FIND YOUR PERFECT WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER
Hey Allen - thanks for the guide - really useful and good to have some guidance for something I've never done before. Rachel B
But WHY?
WHY does finding the "RIGHT" wedding photographer matter?
Surely you can just "Google" and pick someone.
Or ask a friend who got married.
Or get onto Facebook and find someone there.
Or post a job on a Wedding Website.
Ok - yes there are countless ways to find a Wedding photographer - but here's 5 resons why it's SO IMPORTANT to find "THE RIGHT" one for you.....
1) Your wedding is THE most special day - you're entrusting the person you choose to give you photographs that you'll look at for the rest of your life.
2) STYLE - who are you? Do you like fun photos, more serious traditional photos, black and white, ??
3) PRICE - everyone (even a princess) has a budget and you want the best photographer within your budget
4) PERSONALITY - of course it's about the photos but do you really want a grumpy, bossy, inconsiderate person with you for 10 hours on your wedding day?
5) RELIABILITY - you may choose a really great photographer - someone whose won awards and competitions - but do you want to wait 6 months for your photos? Do you want to have to send countless emails chasing everything?
So who am I to tell you how to find the perfect wedding photographer?
OK, really quick.... (don't want to bore you!)
Qualified Associate Member of The Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers (about 60 in the whole country)
Won awards
Won competitions
Featured regularly in Wedding magazines
Photographed over 150 weddings since 2013
And I've learnt a lot which allows me to pass onto you the 5 steps to find your perfect wedding photographer.
Let me first suggest that you DOWNLOAD the PDF I've written.
We're all so busy and now may not be the best time for you to go through this - and you know you'll never find this page again!
So JUST CLICK HERE - pop in your email and I'll send my PDF to you immediately. (and I promise no pestering unwanted emails and there's NO WAY I'll give your details to anyone else)
Go on....
It's HERE
So what's the problem?
Think about it - you go to the venue and select the one that you like best. You've seen it - been there - you KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GETTING
You go to 3 wedding dress shops - you try on goodness knows how many dresses until one says "It's ME!" You buy it - you KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GETTING
You visit several cakes makers - they show you cakes - you taste them - one of them talks your language and tastes amazing - you book them. You KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GETTING
The photographer - you see their photos - you see some reviews - they explain what they'll do. You book them.
You HAVE NO IDEA what photos or service you'll actually get of your precious day.
Maybe they only showed you their very best photos where they got lucky. Maybe they excell at church weddings but yours is a country wedding venue and they're not so good at those. Maybe the reviews were done by friends. There's so much that could go wrong as you have to rely on their word, on history and heresay and hope you all get along fine on the day.
Please - don't think that us photographers are in any way unprofessional.
Most are totally honest and do their very best on your day. But you see the difference.
Another issue is that us photographers are more artist than business people and we don't usually have a marketing department, or someone to do admin. We do everything and that can lead to problems....
The other issue is WHERE - where do you actually look for a photographer?
Google - ok so type in "wedding photographer" and you'll get stuff from all over the world. Change that to "wedding photographer suffolk" and that's better - some ads and photographers closer to you. But all they show you are lovely photos!
Oh and please fill in this form with all the details of your wedding and I'll get back to you sometime with a price. Arrgg
And it's a similar story everywhere - Hitched - Brides - WeddingPlanner.....
And then there's you.
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
WHAT IS YOUR BUDGET?
WHAT'S AVAILABLE?
So let me begin by explaining the TRUTH ABOUT WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY
There's a huge range of people who call themselves Wedding Photographers. From the occasional wedding for a friend or family through to World reknown destination photographers. Prices from free to tens of thousands of pounds (seriously I know Brett who's top package is £16k)
There's photographers with a team of assistants and 4 cameras and 10 lenses to the guy with a small camera and a single zoom lens.
The normal route for Wedding Photographers is starting out photographing friends/family weddings for free or working with an establsihed photographer as a 2nd shooter. There's NO school, no classes, and few qualifications. (The SWPP or APP are the only ones in UK offering qualifications) Oh and you'd be shocked by just how little a Photography "A" level or college course teaches about "real" photography!
So we wedding photographers have no choice but to wing it for the most part until we've learnt enough to start to have some confidence that we know what we're doing.
We then have to build a website, start an Instagram feed, get a Facebook page, and gradually acquire camaras and lenses etc. that allow us to improve our photography still further.
We can now maybe do some advertising for new clients.
We want to get experience so there's no choice but to start with lowish prices that will not be an obstacle to getting bookings. The downside is that the couples with very low budgets are also those whose wedding is at a registry office (I don't have a problem with that honest!) and a quick meal at a local pub afterwards. This means limited exposure to great venues, church weddings with hundreds of guests and country mansion weddings.
So it's a slow uphill struggle to slowly get to photograph more upmarket weddings at more prestigous venues and to raise prices.
A report by SWPP a while ago showed that nearly 80% of "wedding photographers" won't be around in 2 years time!
DO YOU WANT TO BOOK SOMEONE WHOSE USING YOU SIMPLY TO GET EXPERIENCE?