How to hire a wedding photographer & When is the best time to book wedding photographers

How to Hire a Wedding Photographer: The most important decision that you make for your wedding day. That’s why it’s so important to know everything that you wouldn’t normally know and sometimes won’t even be told be those who have the information!

We have been professional Wedding Photographers in Scottsdale Arizona for nearly a decade (at the time of this article). In that time we have heard from hundreds of couples like you, we have been told what they like and what they haven’t liked throughout their process.

This guide will tell you EVERYTHING that you need to know for your big day, what photographers are doing & what they’re not. .

Also Consider Reading: Why an Engagement Session is Important

LET’S GET RIGHT TO IT: How to Hire a Wedding Photographer

Best Times to Book

&

How to Hire A Wedding Photographer

• Wedding booking season is defined as the time between January & April
  • The best time to search for and find the best wedding photographer is between these dates. If the photographers that you like are experienced and in high demand there is a better chance that they will already be booked for your date (especially if your wedding is during a popular time)
  • Popular wedding dates in Arizona are; February through April & October through December.

• Meeting with your potential photographer should be easy.
  • We are available 7 days a week day and night because we’re full-time photographers.
  • We offer video consultations, meeting in person, email chatting, text messaging, and of course phone calls all week long.
• Meeting the photographer that you like is important!
  • While most of our consultations take place in person some happen over the phone or on video chat (about 5-10%). While this is fine in many cases you want to be sure to like your wedding photographer. They will be with you before, during (the entire wedding, unlike other wedding professionals), and after.
  • Be sure that you enjoy spending time with the photographer that you hire. Having fun is all part of the process and will make your day and planning more enjoyable. Plus, when you are relaxed and having fun you will look significantly better in your photos.

Consider Hiring a Husband & Wife Team

A husband and wife team has been working together on every wedding and doesn’t depend on someone else to get the job done right.

• Try to avoid part-time photographers
  • They simply won’t have the experience that fulltime photographers have gained over the years. This is important not only for the quality of your photography but also to help manage your wedding day and the planning of your expectations.
• Make sure that they are responsive.
  • If you have sent out inquiries to photographers and they aren’t getting back to you within the hour or even same day consider that a red flag.
  • You can’t be sure that once your hire them that they will be getting back to you in a timely manor when you need something if they aren’t interested enough to respond quickly before you have even made the decision!
• Consider hiring a husband and wife team.
  • “Associate Photographers” (a photographer that works for the true professional – hoping to build a portfolio of their own work) might be good enough but, to us, “good enough” is never good enough for your wedding.

Experience is Everything – Liking Your Photographer is just as Important!

Experience will carry the day and having a connection with your wedding photographer will help you enjoy every moment while helping you to look your best.

• Ask to see a full wedding gallery.
  • Many photographers can pull out their best portraits and showcase them on their website. What is more challenging and requires a lot of experience is delivering a full wedding gallery in stunning quality that is consistent with every other photo in your collection.
• Have they worked at your venue before?
  • Ok, this goes off the the beaten path. To us, it is never a concern if we have not worked at your chosen venue before. While we have worked at numerous venues across Arizona (and even is many other states/countries) we are never limited by our surroundings.
  • It’s true that for many this might be an important factor so, maybe you should consider this with most but, we feel that a true “professional” should be able to make any situation and circumstance beautiful.
  • Experience is more important than familiarity with the venue. We always show up early enough to scope the place out and lighting is always different depending on the weather and the date. We’ll have the lay of the land and what it will take to make everything perfect in no time!

What Other Photographers Are Doing

v.s.

How We Approach Every Wedding

• Selling “packages” with more than 9 hours.
  • Don’t be fooled into buying more than you need. In the decade that we have been full-time wedding photographers we have never, not once, seen the need for more than a 9 hour photography collection.
  • We offer collections from 5 hours, 7 hours, & 9 hours.
  • These blocks are specifically designed to meet the needs of each unique wedding.

• Not allowing “Printing Rights”.
  • These are YOUR wedding photos and you should be able to do with them what you please.
  • Many wedding photographers are requiring that you print only through their service.
  • Unfortunately, that means that they are able to mark the price up significantly (generally about $30 for one 8×10)!
  • We offer an easy to use printing option in your only gallery but we Do Not Mark the Price Up. They are professional quality and cost effective.

Expect to Receive About 70-100 Photos Per Hour

70-100 photos per hour is what an experience wedding photographer can put out and you should also expect them to ALL be hand developed.

