The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers
You’re here to find The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers, so fear not buddy, I’ve got all the details and reasons why my list is the absolute best questions to ask wedding photographers!
First comes love, then comes engagement, then comes stressing over planning the perfect wedding and having no idea where to start. What! You mean I have to have a list of the top 10 questions to ask wedding photographers during all this planning, too? Yep! It’ll be super helpful, I promise. You have so many things on your plate, and wondering if you made the right choice about your wedding photographer doesn’t need to be one of them with my handy dandy list of questions to ask wedding photographers! Because real talk, planning a wedding gives you way too many options and it can get overwhelming real fast. Do you choose the light and airy photographer who’s images are bright with cooler natural tones or the dark and moody photographer who likes deep shadows and rich, warm tones? Do you pick someone who’s experienced with weddings or do you choose someone who’s new and looking to get their feet wet in the wedding industry? Do you really need a second shooter? Is there travel and stay over fees for your photographer? Do you pick someone who shoots and edits in a traditional way or go with the trendy photographer that’s always trying out the newest fad in posing and editing? AHHH it’s too much, it’s too MUCH. Fear not engaged friend! I am here to help you with an important aspect of your wedding planning, to ease your busy brain and take one more task off of your plate for ya by telling you The Right Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers in your search for the wedding photographer of your dreams.
Figuring out the right questions to ask wedding photographers can be really overwhelming, right? Like you signed up to get married and drink coffee in bed on Sundays with the love of your life, but suddenly you’re inspected to be a professional interviewer and know all these things to discuss with wedding photographers and then decide which one you should hire. There’s a good chance this is your first time planning a wedding for yourself so it’s not like you’re super experienced as a professional wedding photographer interviewer, right? Or maybe you HAVE been married before but there’s a reason you’re not using your previous wedding photographer, and instead are choosing to really vet these folks before you hire them for your wedding. Don’t stress boo. I have compiled, JUST FOR YOU, a beautifully concise list of The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers that you can take with you to any in-person or virtual meeting when chatting with the wedding photographer who might actually be THE ONE. Unfortunately there’s only time for a few dates before you pop the big question, “Will you be my wedding photographer?!” so you gotta do some heavy hitting digging and question asking on the first date. Harsh, I know, but this is the reality of wedding photography and we are used to answering all the questions on the first date, so don’t sweat it.
#1. The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers
Ask about their gear + equipment.
Does the photographer have backup camera bodies and lenses?
#1. Do they have backup camera bodies and lenses? The top 10 questions to ask your wedding photographer starts with the most basic of necessities; their camera! Wedding photographer’s usually have a good bit of gear, but it shouldn’t be taken for granted that they will have all the gear that I personally feel every wedding photographer should have. Your wedding photographer should have a back-up camera body, absolutely and without question. “That seems a little bit dramatic” you may be thinking. It is, but it’s totally a necessity. Dream with me for a second and picture this incredibly dramatic scenario where a wedding photographer would need a second camera body. There you are, looking like a wistful snack in a glowing meadow at sunset, standing with a beautiful horse that lives on the rustic farm venue where you’re getting married. You get to take pictures with this glorious stead and your dreams of submitting a photo to be on the cover of a romantic novel is finally coming into fruition. This. Is. It. BUT WAIT! Oh NO! The horse got spooked, it’s going crazy! The wedding photographer pushes you out of the way to ensure you don’t get hurt, but in the process the horse bucks and kicks like crazy! The wedding photographer get’s in it’s line of fire and WHAM!.. The horse donkey kicks (horse kicks?) the camera in the wedding photographer’s hand and smashes it to bits. NO MORE PHOTOGRAPHY FOR YOU. On a more realistic and less soap-opera note, cameras can get damaged so easily, no matter how careful we as wedding photographers try to be. I can often be caught photographing a bridal couple from odd places, climbing up sides of mountains, crossing through rivers to get to the right place for the perfect shot, photographing in extreme places.. It’s one of the fun parts of the job, but that means our cameras and tools are at a higher risk of damage. Once during an elopement I had a lens fall out of my fanny pack and bounce down a cliff and almost fall into a waterfall. True story. I was able to recover it, but fortunately I had extra lenses to do what I needed in the moment and I was able to recover the lens later. Heck, I’ve spoken to photographers before that put their camera down for a hot second and had a child grab it and drop it, breaking their camera. Yikes. Even if you’re having a super relaxed, totally not adventurous wedding, you should still consider finding someone who has backups for all of their equipment. Cameras are equipment that is susceptible to damage but also just break sometimes. Every camera has parts that will eventually go up and need to be repaired, and you for sure don’t want that to be in the middle of your wedding with a photographer who doesn’t have a back-up camera body.
