Photography & Video
How to choose a wedding photographer, and the questions to ask
Choosing a photographer is done almost entirely from portfolios, and a portfolio is the wrong document to choose from. It is a selection of the best frames from years of weddings, in the best light, at the best venues, and every working photographer has one that looks good.
What you actually need to know is what arrives in your inbox eight weeks after an ordinary Saturday. That is knowable, it takes one request, and hardly anybody makes it.
The request that tells you most
Ask to see two or three complete galleries from real weddings, start to finish, not a selection. A photographer who is confident in their work will send them without hesitation, frequently with a password.
What you are looking for is consistency rather than brilliance. Does the standard hold across four hundred images. How do they handle a dark room, a grey afternoon, an ugly function suite. Are the speeches covered properly, or does the gallery thin out between the meal and the first dance.
Look specifically at the parts nobody puts in a portfolio: group photographs, the middle of the afternoon, the speeches. Golden-hour portraits are the easy part of the job, and a wedding is mostly not golden hour.
Check the venue type, not the venue
It matters far less that somebody has shot your exact venue than that they have shot your kind of venue. A dark barn, a bright orangery, a stone church and a hotel function room are four different technical problems, and experience of the right category is what transfers.
The questions worth asking
What happens if you are ill. The most important question and the least asked. A working professional has an answer: a named associate, a network they can call, or an agency arrangement. No answer at all is the warning.
How many images do we receive, and at what resolution. Numbers vary enormously and both parts matter, because web-sized files cannot be printed.
What is the licence. Copyright normally stays with the photographer and you receive a licence, usually for personal use. Confirm you may print, make albums and share with family, and confirm what you may not do.
How long until delivery. Six to ten weeks is common for photographs. Get it in the contract rather than the conversation.
Do you back up on the day. A professional shoots to two cards at once and copies the files before sleeping. This is a normal question and an experienced photographer will be pleased you asked it.
Are you insured. Public liability is increasingly required by venues, and professional indemnity covers the equipment failing. Both are standard.
Who is actually shooting on the day. With larger studios the person you meet is not always the person who arrives. Get the name in the contract.
How many weddings do you take in a weekend. A photographer shooting Friday, Saturday and Sunday is editing three weddings at once, which shows in delivery times. It is not disqualifying and it is worth knowing.
What happens to the files afterwards, and for how long. Galleries expire and archives get deleted. Ask how long they keep the images and whether re-supply is charged for, because the answer decides how urgently you need to download everything.
The approach by budget
Judge on complete galleries, buy fewer hours
A newer photographer with two strong complete galleries is a better risk than an established one you have only seen a portfolio from, and shorter coverage from someone good beats a full day from someone unproven.
Ask the same questions regardless of price. Backup, insurance and a contingency plan are not premium features; they are what separates a professional from somebody with a good camera.
The free part of this is the running order. Scheduling the ceremony for better light and allowing twenty minutes for portraits costs nothing and improves everything.
Meet them, and talk about the day rather than the pictures
At this level several photographers will be technically capable, so the decision is about the person. You are handing somebody access to the whole day, including the parts you are nervous about, and how they talk about a wedding tells you how they will behave in the room.
Ask how they work: how they handle group shots, whether they direct or observe, what they do when a family is difficult. The answers are more revealing than any image.
This is also the point to settle the second photographer question, which the costs page covers with published figures.
Buy judgement, and give them room to use it
At the top of the market you are buying a specific person’s eye and their judgement about when to be invisible and when to intervene. That is worth paying for and it is wasted if the day is scheduled so tightly that no judgement is possible.
The most valuable thing a generous budget can add is time in the running order. Twenty minutes of unhurried portraits in good light produces more than an extra three hours of coverage at the end of the night.
Where the spend stops paying is on hours past the first dance. What follows is more of the same in worse light, and the money is better placed earlier in the day.
What actually makes the difference
- Complete galleries, not portfolios. One request that shows you an ordinary day instead of a best one.
- The contingency answer. What happens if they are ill is the question that separates professionals from enthusiasts.
- Venue type experience. A dark barn and a bright orangery are different technical problems, and category experience transfers.
- Time in the running order. The cheapest improvement available, and the one photographers ask for most.
- The name in the contract. With a studio, confirm who is actually shooting your wedding.
Common mistakes
Choosing on Instagram
It is where the work is displayed and it shows single frames selected for a grid rather than a coherent record of a day.
Instead: use it to shortlist, then ask for two complete galleries before deciding.
Not asking who will actually turn up
Larger studios sell on a founder’s portfolio and allocate photographers to dates, which is normal and worth knowing.
Instead: ask for the shooting photographer to be named in the contract.
Assuming you own the photographs
You have paid for them, so it feels like ownership, and copyright normally remains with the photographer.
Instead: read the licence and confirm printing, albums and family sharing are covered.
Booking late
Photography is treated as a supplier to sort after the venue and the catering, and good photographers are booked eighteen months out for peak Saturdays.
Instead: book once the date and venue are fixed, before most other suppliers.
Leaving the group shot list to the day
It is a small administrative job and it becomes forty minutes of the drinks reception spent looking for people.
Instead: agree a list in advance and name one person from each family to gather people.
The three answers that should end the conversation
No plan for illness, which means the whole booking rests on one person staying well. No backup on the day, which means a card failure loses the wedding. And any reluctance to show a complete gallery, which usually means the portfolio is not representative of the delivered work.
None of those is about price and all three are knowable before a deposit is paid. Ask them early, in that order, and the shortlist narrows itself.