ve fallen in love with a photographer but they don’t have previous experience with your venue, ask them to meet you there for a tour before wedding day. You can go over, in person, what you love about the area and if you have any specific spots you’d love to have photographs done at.
What’s your policy on staying later than originally contracted on the wedding day?
Many packages that photographers offer include a set amount of hours of coverage. However, there can be a number of reasons a couple may want to add additional coverage time on the day of the wedding. Sometimes timelines can run behind schedule, the party is extra-fun, the lighting is just too beautiful, etc. Will this prospective photographer be willing to stay late if you want them to? Hiring a photographer with flexibility is really important to make sure all your precious memories will be captured!
Where are you based and do you need to travel to our venue?
Make sure to ask a prospective photographer where they are based and how far they will need to travel to your venue. Some photographers will need to book airfare, hotels, car rentals, etc and may add an additional fee to your package. If you choose a photographer that needs to travel for your wedding, ask what their backup plan is if their travels are interrupted? Ideally they would have an alternate photographer of equal skill that could step in if anything went wrong and your original photographer wasn’t able to make it to your wedding on time.
What happens if you get sick or injured before our wedding?
An important question to protect yourself and your precious memories. A good professional photographer will have many connections in the wedding industry, and ideally would have a backup photographer sent to your wedding if anything prevented them from their contracted services. See what their contract says about this and make sure your interests are protected.
What steps do you take to backup and protect our images before and after delivery?
Okay, your prospective photographer has cameras with dual card slots, but how do they protect your precious images between wedding day and final delivery? The answer should be several forms of back-up. Ideally one of them is cloud storage of some kind, in addition to hard drives. Any professional photographer will take these necessary steps to back up your images.
Another good question to ask ahead of time is how long the photographer keeps edited galleries saved. I’ve had many clients come back to me years after a wedding hoping I still had their image saved and if I could resend them (of course, I did!)
How long will it be until our images will be delivered?
Asking this ahead of time can help avoid future disappointment! Many professional photographers in the US have busy and slow seasons. If your wedding is during their peak busy season, their turnaround time for a full gallery may be many weeks or months away. However, a commonality in the wedding photography industry is offering couple’s a “sneak peek” which includes a few highlight images edited and returned to you in a much shorter time frame. Ask your prospective photographer if this is something they offer! It’s definitely a plus to have a few images to share and cherish while your photographer is lovingly working through the rest of your gallery.
Do you offer albums, prints, etc or only digitals?
An important consideration when looking at prospective photographers is what products they offer once your images have been edited. Some photographers offer prints and albums as part of their packages, or ala carte. If your photographer does not offer these products, do they offer a print release so you can have prints and other keepsakes made elsewhere? How do you imagine displaying your wedding photos? Make sure you’re able to either get that from your photographer or have it created elsewhere.
Bonus: Do you want/like to be a part of the wedding planning process?
Many experienced wedding photographers like to be a part of the timeline planning process. We know how much time it takes to create images, and it’s helpful to add our input to make sure there’s been adequate time allotted to different stages of the day. If you’ve hired a wedding planner, timeline planning is a big part of their job, but your photographer should want to work with your planner to help create a flawless timeline!
Once you’ve gone over this list with a photographer, you should have a pretty good idea if they align with you and your vision for your wedding day! If you’re feeling like they are a good fit, get them booked right away as the best photographers book up early! Feel great knowing you’ve got a rockstar vendor on your team, and someone who will help turn beautiful moments into treasured memories you can look back on for years to come.
This is a guest blog post written by Cindy Roth. All photos in this post were taken at Field Arts & Events Hall by Cindy Marie Photography during the 2024 wedding celebration for Jonathon & Jessica.