#2. The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers
What kind of lighting do they shoot with?
Is the wedding photographer strictly natural light or also off camera flash users?
#2. What kind of lighting do they shoot with? The second on the list of the top 10 questions to ask wedding photographers is sort of a continuation of the gear question but with a bit if a twist. Natural light photographers are plentiful, and that’s because natural light photography is beautiful, fun and usually simpler than studio and off camera lighting systems. I use a ton of natural light in my photography work, so please don’t think I’m snubbing the magical light that our wonderful sun provides us for your wedding photos! I do feel it is important, however, to consider whether your venue, the location, time and season of your wedding will be conducive to exclusively natural light photography. A photographer that is familiar with off camera flash is a HUGE game changer for wedding photography. To capture a gorgeous sunset while having your subjects well lit, off camera flash is a must for even lighting and a magical final photo. To have great lighting that really helps your subjects stand out from the dark indoor environment of many of these amazing moody mansions and castles that we love for wedding venues, some sort of flash is key in achieving
#3. The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers
Who does the editing?
Does the wedding photographer outsource their editing or do their own editing?
#3. Does your wedding photographer outsource their editing or do their own editing? This is a great question to ask wedding photographers that I think most brides or grooms wouldn’t consider. It seems strange to think that a photographer wouldn’t do their own editing, but it isn’t strange at all in the photography industry. Many photographers find that they simply don’t have enough time to do all the shooting, interactions, paperwork and still get their editing done in a timely manner. Some wedding photographers simply love shooting weddings but can’t sit still long enough to do the editing. Whatever the wedding photographer’s reason, outsourcing is a totally valid way to get editing done, but it comes with some caveats that need to be discussed. If a wedding photographer always uses the same outsource editor for their photos, their portfolio and therefor your gallery will likely be consistent, which is what you want! After all, one of the main reasons you hired your wedding photographer is probably for the quality and style of their wedding images. However, some wedding photographers may do some of their editing while outsourcing some of it, outsourcing all of it but using different editors, and this can lead to the gallery you receive not being completely
consistent with their portfolio that you fell in love with. Even if the gallery is consistent, if you have a wedding photographer that doesn’t do their own editing but only outsources, you may find that the editing they pay for doesn’t cover certain things, like that pimple on your chin that showed up the day before your wedding and haunts every photo in your gallery. When your wedding photographer does their own editing, you can discuss what their basic editing covers and what will incur and extra charge before you hire them, so you don’t have to worry about being hit with additional editing fees later. That brings me to my next question to ask wedding photographers!
#4. The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers
Editing.
What does the wedding photographer include in their editing?
