Choosing Your Wedding Photographer

Can we see a raise of hands from those of you that received a stunning engagement ring in the last few months?! We’re so excited for all of you newly engaged brides-to-be! There are so many things to start thinking about, planning for, and to look forward to! Most of our brides will start by locking in their date at that perfect venue. They can already envision themselves walking down the aisle to meet their amazing man. Then they realize that they will want to have gorgeous images to remember this perfect day! As you and your fiancé are chatting about the most important day of your life, there’s bound to be a lot of internet searching (thanks Google!), vendor shopping, and review reading for each and every one of your vendors. It can get overwhelming, but we’re here to help!

Also, be sure to check out our tips for choosing your wedding vendors as well!

As you’re searching for wedding photographers, it can be hard to pinpoint exactly what you should be looking for in your photographers. So here are a few tips to consider as you launch into your search!

1. Consider what style you love.

There are so many different styles out there that this one can be tough! But this is definitely the place to start. As you’re looking through online portfolios, look for those images in which you can see yourself. Look for images that you would love to see hanging on your wall. Once you start looking at online portfolios, you will quickly be able to narrow down your search to a specific style.

As you do that, remember one really important piece of information that we always give our potential couples: Don’t JUST look through portfolios. What we mean by that is that what you find in a photographer’s online portfolio is going to be the best of the best. That may not be a good representation of what YOUR wedding will look like, and certainly not what the whole day will look like. We recommend you check out their most recent work on their blog to get a better sense of their full wedding day coverage. While portfolios are general ideas of a photographer’s style, blog posts often capture a wedding in its entirely! There may be 50-75 images in a wedding post from ONE wedding. That will give you a much better idea of what your wedding images will look like overall.

2. Be sure you get an album.

Trust us on this one; you need this! Your wedding album will be your first family heirloom. It will be passed on to your kids and grandkids someday. There is something tangible about holding your wedding album that digital files just can’t accomplish. And this is so important, as we learned from our own wedding experience! We didn’t get a wedding album when we got married, and it’s one of our biggest regrets. We still don’t have a wedding album!

We can’t recommend this enough. That’s why we include weddings albums in each of our collections. We don’t want anyone to walk away without one. And our couples thank us for that! Look for a full service wedding photographer that includes albums. Get a wedding album that is professionally designed and printed through your photographer. This ensures your most treasured memories stand the test of time for your family to enjoy for decades to come.

3. Be sure you get along with them!

This is our 3rd tip, but it may be the MOST important tip on this list! It’s so important that you sit down and meet with photographers in person and that you find common ground with them. Make sure your personalities match, that you actually LIKE your wedding photographers! If you don’t like your photographer as a person, you won’t have a good wedding experience. One thing that we have learned in our experience is that wedding photography is just as much about your attitude as it is about your skill. You could be the best photographer in the world, but if you don’t get to know you couples and have FUN with them, we believe that’s an incomplete service.

One way to help make sure you have built a relationship with your photographer before the wedding is to do an engagement session. We include an engagement session in every one of our collections because we have found that getting that time with our couples before the wedding actually makes their wedding images that much better. They feel comfortable. They feel relaxed. And they trust us to do what’s best for them.

Your photographers will be with you all day, and we can’t stress enough how important it is to have a great relationship with them leading up to your big day!

It’s a big decision, as we know very well from experience! And maybe the most important thing we can tell you is to choose photographers that you trust. Completely. That trust will not only enable your photographers to capture those gorgeous, timeless images, but will also relieve you of the stress of worrying about this aspect of your day! Now go get ’em! (or you can contact us here) To see some of our work as a Greenville wedding photographer, click here!