Hi brides! just to figure it out an guide you about wedding pricing, a good photographer offering the best for get the best has to, at least for your wedding and been one photographer full equipped, note! I am not pretend to teach you about financial or administrative stuff and won’t go deeper in this: Photo equipment (Cameras, lenses, flashes, radio triggers) around $16,000USD, Post processing equipment (Computers, screens, storage devices, etc) $10,000USD, So having at least $26,000USD not mentioning other basic tools for moving, accommodations, food, traveling, continuos learning, etc, this for your wedding may be not enough for a high end quality service, so think twice on what is really inexpensive and the difference between inexpensive and “cheap”
Experience level, be sure the photographer has shot all the weddings he/she is showing as his own, not as second or third photographer, as well as paid wedding not for hobby or fun; for references, his/her galleries and ask for and specific client instead the photographer choose what reference will give you.
Photography Style, be sure that you really like her/him work or style, does he do the same all the time or he/she looks for different and creative work? Be careful I love to always challenge myself and do new things using different s angles and more!.
Truth, is the photographer the same one that will shoot your wedding? Or will send you another photographer without advice? If he/she offers a second photographer, is this 2nd photographer a real photographer? Be careful when compare photographers some offer just students or photography learners to be the second photographer and in most cases they does not use the second photographer pictures, so you may not be comparing apple to apple.
Personality, there must be a “click” with your photographer personality and yours, if there is not “click” just look for another photographer, this is simple, your photographer will be your best bet during your wedding, you wouldn’t want a non friendly or not kind person, be aware of how they can act sending emails and phone calls, whenever possible meet him/her at least a phone call may work, this may give you a best idea of what you will expect.
Price – we all know that a bride that really cares about photography the last thing she want to do is shop by price, is this photographer within your budget? Make sure you understand what everything costs, including reprints and albums, prints are quite cheap for them as well as albums and quality of each type may vary so much that you may be getting less for more even if you do not get any print. Also it not the same “all images edited” than “some edited” edition costs a lot of time and falls on delivery time, so one week of delivery time may means a poor quality work.
The most important is to have the best pictures ever, you will not remember after some years how was your wedding, as human we tend to forget little by little what we used to remember.
Equipment, ask your photographer to tell you what equipment he/she got, how many lenses and kind of lenses, how does he backup your pictures after the wedding and what are the storage media where he /she pretends to backup, is this system redundant? What equipment does he/she use to post process all the pictures? If possible ask him to send you a picture.
Some interesting link you should take a look before hiring a photographer:
Saludos!
Ivan!
