It’s almost booking season! There are so many recently-engaged couples from what we wedding professionals call “engagement season” – aka the time between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day, when there are big holidays people tend to plan their proposals around. As that season is winding down, wedding pros start seeing a jump in inquiries as couples begin planning their big day! Because of that, we’ve been focusing our recent blog posts on some helpful planning guides based on our professional experience on the “inside” of wedding planning.

We decided to go a little more broad with this week’s blog post – we’re doing an overview of factors to consider when you’re choosing your wedding photographer. With over 1300 photographers listed on WeddingWire for the DC market alone, we know it can be overwhelming to decide on your photographer. Originally, we were going to do a fairly big but super comprehensive blog post with everything from things to consider when you start your search to questions to ask during a consultation. And then we realized… there’s a lot to consider! So instead we’re breaking it into parts, with these week’s blog post featuring just the starting points to consider.

Overall Editing Style

This is definitely the most important part of your consideration of a wedding photographer, and it’s a no-brainer. Never assume your photographer will just edit the photos differently if you ask for it – their portfolio is exactly what you should be hiring them for! When you search for a photographer, look for a style of photos that you could imagine yourself in; imagine holding a wedding album and seeing that style of photos inside. Are you drawn to the “light and airy” style that has gotten especially popular in recent years? Do you like the look of film photographers’ portfolios? Are you more interested in photos that make use of shadows and deep blacks? Or maybe you appreciate vibrant but true-to-life colors? Don’t consider photographers who don’t fit whatever editing style you are most drawn to; unfortunately too many couples mistakenly hire a photographer with a different editing style than they prefer simply because of price and/or the photographer’s personality, and end up disappointed with the end results because their photographer can’t – or won’t – edit their photos in a way that differs from the photographer’s portfolio. This is the simplest way to narrow your search and avoid looking too deeply into every single photographer you come across.

Posing and Composition

Editing style isn’t the only type of style to consider, however. Posing and composition is also a big part of the wedding photography. As you review photographers’ portfolios, consider what elements they showcase most often, or what sort of patterns you see in the images. Some photographers really excel at finding symmetry and repetition in their photos. Some look for unusual angles – shooting through other objects, getting down low or up high, etc. Some might make more use of drone photography to get far overhead. Pay attention to how the couple looks in the portrait photos – do they seem static and posed to just the right spot, or are they more often in the middle of a movement like dancing together or laughing? Are there a variety of facial expressions, or do they tend toward classic smiling photos? There are no right or wrong answers here! It’s totally okay to look at photographers who have a really out-of-the-box portfolio of images, and photographers who have more traditional, classic styles of shooting and posing. But it’s important to consider whether you’ll be disappointed if YOUR images don’t feature much of one or the other (or a mix of both).

Reception Style

We also want to point out that the “style” of photography is most often looked at in reference to the bride and groom portraits, but it’s also important to consider how the photographer handles your reception as well, as this is generally the most challenging part of the day that requires the most experience and technique. Take a look at their reception photos and consider – do you like the way they used their flash in these photos? Do you like how dark or light the background is? Do they have any unusual artistic effects throughout the photos? Oftentimes, photographers will go heavy on the portraits and outdoor ceremonies in their portfolio and leave out a lot of reception photos so you may have to ask your photographer to see more examples if they don’t have enough on their website to get a good idea of their style. Don’t be afraid to ask! We also encourage you to look through photographers’ blog posts to see these sorts of images that tend not to make it on the front page of their site – most professionals will regularly post a set of photos from a single wedding day, and you’ll get the chance to see their style of shooting reception photos as well as other parts of the day like getting ready before the ceremony and family portraits! It’s a slightly more sneaky way of getting an idea of their style, outside of the carefully curated portfolio on their main website pages.

Pricing

The next thing to consider is less romantic, but still important – pricing. Pricing is probably the single hardest part of planning your wedding day, and that includes choosing a photographer. The fact is, hiring professionals is expensive! It doesn’t help that there is such a wild range in pricing among photographers in Northern Virginia and the DC market especially. First, you need to think seriously about what your budget will allow. There’s a big difference between spending a couple thousand on your wedding day, and spending tens of thousands – both of which can be totally reasonable depending on your situation! Next, consider how much you value high quality wedding photos specifically. Do you want to make it a priority to hire a professional who does wedding photography full time and has dozens if not hundreds of weddings under their belt to ensure your photos come out exactly like their portfolio? Do you need to be cautious of your budget and only consider the newer photographers who are charging less while they gain experience, or photographers who just do wedding photography on the side? Maybe your budget is super tight, and you need to go with the cheapest option just to have someone there to document things even if they’re brand new at it and may not bring in the most beautiful, coordinated photos and level of professionalism. All of that is okay! Even as a wedding photographer myself, I know that wedding photography is a luxury just like most other aspects of the most popular modern weddings. You and your future spouse and your family need to be on the same page when it comes to your budget, and what level of service you can afford.

