In my quest, I began with the emails that the photographer sent me; a first impression per se. I can understand a typo, or an incorrectly placed comma, but emails that had several misspellings or used text slang (ur instead of you’re) were out. For me it was about the little things, the details are so important on your wedding day, after all you put a ton of time into each of them, that if the person who you are considering having shoot your wedding can’t take the time to put together a professional sounding email, then where else are they going to slack off?
This process helped to narrow my selection, so what I proceeded to do was look at websites. The website is a great way to get insight into the photographer’s style, and experience. I was turned off by websites that took forever to load, they may have had awesome work, but while I sat there waiting for the site to load, I felt like they didn’t value my time. I looked through their work, and kept note of the photographers that had work that I liked. Everyone has different tastes and styles, and there is fortunately a photographer for every single style. I looked for photos where I could feel the emotions of the couple. I wanted a photographer who could move me (and not with website background music). Websites that had blurry photos, or poorly exposed photos were ruled out, if the portfolio showcases the photographer’s best work. and this is all they can offer, then they weren’t quite to the level I was looking for. After-all, my wedding day only happens once, and I wanted to be able to relive it with the photos for years to come and not be disappointed, or feel like I need to hide them. I also ruled out sites that didn’t show any wedding photos, I really wanted someone who was prepared to handle the stresses and occasionally high pace of capturing a wedding, and I didn’t feel that wildlife photos, or pet photos showed me that the photographer was ready for that, and often these photographers were quoting similar prices to people with wedding experience.
The next thing I looked at was price, I had narrowed my field to five or six photographers that I really liked the style of. I compared what they offered for the price, and proceeded to refine my search to three of them. I emailed each of the photographers that I chose, and made sure that they were still available for my date. I setup meetings to ask some questions I had about their equipment, their processing, what they offered for their price and their process for covering my wedding day. I made sure that they would do both candid and formal portrait photos, and that I wasn’t limited on my formal portraits, I also wanted to make sure I could offer pose ideas. I took careful notes not only about the questions that I was asking, but about how the photographer made me feel. I was expecting that this person would be following me around for a good share of the day, and I didn’t need someone who was going to make me feel more anxious than I already was.
I took a couple of days to soak in all of the information, and review my notes. I emailed my final questions to the photographers, and then made my decision.
Choosing a photographer may be one of the most important decisions you make, aside from the decision to get married in the first place. It is worth putting the time into the research and making sure that you will be happy with your decision, because if you don’t, you may regret it for years to come since there are no retakes of your wedding photos.
Professional Photographer's Association 