Sure about your photographer???... Question 1

Do you know what you are doing when hiring a photographer? You are going to sign a legal contract and trust that the pictures you will have hanging in your house for the rest of your life are going to be as good as you expect them to be. You can see what you think looks good, but do you know the right questions to ask? Allow me to give you some insider's tips that I may be frowned on for giving :)

It's time for another 'For Brides' post :) This one is going to be a good one and very much pertaining to our blog because it is about how to know if a photographer is as good as his website shows. I want our For Brides posts to be for ALL brides and not just for OUR brides, that way brides can gain from these posts whether or not they are booking us. So make sure that you tell your friends who are getting married to check these posts out because they are really great and the guy who wrote them is really funny, attractive, insightful, whatever you want to say ;)

I may be breaking photographer's code here but I am going to give you the keys to tell if a photographer is worth hiring or not. A lot of photographers just expect that you are going to look at their website and choose them based on what you think of a few pictures. They book the bulk of their weddings on this alone and great for them, I'm all for free enterprise! BUT... to make sure you hire the right photographer, you need to look deeper than this. I am going to give you a few questions to answer when looking for the right photographer for YOU no matter who you are. Be excited now :)

What most brides do is look at a photographer's website and base their decision on the external; 1. Does their website look professional? 2. Does their picture gallery look great? But brides beware... any photographer can put up 40-50 really good pictures; that isn't all that hard to do. Even Emily and I put up our 50 best pictures because that is what people are looking for; but you need to look past this if you want to guarantee you are getting the photographer you want. If you are judging a photographer on a few stunning images (and believe me, they can be REALLY great!), you may not be getting the photographer you think you are getting.

Question 1 is this; What does the rest of their stuff look like?

The best way to answer this question is to see a wedding they have done from start to finish. If they don't have a slideshow or a gallery of a single wedding on their website, then ask for a meeting and a chance to see a full wedding. This is the most important thing that should put to rest 90% of the other questions in your head (we often get questions about what gear we have, our experience, etc.. These are good questions and important things to ask, but it comes down to this... does their work speak for itself?) If you get a view of a full wedding and are still impressed, you should be well on your way to booking them!

The next best way to check out their work is to see their blog; here you can see what their current images look like. Most photographers these days have blogs to keep people's interest in their work. A lot of photographers keep the same images on their site from years ago... There isn't anything wrong with this at all! I will do this, I'm sure, with several of our images. The only thing about this is that a photographer's style can change over time. I look at pictures Emily and I took just last year and think to myself 'Our work looks so much different now!' If your photographer has a blog, check it out and see what you think! These should be the reality check for you; if you aren't liking what they have on their blog, yet you really liked what they had on their website, then my suggestion to you would be to reconsider hiring them.

Still not sure yet though? Is there still a nagging in your gut that says "I'm still not sold yet..."? Stay posted for next week's question that will help a bit more to put that worry bug to rest :)

Right now I am working on Brian and Carrie's Wedding. Here is one more of Carrie that I love!