Services Offered

Finally, you also have to consider within your budget what sort of services you need, and what you consider nice-to-haves. We touched on this with our recent blog post How to Decide How Many Hours to Book Your Wedding Photographer, which gives an overview of figuring out how long you need your photographer to be there during the wedding day. Some photographers might allow you to book just a couple of hours if that’s all you need, while others might have a minimum number of hours on a typical Saturday during wedding season, and still others might only offer a set number of hours for the day and build their packages around that number because it facilitates their best work. There’s going to be a decent difference in price between hiring a photographer for 6 hours vs. 10 hours, though be aware that photographers are generally going to encourage you to book more hours because they’re not going to book another event that day and would rather spend time really providing you with a comprehensive set of photos of your day; there may be less of a value in cutting your hours short just because you think it’s going to significantly impact the price you pay, when that may or may not really be the case depending on the photographer you’re talking to.

Another recent blog post that touches on this subject is How to Decide Whether to Add a Second Shooter, where we explain the benefits of having a second photographer for your wedding day and some things to consider when deciding whether to add one. Again, there are a variety of ways photographers will go about this – some don’t offer a second shooter at all, others always include a second shooter no matter what package you book, and still others offer it with only some packages or as an a la carte option to add on separately.

While considering the services and packages being offered by the photographers you like, we also think it’s important to consider the tangible result of the wedding package you go with and the options you’re presented with. Is it important to you to have a wedding album that lasts your lifetime, to reflect on your day and show off to your kids and grandkids without having to hunt down an old hard drive? We wrote about that recently too, with The Value of a Quality Wedding Album! Some photographers might include the album in their packages, some a la carte, and some don’t offer it at all. Some might also include other product incentives like a canvas, parent albums, wall art, or even save-the-date cards from your engagement session. Generally, these are going to be better quality than the ones you can order yourself, and also help cut out some of the work for you; are you REALLY going to order a canvas yourself after the wedding, or are you going to put it off for two years while you settle into newlywed life and deal with thank you cards and putting away all your wedding gifts? Do you think you’re going to have time to sit down and design your wedding album (spoiler alert: it takes HOURS without having the tools and experience that your photographer has as a professional!) or is it worth the extra cost to choose a package from your photographer that includes the album so that gets taken off your plate? You have to consider the value of the different packages that are presented to you by these photographers, and which ones are going to be worth any extra costs as you compare them.

Phew, that was a lot! And this is just the beginning! Let’s summarize a bit so you feel less overwhelmed. In order, here’s what we recommend for getting started with your search for a wedding photographer –

1. Looking through all the photographers you come across, bookmark/save the ones that have the overall editing style you like – light and airy, dark and moody, lots of black and white, vibrant colors, etc. and ONLY consider those whose style is attractive to you.

2. From that list, look at their composition style as well – can you see yourself in their photos? Do you like the way their subject looks in the frame?

3. Look at the reception photos from your favorite photographers from this list. Do you think they do a good job of lighting the reception? Would you be happy with a bunch of photos of your reception that ALL look the way this photographer presents their photos?

4. Taking that list of photographers you like, consider their pricing. Are all of them way out of budget? Congrats on having great taste! Unfortunately, you may have to start from scratch if none of these photographers are even remotely in your price range. And that’s okay! Hopefully, though, you’ll have photographers with a wide range of prices and you can start narrowing down which ones are way out of budget and which ones are still a possibility.

5. Finally, consider how many hours you need, what sort of services you want from your photographer, and compare. Maybe you want to make sure you get a wedding album and at least 8 hours of photography, but you’re flexible on having more hours and a second shooter; schedule a meeting with any photographers on your list who are in budget for the need-to-haves, but prioritize the ones who can also provide those nice-to-have services (and it’s also okay to prioritize the photographer who is at the top of your budget with the need-to-have services but whose portfolio really stands out against the rest of your list).

We’ll follow up with Part II in the coming weeks, explaining more about what you should look for during your consultations with photographers and those final stages of decision-making. But for now if there’s anything we missed or any lingering questions about narrowing your options down before you start scheduling meetings, comment below!