#4. What their editing includes. Some photographers deliver a high volume of images with basic edits. Basic edits usually means cropping and adjustment of things like color, contrast, exposure, etc. Though it seems simply, there is a LOT of magic that happens just by adjusting the right recipe of all these basic toggles. Some wedding photographers deliver very few images but each is artistically edited. That likely means eyes are brightened, teeth whitened, skin smoothed, every blemish removed, the whole shebang! I myself am a high volume “basic edit” wedding photographer with a few perks! If the bride or groom have a pimple or two that they want removed, I’m happy to do that on each photo without charging an additional fee. When it comes to sneaky zits, I edit them before I even deliver the gallery so my couples never need to ask me to eradicate their pesky uninvited guests (pimples, that is). I’ve been the victim of a giant pimple on an important day and I say NO MORE to these joy stealing pimples, so it’s something I feel should be considered a part of my basic editing when it comes to wedding clientele. The additional perk I offer is really more of an artistic expression and surprise for my clients when the opportunity presents itself. Of course in dream land, there would never be anything distracting in the background of any photos, but as I
said, you can dream but it’s not going to happen. I’m not one to think that guests in the background of photos are worthy of being labeled “distractions”, because really the guests are a huge part of what makes the wedding day so special! But sometimes there is just a shining gem of a photo that needs a little bit of extra mining to get to. As an example, see the before and after image below! You can see I not only edited out the guests in the background, but the removed the windows and exit sign to darken the background to really make this couple stand out, as well as removed the bright glare from the DJ’s lighting to prevent the eye being drawn to the floor rather than to the love birds during their first dance. When I was going through the unedited photos I just loved this moment they were having and felt I could really take this image from a photo to a piece of art and I absolutely love how it turned out. If something like the image below being transformed is something that might be important to you, ask wedding photographers you chat with if they are skilled with Photoshop. Even if a wedding photographer doesn’t include this type of editing in their packages or include it as a gift, most wedding photographer’s will do dramatic editing on images for a flat fee per image.
#5. The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers
Ask about their gear + equipment.
Does the photographer have backup camera bodies and lenses?
#5. What is their in-case-of-emergency plan? This is a big one, kids. Number five on the the top 10 questions to ask wedding photographers would be what will they do if they have a family emergency, accident, injury or illness that prevents them from photographing your wedding. Professional photographers should have back up plans to cover any disasters because let’s face it, a refund and zero wedding coverage doesn’t really feel like a good resolution, does it? Sure you don’t have to pay for the photographer, but that’s because they weren’t there, and now your special day you’ve invested time and money into is going to truly just be in your memory because you don’t have those gorgeous photos to look back on for the rest of your life. You get to be the judge of whether or not their back-up plan feels good to you, but I’ll tell you what I have in place for my just-in-case scenarios. I have an associate photographer who works exclusively with me as my second shooter. She is trained and experienced to shoot in my style, and coincidentally we have very similar personalities, so I feel she would vibe with any clients that vibe with me! In the event I have a true injury, illness or emergency where I am physically incapable of
shooting a wedding, my amazingly talented associate would take over for me and deliver the images to me to complete with my signature editing style. Many wedding photographers are friends with other wedding photographers and will send work each other’s way and cover for each other in emergencies. Don’t feel shy about asking your potential wedding photographer what plan they have in place in the event of emergencies.
#6. The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers
Liability insurance.
Does the wedding photographer have liability insurance?
#6. Do they have liability insurance? This is a good technical question to ask wedding photographers, especially if you haven’t booked a venue yet. Many venues require liability insurance for all of their vendors, and it really is something you’re going to want your wedding photographer to have. You might be thinking, WHY is this a question to ask wedding photographers? Well, In the event an accident were to happen involving your wedding photographer, it’s important that they have liability insurance to handle any claims so YOU or your venue are not liable to be sued. Nothing puts a damper on your wedding experience like being taken to court (I would imagine). Any true professional photographer will be a legal functioning business that pays taxes and has insurance, so don’t feel shy about asking your wedding photographer for proof of coverage.
#7. The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers
How do they protect your photos?
Ask if they have an intense back up system to prevent loss of photos.
