Coosing your Wedding Photographer

One of the bigger expenses when it comes to weddings is the photographer.  What is the best way to make sure you get the right photographer?  What if you just can’t afford the average £900 fee?

Just a simple search into Google will throw up lists of wedding photographers; there are plenty out there vying for your business.  That means it is your call and they are vying for your business. 

Expensive photographers aren’t necessarily the best; they probably have more experience which is why they can afford to charge more – it doesn’t mean that the guy who charges £200 won’t do a good job. 

The first thing to look at is the photographer’s portfolio.  Have they got really experience of weddings?  Do you like the photographs they have?  Is there a big selection or have they only got photographs of one or two weddings?  If they are charging £900 or more they should be able to show you examples from at least 5 weddings.

Then look at their prices.  What is your budget and does it fit?  More importantly will they charge you more if you they go over their time frame?  What is their policy on prints?

This is an important one.  Some photographers will keep hold of the prints and give you a contact sheet to choose images from.  This might be fine if you want a small selection but what if you want to do reprints yourself?  What if you want to distribute some images to friends and family?  It could end up costing thousands – so make sure within your package a CD of all the images are available so you can reprint for less.

If you have a very tight budget, why not target newer photographers and even students? Some are very talented but may not be used to the pressure – therefore, hire two or three student photographers.  You can expect to pay a fee of around £100 each for the day and the cost of a CD.  It means they also have some images for their portfolio and you will get 2 or 3 perspectives and their pressure is shared. 

You can also buy 100 disposable cameras and give each person one as they enter the venue – everyone takes photographs and these are dropped into a bag as they leave and you will have 100 perspectives of your wedding – all the things you missed!

 

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