Introduction
Photographing a wedding is a huge responsibility. These images are the most important photographs you will ever have taken in your life. The right photographer will actually enhance your wedding day, making sure you relax and enjoy your day. You will want somebody who not only produces great images, but who also has enough experience in photographing weddings and handling people to be able to anticipate the key moments of the day. It is vital they work in a professional, but relaxed and non obtrusive friendly manner. How many times have you been to a wedding where the photographer takes over and people become bored with the whole experience?
Price. What do they charge?
Is price everything? If you select a photographer that only charges £350.00 and covers only 20 weddings a year (and that is a typical number covered by many) it means his gross income for the year is £7000. Is this a sensible income? Where else does he/she make a living? Do they carry out other commercial work? How reliant are they on wedding work? How many weddings do they cover a year? Ask the questions and check the answers.
Remember its not just the hours taken to photograph the wedding on the day but it’s the edit and album layout time that takes the time. Typically a small to medium wedding will take up to 30 hours to complete in addition to the time the photographer is with you.
Are they a member of any professional photographic bodies and do they have any other professional qualifications?
You might be lucky enough to know someone who is a good amateur photographer and they have offered to cover your wedding for you but would they have the experience and ability to photograph a wedding fully and give you the best results. Can they supply albums? Will they supply a full resolution disc of images? A professional wedding photographer should have the skill and be able to meet your requirements. But is it a proven skill?
Your selected photographer should be a member of a professional photographic body and it's quite likely to be one of the following three organisations.
The British Institute of Professional Photography (www.bipp.com)
The Master Photographers Association (www.thempa.com)
The Royal Photographic Association (www.rps.com)
These professional associations, through strict assessment, issue a Fellow, Associate and Licentiate grade, where Fellow is the highest qualification and Licentiate the lowest, with Associate in the middle. To achieve one of these grades of membership the photographer will have had to submit a panel of work for assessment to the organisation's representatives, who themselves will be professionally qualified photographers.
The photographer, once qualified, can then display the letters of the organisation after his name along with his level of qualification. So an Associate of the RPS can use the letters ARPS, a Licentiate of the MPA can use LMPA etc.
Other relevant qualifications.
Remember also that there are also formal qualifications in photography in the UK and many photographers may have studied to degree or MA level. Has your selected photographer undertaken formal and sustained training? Does he/she have a degree or better in professional photography.
Other organisations - SWPP,PWPN, BPPA etc
They organisations allow members to join without qualifying. You simply have to pay their annual fee for membership and then be listed on their website and use their logo on your website and/or business stationery. So, if a photographer tells you they are a member of one of these groups it's worth asking if they have had work assessed and to what grade.
Can I see some complete weddings?
You will have noticed that almost all photographers will have a "gallery" of wedding images to impress you. These are the key images that the photographer will have selected from all the weddings they've photographed and which they consider to be their best and most representative of their range of skills. There's nothing wrong with a gallery, it's actually very useful to know what images a photographer considers to be their best. But you should remember that these are only edited highlights.
So how do you get to see some complete weddings? Ask to see a complete wedding album and this should be forthcoming. Most photographers also upload all the finished images from a wedding to their website so that family and guests can see them so you can check out lots of complete weddings before you even meet.
Can they provide references?
Wedding photography is a service business, so you will want to ensure that your photographer provides a good all-round service. Producing good pictures is one thing, but you will also want to know how the photographer performs in every area of the business. How professional are they in their dealings with their clients. Do they respond to emails / phone calls quickly, for example?
Ask for reference clients where they have been commissioned to capture the wedding photographs and do not rely only on testimonials seen on their web site.
How quickly will they supply the photographs? Typically they should be available for viewing by the time you get back from honeymoon.
Do they have insurance and a contingency plan?
It's an inescapable fact of life that from time to time, things may go wrong. Whilst it's not something you'll want to dwell on too much, it is something that you can be prepared for, even though much of it will be out of your hands and is nobody's fault. As far as the photography goes your biggest concern will be that the photographer in question is actually able to turn up to your wedding on the day and do the job. People do get sick or injured and cars may break down. So your photographer should be able to tell you that they have 2 or 3 other photographers they can call on to do the job should the worst happen.
