Recently engaged and maybe by this point you’ve secured your venue, so now your date is locked in. How exciting. Having the date and venue secured means the rest of the wedding planning can begin. By this point, maybe you’ve had your eyes on a few specific vendors, or maybe you haven’t looked at anyone until now and you are quickly realizing that there are a lot of vendors to choose from when it comes to all things wedding day. While I can’t speak about everything, I can speak about the photography. This information can mostly be applied to videography as well, but to keep things simple, everything I talk about will be in regards to photography. Also, let me preface by saying that this post is in no way set up to sell you on why you should choose me over anyone else. There are a lot of great photographers out there, I have many photographer friends who I’m happy to recommend. The thing with wedding photography is that there are only so many weddings that we can work, and not many of us desired to fill up a year’s worth of 52 weddings. That said, I will definitely speak on what I do, because, well, this is my blog so it only makes sense, right?
1. STYLE. In my opinion, this is the most important thing when it comes to choosing a wedding photographer. By making style your number one factor when choosing a wedding photographer, this will help you eliminate a big portion of photographers you might be checking out. Photographers’ style span across the board from brightness levels to color hues. This may just be me because I’m a movie fanatic, but let’s say two movies come out about WWII and you want to see one that is more story-driven and not so action-packed. One is directed by Michael Bay, the other by Martin Scorsese. You already know before going to the theater than the Bay film is going to be full of explosions, rich warm/cool hues, and not much of a plotline. You know the movie you will want to see is the Scorsese film because it will be very heavily driven by the story and character development. Even if you aren’t a movie person, you probably know enough to make these assumptions, right? This is just about how easy it will be when deciding on a photographer once you know what style you would prefer. Do you prefer bright/airy or dark/romantic? Do you prefer more of a natural look or a polished look? What about colors? Do you prefer cool or warm images? Do you prefer tightly cropped images or wide-open landscape style images? My style leans a little more toward the dark/romantic, no too dark, but definitely far away from bright/airy. I do like to keep things pretty natural looking but I do edit the images to polish them up a tad. As for colors, I try and keep it pretty balanced leaning just slightly on the warm side. I try not to get too trendy with my images, I like to keep them pretty real feeling as I feel that this style will look great today, 10 years, and 50 years from now.
*TIP* My #1 tip when looking for a photographer is to NOT post on Facebook for referrals. This is the quickest way to stress you out because people love to respond to these posts. Friends you didn’t even know you had will tag photographers. I’ve seen posts like this where photographers who don’t even photograph weddings are tagged. I’ve even seen people respond by saying “I just bought a nice camera last weekend, I’d be happy to shoot your wedding.” While searching Google is hardly any better, you are able to find photographers who suit your needs specifically. Try there first and chances are, you’ll find what you need in a few minutes of searching as opposed to sorting through 95 tagged photographers on Facebook.
2. PERSONALITY. I, personally, work with most of our couples upwards of 1-2 years. My advice when looking for a photographer, pick a number of them that fit your style. Let’s say you pick three. Your next factor, in my opinion, should be to base things on their personality. Part of this includes the way they talk to you, how quick they are to respond to you, and just the overall vibe they give off. Part of this personality can be found on their website or social media. Read their posts, if they have videos, what their content. Hear them talk, do they mesh with you personally? If they do not, chances are working with them 1-2 years is only going to get annoying. It’s not that they aren’t a bad photographer, it’s just that you want to make sure you mesh well together because your photographer is responsible for capturing your love on camera. It’s hard to be real around someone you aren’t really comfortable with. This is partly why I started doing a wedding podcast with my friend, and wedding planner, Katie. By doing a podcast, brides are able to see and hear a little into who I am personally and get to know me even before we chat about their wedding.
That’s Me! 
3. EXPERIENCE. I rank this above pricing, but I don’t necessarily rank this as a determining factor in choosing your photographer because new or 20-years experienced there are good photographers and bad photographers, so experience doesn’t always mean you’ll get a great one. However, experience does ensure that the photographer you are working with is accustomed to weddings. They know what to expect and they are ready for anything. Weddings can be pretty wild. As photographers, we have to remain on our toes to be prepared for anything. I wouldn’t write a photographer off if they are new, but if you are deciding between two photographers who do similar work, have similar personalities, I would recommend considering experience as the tiebreaker. I put experience down because as photographers, we see it all the time, “We have a family member with a good camera who is going to shoot our wedding.” Maybe this is really all you want. However, a lot of times, this is usually because of price and I can’t tell you how many times those same brides wrote me back a year later saying they wish they would have booked me. The camera is literally a small part of wedding photography. The day-of requires so much and the days following with editing and delivery are really the majority of being a wedding photographer.
4. PRICE. I put the price down, not so much as the main priority when choosing a photographer but realizing that it is important to the vast majority of people. I’ve had the honor of photographing weddings ranging from very small budgets where I was the most expensive bill to very high budget weddings where the wedding cost alone was more than my house, in either case, the photography rate was something that was still discussed and one that took time to make the decision. As an avid Dave Ramsey follower, I get sticking with a budget. It’s a smart thing to do. If you have X amount to spend on a wedding, stay within that budget because no matter what, going over your budget or into extreme debt to pay for your wedding will not make even the best photographer on this planet worth it. I would put so much more ahead of the photographer when choosing a wedding photographer, but that’s because I am a wedding photographer. In over 10 years of wedding photographer, I’ve seen a lot. I’ve received a lot of emails from brides who regretted their decision of the photographer chosen. I’m not lying. However, I realize that whether you have a low or high budget for a wedding, price is still important and I understand why. So if the above three items check off for the photographer that you have chosen and you’ve narrowed it down to two, price COULD be the tiebreaker. It doesn’t have to, but it can be. I feel like at this point, if both photographers check off on the top three items above, go with your gut.
Lastly, if you would like more information about wedding planning, as I mentioned in tip #2, I co-host a podcast called, Katie + Steffen: A Wedding Podcast. We are currently in season 2 and we talk about all things weddings. Last year we had a number of guests on to talk about all things from photography, catering, finances, flowers, stationery, favors, counseling, and so much more. This year, we’ll be adding even more to that list. Give us a follow on Facebook and Instagram and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify and/or Youtube.