• They’re leaving the Timeline planing to the DJ or Coordinator.
  • This might be a viable option but why leave your precious wedding photography to a timeline that suits the needs of the caterer?
  • Lighting is paramount to quality photography so having some input into when your photography should fit in is important to remembering your wedding in stunning quality!
• Many are providing wedding photos undeveloped.
  • “Straight Out of The Camera” (or known as SOC in the industry). With a high quality, full frame camera this might be ok but it’s not good enough for your wedding.
  • We hand develop EVERY portrait in your gallery through a multi-faceted process, ensuring that every photo is consistent with the rest and presents with beautiful depth and color!

• Settling for less than 50 images per hour.
  • We provide at least 70 images per hours and often 100 or more per hour.
• “Second Shooters”
  • Many photographers explain that your wedding photography will be provided (and even sometimes developed) by an “associate photographer“. This is another way of saying that they have hired a novice photographer who is willing to work for minimum wage in order to gain experience and build a portfolio.
  • We are a husband and wife team, we know each others habits and style, we edit together, and we provide double the experience because we always photograph together!

HOW WE’RE DIFFERENT THAN OTHER WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHERS

1. Photography Timeline: We take time to carefully develop a photo timeline, based on your wedding personally. You may be provided a timeline by your coordinator and/or DJ but, we like to add to the organization of your day by detailing a timeline that will work perfectly with your entire day! This helps us ensure that nothing is over looked and that things run flawlessly, from start to finish!

2. Development: Every single photo is fully and carefully hand developed…Yes, every single photo! This takes a lot of patience and effort but it’s well worth the results. We look at skin tones, color correction, highlights and shadows, and so much more, which enhancing clarity and brilliance. 

– Even though we take the time to hand develop every image from your wedding day, our turn around time is still among the best in the state, generally around 3 weeks.

3. Delivery: You will be proud to share your photography with friends and family! Therefore, we’re made the presentation is absolutely stunning. With a beautiful layout, cover image and your names displayed on the top, you can hide photos, heart your favorite photos, download your images individually or in their entirety, order prints with the click of a button, and share to social media! Everyone is going to love your gallery!

4. Limitations: There are none! We provide full printing and sharing rights. We view these photos as yours not ours. Let’s be honest, this is your wedding, these are your moments, and we’re your photographer, why should we concern ourselves with what you would like to do with YOUR photos. Other photographers can be very strict about this and we’ll never understand why. Print, share, and love Your photos any way you would like!

5. Professionalism & Experience: Every engagement session and wedding collection comes with 2 Professional Photographers. Generally photographers hire another person as a “second shooter”, this allows the “primary” shooter or the professional to pay less out of pocket while still providing two photographers (which is necessary for a wedding). The “second shooter” is always inexperienced and attempting to build a portfolio for themselves through working your wedding, all the while hoping to break into the wedding industry themselves. We provide two primary, professional photographers every time.

6. Style & Design: We love inspiration photos for your engagement session and planning your wedding portraits! We also have a questionnaire that we will send over in order to make sure that your photography is captured per your exact expectations. We’re good at what we do but knowing you and your expectations helps us be the best!

7. Pricing: Our collections are carefully designed to be exactly what you need for every possibility. We have taken the time to carefully create our collections over the years, after witnessing hundreds of weddings we have come pretty close to perfect. However, we are highly flexible and love to help you create the perfect layout. We do offer hourly rates which you can add to any collection. 

Engagement sessions are discounted when booking a bridal collection! We don’t include engagement sessions in our collections because in some instances couples might have already had it done or are having them done in another state, etc. So, rather than build the price of an engagement session into the price of your wedding, we leave it out so that you have the freedom to build your own experience. This helps us keep our pricing lower than most who share in our experience level.

– We will send you out a quote with our system, where you will be able to select the options you would like to include, such as; Engagement sessions, Wedding Collections, Boudoir, RAW Images, & Albums. This makes things simple for you to build your collection and not be over charged!

8. We Do Not Charge Per Hour for Sessions: We do not charge hourly for engagement sessions (we are there to capture the perfect moment and create beautiful images, however long that takes is how long it will take). Generally engagement sessions run about an hour to an hour and a half but sometimes we have limited control over the environment, lighting, and background distractions which may make the session last a little longer in order to ensure the best possible session!

9. Printing: We do not up charge on our luxury prints, we offer them as a curtesy. This is not something that any other photographer does, in fact many charge between 5-9 times what they purchase the product.

– We pay an annual premium to a luxury manufacturer in-order to pass the savings on to you. We then make sure that your photos are printed in the best quality possible. We want you to love living with your photography. The better your prints look, the better we look.

10. We stick around: Once your photos are delivered we aren’t going anywhere. We will always be here for you! Next month for questions and next year as a married couple! Many of our wedding clients like to stay in touch and prefer to use us for all of life’s little moments; from their Engagement session to Maternity, New Born, and beyond. It is support that never comes and goes, it remains dependable!