How to choose your wedding photographer

 
There are so many talented photographers and genuinely kind hearted people out there who you can trust to document your wedding day. We think the decision should be made equally on how comfortable you feel with them, and how much you like their work. Word of mouth is one of the best ways to find a reliable, trustworthy and talented photographer.

Welcome to our sixth blog post in our series on planning a wedding. We like to start out every post by acknowledging that there is no right or wrong way to celebrate your decision to spend the rest of your life together. We want to make it clear that our opinions about our wedding are a reflection of what we value and what’s important to us. You can read the other blog posts in our planning a wedding series here. Here is some advice that we’d recommend considering when you’re looking for a wedding photographer:

• Meet with them privately (in person or over Skype if they’re interstate) to get to know them so that you know you’ll feel comfortable with them on the day.
• Make sure that they’re experienced so they know where to be and when, what settings to use in what situations, and how to best use different lighting.
• Consider whether you need someone who will be flexible if things run overtime on the day.
• Have a look at their blog if they’ve got one, so that you can see highlight photos from the whole day rather than just one or two hero shots.
• Make sure that you’ll receive full resolution edited digital files (or that you can purchase them if they’re not included).
• Most professional photographers will have a contract you can sign that outlines any terms and conditions

Our Wedding Photographer

 
Inevitably the first question that people ask us when they hear that we’re getting married, is ‘who will be your wedding photographer’? To which we usually reply with a dad joke something along the lines of ‘oh … we’ll just use a selfie stick’. Here’s the real story of finding our wedding photographer.

Almost 3 years ago we met Lauren Campbell on Instagram after she had photographed our friend’s wedding. In our minds that’s one of the biggest benefits of social media. While we didn’t cross paths at the wedding that we were guests at, we connected through Instagram afterwards. It turned out that we live in a very small world indeed, as Lauren and her husband Dan were living in the suburb right next to us! Fast forward a few months of Italian dinners, drinking wine and playing trivia, and we enormously admired not only Lauren’s work, but also her as a person. This photo was taken on the day that we told Lauren we wouldn’t want anyone else but her to be our wedding photographer. That was a year and a half before we got engaged!

 
We’ve talked before about how photography is an investment in the future. In 50 years time our wedding photographs will be our record of our loved ones who have passed away, and of the people who were important and influential in our lives. If we have great grandchildren one day, these photographs will be their memory of us. In the past we’ve also talked about my grandmother’s 80th birthday, when she showed us a photo album that belonged to my great grandmother. My great grandmother took the photos with a box brownie and developed them herself. I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for this woman who I’ve never met, and now we have the privilege of seeing her memories, stories and adventures. The moral of the story is, PLEASE, we’re BEGGING you, don’t let your photos disappear in the black hole of the internet. Print them so that one day your great grandkids can look at your photos with their grandmother on her 80th birthday.