It's time, the date is set, the venue is booked and you've already spent endless amounts of time going through wedding photographer's portfolios. That moment when you have to reach out and connect to those Wedding Photographers that you short listed has arrived.
You've probably read endless blogs and guides on what you should ask a potential wedding photographer during your consultation. I sometimes question the advice given through various outlets and decided to put together a quick guide based on my own experience as an Oshawa and Durham Region wedding photographer.
What you should ask:
Do you have a contract?
This is crucial and coming from my own personal experience when a vendor disappeared on me after our wedding, I can't stress how important this is. A contract lays out the complete agreement between you and your wedding photographer on paper and includes the final cost, delivery details and what happens if they're missed. If your wedding photographer, or any vendor offers you a discount to opt out of a contract, look for someone else.
2. Have you ever done a rainy wedding?
Weird that this is the second question, right? Well, I wrote a whole blog post on this and if you live anywhere around Toronto you'll know that the likelihood of rain during the most popular wedding months is around 30%. That means that the chance of rain is fairly high and you should be prepared for that. You should be asking to see a FULL rainy day wedding and what your wedding photographer can do if it rains.
3. Do you edit your photos?
The answer to this should be: Every photo that you get is final and is completely edited. Unless someone is shooting in JPEG (refer to question 3 of what not to ask) they should be editing EVERY SINGLE PHOTO. Now, this doesn’t mean that your wedding photographer is spending an hour on every photo in photoshop (it’s impossible and would take forever), no, it just means that they’ve taken the time to go through all the photos that they are going to deliver and colour correct them at the very least.
4. Can I see a full, real wedding?
Here's the nitty gritty. Most self respecting professional will have beautiful pictures on their website. Are these real people, in real weddings with realistic timelines or are they models posed to look like couples with all the time in the world? In other words will you pictures look anything like the ones they have online?
5. When am I going to get my stuff?
Again, this is speaking 100% from experience and this should be in the contract. Typically photographers will say something like “well, we take 12 - 16 weeks during the wedding season but depending on the phase of the moon we can get it to you sooner. Yeah… still doesn't answer my question, be weary of very fluid timelines. We deliver our final product within 30 days of the wedding and we have a clause in the contract of what should happen if we miss the deadline (hasn't happened yet).
What you shouldn't ask:
What equipment do you use?
If you are satisfied with the quality of the work and you've read the reviews then you can be fairly confident that your wedding photographer won't show up with a point and shoot camera to your wedding. The brand of the camera or equipment really shouldn't matter, every self respecting wedding photographer will carry thousands if not more dollars worth of equipment on them, it really doesn't matter whether they shoot on Canon or Nikon or anything else.
A possible alternate might be: do you use flash or additional lights? That's a more fair question and if you hear “I'm a natural light photographer!” It means they don't know how to use lights and your photos in dark venues may be extremely grainy and unusable.
2. Why do you want to photograph my wedding?
I’ve had that one asked before as well. Umm… I like shooting weddings and because asked me to?
3. Can I keep or buy the raw files?
The simple answer to that question is what do you need them for? If you are planning on re-editing the photos after you get them - which is the only reason why you'd need raw files, you really shouldn't be hiring the photographer.
Unless they say “no, because I don't shoot in raw”, again this is one of those instances when the interview should finish. If they don't shoot in raw it means they are doing minimal editing if any and you are getting a sour deal.
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