How to judge a portfolio, what the contract has to say, and the shots that are gone forever if nobody asked for them.
The one vendor whose product you keep
The flowers die, the food is eaten, the band goes home. In a year the photographs are the wedding. This is the strongest argument for putting money here rather than almost anywhere else, and for booking early — good photographers in peak season are gone twelve months out.
Judging a portfolio
Anyone can assemble twenty excellent images from three years of work. Two questions cut through it:
"Can I see a complete wedding, start to finish?" A full gallery shows consistency, how they handle a dim reception, and whether the family groups are competent — not just whether they can make one golden-hour portrait. Any photographer worth booking will have several ready.
"Can I see a wedding at a venue like mine, at the same time of day?" A photographer who shoots beautifully in a bright garden may be lost in a dark church. Light is most of the craft.
Beyond that, look for whether people look like themselves. Heavy processing dates quickly — a style that looks distinctive now can look exactly like its year a decade later, in a way that a straightforward photograph does not.
What the contract has to say
- Hours of coverage, and the overtime rate. Receptions run long.
- Who is actually shooting. At larger studios the person you meet may not be the person who turns up. Get the name in the contract.
- Second shooter — yes or no. For anything over about a hundred guests, or a ceremony and reception in different places, a second pair of hands is close to essential.
- Delivery time for the finished gallery, in weeks, in writing.
- How many edited images, and what "edited" means.
- Rights. Can you print freely? Can you post them? Will they be used in advertising — and can you say no?
- Backup and failure. Do they shoot to two cards at once? What happens if they are ill? A professional has an answer and a network.
- Meal and travel, and when they eat — during your dinner, not during the dancing.
The timeline decisions that change the pictures
A first look — seeing each other privately before the ceremony — buys back most of your cocktail hour, because couple portraits and much of the family grouping can happen beforehand. The trade is the aisle moment. Both are defensible; what is not defensible is planning a traditional order and then being surprised that you miss your own cocktail hour entirely.
Golden hour. The best light is the half hour before sunset. Look up the sunset time for your date and steal fifteen minutes from the reception for portraits. Your reception timeline can absorb it easily if it is planned; it cannot if it is not.
Getting-ready light. Ask for a room with a big window and keep it uncluttered. Rooms are photographed more than anyone expects.
The shot list
Do not hand a photographer two hundred bullet points — it turns an artist into a clerk and you will get a competent, lifeless gallery. Do hand them the short list of things that are impossible to guess:
- Every family grouping you want, by name. This is the one exhaustive list worth making, and the one thing that cannot be fixed afterwards.
- Divorced parents, and whether they can be in a frame together.
- The grandmother who will not be here next year.
- Heirlooms and details with a story — the borrowed veil, the grandfather's watch, the ring that was reset.
- Anyone who has travelled a very long way.
- A friend who is camera-shy and needs handling.
Appoint one person from each family — not a parent, ideally a bossy cousin — to round people up by name for the group shots. Family formals are where wedding timelines go to die, and the cause is always the same: nobody can find Uncle Robert. With a list and a wrangler it takes fifteen minutes. Without, it takes fifty and eats your cocktail hour.
Guests, phones and the unplugged question
A row of raised phones is in the aisle shot forever, and a guest stepping out to get their own photograph has ruined more processional images than any other single cause. If this matters to you, ask for an unplugged ceremony — a line on the programme and a word from the officiant before the processional. Guests comply readily when asked directly.
Video, and albums
Video captures the two things photographs cannot: the vows in their own voices and the sound of the room. It also costs a meaningful fraction of the photography budget, and plenty of couples decide against it without regret — do I really need a wedding video? is the argument on both sides.
On albums: order one. Galleries of digital files are looked at intensely for a month and then effectively never again. An album on a shelf is the thing that actually gets opened, and the cheapest time to order it is while the photographer is still designing.
The photographers directory lists studios by region, videography covers film, and disposable cameras is a period piece from the era when a camera on every table was how you got the candids.
