Wedding Photography

Sorry it has been so long since my last post, but life is busy, busy, busy. Since I posted last, I have made a lot of progress on the wedding planning front but I want to focus on photography because this was the second thing I booked after my venue (with 14 months to go until the wedding!). To me personally, the photographer was one of my top priorities. I knew when the FI and I started our budget planning, that I would be willing to allocate a significant portion (15-20%) of our budget for the photographer. I feel that the pictures are one of the tangible things that you can use to look back on your wedding day. I know it's sort of out of style now, but I like the idea of having a wedding album on my coffee table to remember the day by and to have pictures to show my children and grandchildren some day. I will do a couple of posts about wedding photography and this first one will focus on only a couple of things to consider when picking a photographer.

Price: Not everyone will feel the way I did about hiring a photographer in regards to money. As with every aspect of your wedding I would suggest you have a budget in place before you look for a photographer. Make sure whoever is paying for it (your family, the FI and you, etc) is on board with the cost. One person may feel that it is super important to spend a large chunk of the budget on photography while the other person want to spend it on something else, i.e the bar. Photographers, in my experience, can range from $1,000-$6,500+ for a entire evening of service. Every photographer has difference packages that offer different services and products. Make sure that when you are comparing prices between photographers you are comparing apples to apples. So make a list of what each of the photographer packages includes and try to match the packages from photographer to photographer and then see how the prices compare.

Credit: www.greenweddingconsortium.com

Photography Style: Everyone likes a different photography style. I would say the "trendy" photography style right now is photojournalistic. This approach to photography is more about capturing moments as they happen throughout the wedding than having posed portraits. This is the style that appealed to me when I started looking, and the one we ultimately chose. The photographer will be more hands-off and sort of let things happen and just capture the moments.When looking for a photographer to shoot in this style, it is best if they have had previous experience in photojournalism or at least have been shooting in this style for a long time.

Credit: murakamiphotography.blogspot.com

The second most common wedding photography style is traditional. This style is the kind that was favored for a long time (and still preferred among many parents) and is focused more on portraits and posed wedding pictures. The photographer will have more control and will be more directional when taking the photographs. Photographers may even do some post-shoot editing to add filters or soften the edges of the pictures to give it a hazy sort of feel. In talking to my photographer, she finds that most parents or grandparents expect at least some portion of the photography to be taken this way. Another thing to consider depending on who is pay for what.

Credit: www.shaunringphotography.com

Another type of photography s style is artistic. In this case the photographer has full creative license to take pictures in a unique and sometimes unusual way. There is usually no posed or pre-planned pictures.The idea is that they will capture the special moments but also new perspectives that most wedding photographers wouldn't go for. Most people who want this type of photography will know it far in advance and they may have to spend a little more time looking for the right photographer, as this is a less common wedding style.

Customer Reviews: I am a big fan of customer reviews for everything. I think people usually give honest opinions about the service they receive and they can tell me a lot about what to expect from a vendor. I would suggest doing a lot of research before you meet or contact a potential photographer. Once you narrow them down by price and style, I would look at reviews by previous brides about potential photographers. Don't just take the reviews from the photographers website but do some digging and see if you can turn up any negative reviews. Take every review with a grain of salt and remember sometimes people post overly positive or negative reviews for whatever reason. Just trust your gut instinct.

After you do these things and have some potential photographers to call up, there are a few questions you should ask when you set up a meeting or send your first e-mail.I will make those questions the topic of my next post. What is your photography style for your wedding going to be? Do you already have a photographer picked out? Leave some comments below and as always, happy planning!