Choosing the perfect photographer for your wedding day is one of the most important steps in wedding planning and we know that it can be quite stressful! Besides your marriage, the photos and videos are one of the only things you are able to keep from your Wedding Day.
You go to google thinking it will be as easy as typing into your search bar "Best Memphis Photographer" or "Best Wedding Photographer near me", and then you get hundreds of results with beautiful images. But how do you know which one is right for you?
With websites so easily made and readily available to everyone, how can you weed out who is a weekend hobbyist versus a true wedding professional?
Here are some hard questions to ask a wedding photographer and some 🚩red flags to be aware of. (+ plus our answers)
Q: Can I see a Full (Real) Wedding Gallery?
🚩Your photographer should always be able to supply a full (real) wedding gallery for you to view. There are so many different aspects and lighting scenarios during a wedding day, and some of them can be quite challenging. Beautiful photos can be easy to capture when your outside with nice lighting, but making sure your photographer can handle all of the indoor aspects of your wedding day is a must!
Our Answer: Yes, absolutely! We can send you multiple full galleries, sometimes even from your specific venue and season.
Q: Do you shoot with multiple cameras, and do you shoot with dual card slots?
🚩Your wedding photographer should always shoot with multiple cameras that also have dual card slots. Although technology has come a long way, cameras can still freeze up or die suddenly, and SD cards can corrupt occasionally. Making sure your photographer is backing up your photos to more than one spot, and making sure they have back up equipment, will ensure that all of your precious memories are kept as safe as possible.
Our Answer: Yes and Yes!
Q: Is this your full time job?
🚩While photography being your wedding photographers full time job is not 100% necessary, it is an important thing to note and discuss with your photographer. Especially if your Wedding is on a Friday or other weekday. It's also important to discuss with your photographer, that if Photography is not their full time job, if their other job interferes with them editing and delivering your images on time.
Our Answer: Yes! Photography/Videography is Shelby and Rick's full time and only job. Â
Q: Will you be our actual photographer/videographer?
🚩This is an important question to ask! More and more Photo/Video "Teams" are booking weddings and then subcontracting out photographers and videographers to actually shoot the day, or companies will have multiple photographers and videographers. If a company tells you they have more than one ask who SPECIFICALLY will be there on your day and ask to see their work.
Our Answer: Yes! It will always be Shelby and Rick who will be there on your big day to document! The only time it would not be us is if we had an emergency or extenuating circumstance, then we would have a replacement photographer or videographer there who we trusted explicitly.Â
Q: How much of your work on your IG and Website are real weddings that you were the lead photographer for (not second shooter) vs Styled Shoots or Second Shot Weddings?
🚩Don't get fooled by the beautiful styled shot images or photos taken as a second shooter. With social media, new technology, and access to great affordable cameras, it's very easy these days to "become a wedding photographer". Being the lead photographer, navigating and posing during a real wedding day, dealing with time constraints and intricate relationships between family members/wedding party members is much harder and takes lots of experience to be able to handle with grace.
Our Answer: 100% of the photos you see on our IG and Website are REAL couples and REAL weddings that we were the main Photo/Video Team for. If we ever post Styled Shoots or photos taken as a second photographer on our IG or Website we always make sure that it is tagged as a Styled Shoot or Second Photographer for so and so.
Q: We're awkward and don't know how to take photos, will you help us/what is your style of posing?
🚩Your Wedding Photographer should be comfortable with posing or prompting you on your Wedding Day, and also groove with your own style and personality. Some photographers have a fun and playful style of posing, while others are complete flys on the wall and other's are dramatic and moody.
Our Answer: Of course! We actually joke that "We're awkward" is our favorite thing to hear! We will give y'all silly prompts to get yall to engage with each other, we will move and play in ways designed to capture authentic but beautiful poses, and Rick will even break out his crappy british accent to make y'all laugh.
We will also do the standard "look at the camera and smile" photos so you have them, but our approach is fun and playful, and you'll never have to ask
"What do I do with my hands?"
Q: How do you handle family group photos, especially with large or blended families?
🚩Your photographer should always have a plan of action in place for family photos, rather than just relying on you to supply a list. Formal Family Photos can be a very stressful time for Brides and Grooms, having a photographer that is confident in this area of your day can relieve a lot of stress especially if you don't have the typical family dynamic.
Our Answer: Before the wedding we send you a Family Questionnaire to fill out. This allows us to know all of the family you'll have attending and who you want photos with, with out you having to spend hours on creating a family shot list and forgetting key groupings. Shelby guides family photos in a very streamline manner starting from big group photos and then breaking down into smaller groupings. Knowing the family dynamic by heart, allows Shelby to go through family photos much quicker than going off of a shotlist.
Q: Do you require/work off a shot list? Do you give us a wedding day photo timeline?
🚩In our opinion, your photographer should not be asking you for a shot list. If they are experienced they already know you want shots of you getting ready, that you want photos of you alone, coming down the aisle, the first kiss, etc etc. If you can find it on a Pintrest "wedding photo shot list" they should already know to get these, and if you are confident you are hiring a seasoned professional, you shouldn't feel the need to give one. They also should not be working off a generic shot list either, rather just going with the flow of the day, and focusing on capturing the moments in front of them instead of worrying about the next shot on the "list".
🚩They should however be supplying a detailed photo timeline, so you know generally what times you will be doing key photos, so everyone in your wedding knows where to be and when.
Our Answer: We don't work off a shot list but trust us we will be getting all of the important shots! We do however accept requests for generation photos, recreation photos, or things that are not typical of a typical wedding day.
We also will go over timeline details before the wedding day and create a detailed photo timeline that includes any first looks, times for wedding party photos, family photos and Bride and Groom photos.
We hope that these questions and red flags will help you in choosing the best photographer for your wedding day!
If you would like to inquire about us being a part of your wedding day, we would love to chat and get to know you!
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