#7. How do they protect and back-up your photos to prevent loss? Big one, here. Like, huge. Choose someone who takes this hella seriously. How do they protect the images to ensure your precious wedding photos aren’t loss, because there is no re-dos or re-takes for your wedding day. I personally know a few sad, sorry souls who had a wedding photographer that lost all their wedding photos. Yup, all of them. To avoid this tragedy and self inflicted drama, I take a few very important precautions to make sure this doesn’t ever happen to any of my wedding clients. My camera (and my back-up camera body) have two slots for SD memory cards, where one card acts as an exact back-up copy. In the event that one of the cards were to get lost, dropped in a puddle, stepped on or the like, I know I have a second card with all the exact images on it in the RAW format I use for editing. I find getting large memory cards and changing them less frequently feels too much like putting all my eggs in one basket, so to speak, so I purposefully choose smaller memory cards that I know I will be changing out frequently. This way I have separate parts of the wedding on different cards to prevent losing ONE card, therefor losing the WHOLE wedding. Once I’ve filled a card, or I
am changing it as we transition into a new portion of your wedding day, I put them in a special shock proof, water proof and padded case especially made to protect SD cards. I put my main cards in one case and my back-up cards in another case, so even if one case gets stolen or lost, I have a second case with all the same digital information. SERIOUSLY, I take this really seriously. Once the wedding is over I download the SD card content onto my computer as well as an additional external hard-drive. From here, BackBlaze copies and stores all the files from my computer and hard-drive onto a sort of internet cloud, so in the event of my external hard-drive, computer AND SD cards all being stolen or damaged, I have all those images kept in a cloud. I keep my RAW and edited images from weddings forever, so in the event that your images are lost and you don’t have a cloud back-up, I got you!
#8. The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers
Cancellation policy.
What is their cancellation policy like? Is there a covid clause?
#8. Ask them about their cancellation policy. This is a big one on the top 10 questions to ask wedding photographers because you never know what could happen. A venue could flood the night before your wedding, there could be a category 5 hurricane, there could be a global pandemic (ahem). Every wedding photographer should have their cancellation policy clearly laid out in their contract, especially now that we have experienced so many weddings being post-poned, rescheduled or cancelled due to COVID-19. In the event of your wedding being post-poned, will your photographer stick with you until you’re able to get your wedding scheduled again? If you need to move the date to the following year, does your wedding photographer’s contract allow reschedules? If you decide to ditch the big wedding and go for a small elopement, does your deposit transfer to cover an elopement package with your wedding photographer? This is an important question to ask your wedding photographer.
#9. The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers
Engagement session.
Does the wedding photographer offer engagement sessions?
#9. Ask if their package includes an engagement session. Engagement sessions are so important in my opinion, I include them in most of my wedding packages. Often couples will get an engagement session done before they start planning their wedding, then feel like, eh, I don’t need another engagement session, we already did that. You may not NEED another engagement session, but you totally WANT an engagement session with your wedding photographer, and here is why. It gives you an opportunity to really get to know your wedding photographer, and for your wedding photographer to get to know you individually and ask a couple. You will be spending such a hugely important day together, and you should feel like a friend arrived when the wedding photographer shows up. That isn’t likely to happen if you don’t spend any time together prior to your wedding day. Consider it a follow up date to your first date/consultation. Second, the engagement session is an amazing time to practice posing with no pressure. If you’ve never dipped or been dipped by your partner, it doesn’t always come naturally and can take some practice to get it right. Your wedding day isn’t a great time to practice and do a pose 15 times in order to get it right, so the engagement session is the ideal time to work out all the kinks in the posing and get you comfortable in
front of your wedding photographer’s camera. The third bonus to an engagement session is having nice photos of you and your partner that stylistically match your wedding photos. Engagement photos are wonderful to have printed at your wedding, to go on save-the-dates or thank you cards, to be used on your wedding website or really whatever cool ideas you have for them! You really can’t have too many amazing professional photos of you and your sweet love together!
#10. The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers
#10. The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers
Ask about expected delivery time.
When can you expect to get your final gallery delivered?
#10. When can you expect to get your final gallery delivered after the wedding? Some wedding photographers will get your gallery to you lighting fast in as little as 30 days, while other high volume wedding photographers may stipulate in their contract that they have up to 12 months from your wedding date before they are contractually obligated to get your final wedding gallery to you. While there is no right or wrong answer as far as a professional photographer goes, there is a right answer for you! You need to ask yourself if you are willing to wait 6 months or a year before you get your gallery. Ask the wedding photographer what their typical turn around time for galleries looks like as well as what guaranteed turnaround time for gallery delivery is stipulated in their contract. Also it might be good to ask what their plan is to deliver the gallery in a timely manner in the event that they have an illness, emergency, sudden life change, etc. that prevents them from getting your gallery to you in time. My contract stipulates that in the event of an emergency, I have a few more months to deliver and still be on time, and if I find it necessary, client agrees that I can outsource my editing to get them their gallery on time.
