2. Hire a wedding specialist
Solution: Ask
potential photographers if they specialize in wedding photography or some other
genre.
This is a very
simple tip but it’s probably the most important and applies to all of your
wedding vendors. Is your potential vendor a wedding specialist?
When it comes to photography, is your wedding photographer really a wedding photographer? Or are they some other kind of photographer that shoots an
occasional wedding? This is a crucial question because wedding
photography is very difficult! Everyone’s heard of the saying “Jack of
all trades, master of none.” Well if there is ever a day you want masters
and not Jacks, it’s your wedding day! As I outline in Tip #3, wedding
photography requires a difficult combination of skills that many photographers
do not have. On the other hand, a wedding specialist will be able to
gracefully handle any challenges that arise on your wedding day, because that’s
what they do and what they’re passionate about! They’ve seen it all, and
they’re up on their wedding game, so they’re ready to make your day
perfect. A wedding specialist won’t be shaking off rust on your wedding
day, and they won’t get tired after 10 hours on their feet because they’re always
in “wedding shape.” All of these points are laid out in more detail in
Tip #3, but I want to make a different point here, which is this: you should
still hire a wedding specialist, even if you find the rare non-wedding specialist
with the right skill set. I have
two reasons detailed below, along with some concrete advice on how to find out
if a potential photographer is a wedding specialist.
First, a wedding
specialist is likely to deliver a better product than a non-wedding specialist,
even if they have similar gear and skills because the wedding specialist is
more passionate about weddings. Passion is a crucial ingredient in
success. A lot of photographers are great at using cameras but are not
passionate about weddings. A little passion goes a long way in my book,
because everyone performs better when they’re passionate, and conversely, it’s
rare to get an impassionate person’s best effort. You are putting your
whole heart into your wedding day, and your wedding photographer (and all of
your vendors) should too. In fact, they should be putting their whole
heart into your wedding long before your wedding day! Wedding
photographers like myself, spend our down time practicing and studying to make
every wedding better. We look back at old timelines and consult with
other wedding vendors to see what works and what doesn’t. We test shoot
to learn new techniques and try out new gear. We scout locations for
engagement sessions and look for new ways to shoot each venue. We try new
wedding products so we can always deliver the absolute best heirloom quality
products for our wedding clients (see Tip #4). In short, passion breeds
preparation, and preparation breeds success. What separates a wedding
specialist from a non-specialist is the desire to make every wedding better
than the last, and putting in effort every day to make that goal a
reality. I wake up every day with weddings on my mind and I bring that
passion to every wedding. So while it’s not guaranteed you’ll get
terrible photos if you hire a non-wedding specialist, the odds are better that
you’ll get photos worthy of your wedding day if you do hire a wedding
specialist.
Second, it’s not
just your photos that will be better if you hire a wedding photographer, it’s
the entire flow of your wedding day and your ability to relax and enjoy
it. Even if a non-wedding specialist could deliver the exact same artwork
for you (and that’s a big if), there is still an added benefit to hiring a
wedding specialist because it will give you peace of mind and let you enjoy
your day knowing you have a wedding specialist in your corner that can handle
anything your day throws at them (see Tip #3 and Tip #5 for more). Let me
give you an example. Imagine you hired a Mexican restaurant to cater your
Italian wedding dinner. Why would you do that? Well maybe for the
same reason you’d hire a senior portrait photographer, maternity photographer,
or some other non-wedding photographer to shoot your wedding. You know
them, you like them, they have all of the gear required (fancy stoves and ovens
to cook with), and they tell you they can do the job just as good as the
Italian restaurant. And maybe they can. But a maybe is not a
guarantee, and that doubt is going to creep into your mind on a day when you
should not be focused on anything other than celebrating your love! You
shouldn’t be worried about a vendor not being able to pull their weight on your
wedding day and if you surround yourself with professional wedding specialists,
you can rest assured that you’ve done everything in your power to make your day
a success and be able to sit back and enjoy it!
So how do you
know if a potential photographer is a wedding specialist or not?
1. Look a
their website. Are the first photos you see wedding photos? Are wedding
photos more prominent than any other type of photos (such as family, maternity,
newborns, seniors, fashion, boudoir, landscapes, travel, etc)? I would
expect to see 80-100% wedding photos on a wedding specialist’s website, and the
first photos you see should be wedding photos.
2. Check
their social media. You can really tell where a person’s passions lie on
facebook, twitter and blogs. First, see what they’ve been up to
lately. Don’t be alarmed to see a few non-wedding posts, especially
during the off-season (during winter for most wedding photographers), as many
of us do test shoots and studio work to stay on our game. But if you have
to scroll for a long time to find a wedding then you’re probably not dealing
with a wedding specialist. Second, read some of their posts and try to
gauge how passionate they are about weddings compared to other types of
photography. If they post a fashion photo and are like “Oh my god this
was so much fun I can’t wait to do it again,” while the caption for uploading a
gallery of wedding photos is “More from the Johnson wedding…” then you might
assume they are more passionate about fashion photography than wedding
photography.
3. Ask
them! If you’re considering hiring someone as your wedding photographer
then you need to speak with them in person! I mention this over and over again throughout these 5
tips. Take the opportunity to flat
out ask them: Are you primarily a wedding photographer or do you
specialize in some other type of photography? What other genres of
photography do you specialize in?
Key tip: Hire passionate wedding specialists and
you’ll be able to relax and enjoy your wedding day like you deserve to!
Next: Tip #3
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