The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers
This one is for you!
Do you like the wedding photographer on a personal level?
A final important thing to ponder! This isn’t a question to ask wedding photographers, it’s for you, boo! Each consultation or meeting with a wedding photographer is like a date. Speed-dating, I bet you didn’t think you’d be doing that to prepare for your wedding, did you? Ask yourself this question about your potential wedding photographer; Do you vibe? This may seem un-important, but hear me out. I’m not saying you should hire a friend with a nice cell phone camera simply because friendship is important in your wedding photographer, but there is way too many talented photographer’s to choose from for you to pick someone who you don’t enjoy being around. For real! Your wedding day is arguably one of the most anticipated and prepared days of your life. Like, your wedding really is a super duper big deal. Your photographer will be following you around basically the entire day! Your wedding photographer will likely help you tie your tie or adjust your boob-tape. I’m serious when I say the photographer is with you more than anyone else through-out your wedding day. Before you do your first look, before you walk down the aisle, before you enter your reception, during all the private moments you want captured, your wedding photographer will be there like a puppy trailing and admiring every thing you do. If you vibe with your photographer, enjoy their company and feel comfortable around them, the realization that they will be by your side from start to finish is great news! If you find your personalities don’t mesh, your wedding photographer’s energy level doesn’t meld well with yours, your wedding photographer is too uptight or too relaxed, it really can make your wedding day more stressful, and I promise that no wedding photographer wants to make your day stressful! As a wedding photographer, I want my clients to feel relaxed, happy and excited about their wedding day, and I want to be part of the reason why they feel that way! Also, go here to snoop my photographer-to-client dating profile
-BONUS ADVICE-
The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers
Bonus Advice! Find yourself a servant-hearted, humble photographer. This is bonus advice because it’s simply a piece of advice from my heart to yours, simply something that I find to be a joy when working with any type of business or vendor. In any profession we can find people who feel like when they walk in the room, the talent has arrived and if everyone would just acknowledge their majesty and cater to them and their needs, things would go smoothly, kthanxbye. Find yourself a wedding photographer who is ready to serve you in any capacity. The kind of photographer who is willing to put the camera down for a moment when you’re feeling overwhelmed and ask what you need. Maybe it’s a snack, a hug, to speak to your Mom, to just have a moment without a camera in your face. Find yourself a wedding photographer who knows how to balance their vision, style and professionalism with giving you what you want and need throughout your day. If you can find a photographer that has great answers to all these questions and is also humble and servant-hearted, snatch them up before your date is booked because this photographer will make your day absolutely fantastic.
Does their Did you scroll all the way to the bottom of this page to get the list of questions without all the reading? I feel ya, time is precious, so grab this list of the top 10 questions to ask wedding photographers and start speed-dating!
TL;DR, here is your compact easy list of The Top 10 Questions To Ask Wedding Photographers to take with you to all consults and meetings with your potential wedding photographer!
#1 Ask about their gear- do they have backup camera bodies and lenses?
#2 What kind of lighting do they shoot with? Are they strictly natural light or also off camera flash users?
#3 does your wedding photographer outsource their editing or do their own editing?
#4 What does their editing include?
#5 What is their in-case-of-emergency plan if they can’t make it to your wedding?
#6 If they have liability insurance?
#7 How do they protect and back-up your photos to prevent loss?
#8 Ask them about their cancellation policy.
#9 Does their package include an engagement session?
#10 When can you expect to get your final gallery?
A question for yourself! Do you and the wedding photographer vibe?
Bonus advice! Find yourself a servant-hearted wedding photographer.
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