Destination Wedding Photographer in the Muskokas » Shopping for a Wedding Photographer?

Shopping for a Wedding Photographer?

admin — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:13:15 +0000

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This isn’t as easy as selecting your venues, buying “the dress” or the bridal bouquet for one simple reason: You are not able to see the pictures that you are buying until after you have made your decision. In the end, you are buying on faith. For a lot of people, the price ends up being the most determining factor, which really doesn’t make a lot of sense when you consider the fact that is NO DO-OVERS with your wedding day.

Here are some of the Guidelines that may help you choose the photographer that’s absolutely right for you!

Personal Referrals

Start by building a list of several wedding photographers. Begin by asking friends and relatives for recommendations. People who have had positive experiences with their photographer are always glad to share the names with you. Then, when you meet with the photographers, you will have an immediate frame of reference to start from with your discussions.

Visit the Websites

Make sure that you visit each photographer’s website. Take the time to review their portfolio. Ensure that you are concentrating on the photographs and not the flashy website design. Good photograhers normally show a lot of their recent wedding work on-line. Create the list of the photographers whose style, photos and information really appeal to you. If you like a more photojournalistic style, don’t short-list a photographer who has a more “traditional” style.

Interview

Call or e-mail the photographers on your short-list. This will provide you with some basic information such as the photographer’s availability on your wedding date, their photographic specialities (i.e. candid, photojournalistic, free-style or traditional), and a rough idea of their rate and what you receive for that fee. It will also tell you something about the photographer’s personality and whether or not you “click.” This is important! The photograhper will be one of the integral parts of the most important day in your life, so make sure that you select the person that you feel “good” about.

Appointments

Make appointments with the photographers who sound promising so that you can view their portfolios and discuss the details. You and your fiance should both attend the meetings and, if possible, the bride’s parents or anyone else who may be involved in paying for the work or being closely involved with the photographer, i.e. wedding planner or coordinator. Write down all of your questions before you arrive for the appointment and take notes during the discussions.

Get Specific

The more questions you ask up front, the more confident and relaxed you will feel on and after your wedding day. If in doubt, ask! Professional photographers are used to being asked all kind of things during these appointments. There is no such thing as a dumb question!

Questions You Should Ask

How will we see the photographs to choose from? (i.e. on-line gallery, printed proofs/book or contact sheet.
Will you help us select the final photos?
How easy will it be for our family and friends to order reprints?
What are the costs with the various levels of coverage? Are there different options for the coverage? What’s included in each level?
How much are the extras or additional options?
What type of album comes with my coverage? What is the cost? Are there alternate choices available and if so, are they an extra charge?
How much money am I likely to have to spend before I’ll be happy with my wedding day coverage?
What is your photography style? (photojournalistic, traditional, candid, free-style, etc.)
What is the costs for duplicate prints, albums, enlargements, Thank You cards, etc.?
Do we receive the digital files?
What is the timeframe for receiving our proofs after the wedding?
How long do I have to select the prints for the album, Thank You cards, enlargements, etc.?
How about an engagement session? Is it necessary?
How long have you been in business?
How long do you plan on staying in business?
What is your philosophy about photographing weddings?
Do you charge travel fees? What if you have to stay overnight?
Will you have a second photographer or assistant at my wedding?
How much is your overtime rate?
Do you have a backup photographer?
What is your payment policy?
Do you give any guarantees about service and photographs?
Will you be shooting my wedding personally?
Do you have a contract?
What do you plan to do at my wedding that will make my photographs unique and personal to me?

There are numerous more questions that you can ask your photographer. Most professional photographers will provide you with very clear explanations about their services before you even ask the question. Many will have full packages or collections that include number of hours of service, digital files, prints or albums, enlargements, etc. This will make it very clear about what level of service and products that you should expect.

Once you have narrowed down your list to one or two wedding photographers, ask them to show you the complete coverage of at least one entire wedding. This will give you a much better idea of what you should expect than just a collection of the best shots from several weddings. Look at whether or not the photographer captures individual characteristics and personalities in the images. Do the pictures show feelings or are they just standing around looking self-conscious (one of the best ways is to look at the family photos)? Do people look natural?

A very useful trick: Ask the photographer to analyze your face. Most professional photographers do this automatically when they meet you, although they may not mention it during the interview. It helps them achieve the most flattering images with the best angles and so on.

Cost

Price is often the one obstacle that prevents wedding clients from selecting the photographer who can give them the best value. Problems usually come up when “within the budget” is misunderstood. It is tempting to spend “a little more here and a little more there” but the financial limits must be in place. Within the framework of the entire wedding day, it makes sense to evaluate the photography budget in relation to the money being spent on flowers, food and music, when, at the end of the day, pictures are the one thing that you’ll have after the day is over.

Rates vary significantly according to experience, talent and technique. In general, fees for competent photography will begin around fifteen hundred dollars. Spending less than this is a gamble. A true wedding photography specialists, one with a reputation for consistently delivering the best, might begin at two to four times that amount. International destination wedding photographers will be significantly higher than this.

There are also significant differences in how photographers price their services. Some offer a basic package with a specific number of hours for a set fee; others may have a fixed price for the entire wedding day and charge for all the extras; still others may offer a package that provides the wedding day coverage with prints, albums, etc. Make sure that when you are comparing photographers, that you are comparing “apples to apples” or “oranges to oranges” and not “apples to oranges”.

Make sure that if you are planning on giving prints to the family, that you include this cost into the wedding photography budget. As a rule, most wedding clients end up adding additional prints to the original package and spend a little more than the original budget because they liked the photographs so much.

Commit

By this time, if you have asked the good questions, you’ll know if this is the photographer for you. You’ve probably spent a great deal of time communicating with your photographer. Keep in mind that photographers are trained professionsals and that they deserve to be treated as such. Go to your meeting prepared to leave a deposit and sign the contract to reserve your date. You may want to ask a few more questions about the last-minute details.

What is the policy about wedding date changes?
What happens if the photographer is not available on the alternate date?
What is the policy about an unforseen cancellation?

If the photographer is right for you, and is available, and if you’re convinced that it’s worth their fee — make the committment and relax. This is one of the best and most intelligent decisions that you’ve made in planning your wedding.

Bottom Line

Years from now, the money that you spent on your wedding photographs will be irrelevant. What is important is getting great images that capture the joy and love of your wedding day in a medium that will last long after the gown is cleaned and put away, the food is eaten and nobody remembers the music.

(Article published June 30, 2011 on Professional Wedding Photographers of Canada)

Why Hire A Professional Wedding Photographer?

admin — Wed, 25 May 2011 20:13:23 +0000

NOTE: the images in this feed have been downsized or removed for copyright reasons. To see them in their unmodified state, please view the original post by clicking here.

Why Hire a Professional Photographer?

I am a big fan of clients having amazing images of their wedding day. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity and you need to capture all those moments in time. I am re-posting a blog written by Southall Eden Blog. [Images are @2010-2011 www.nightingailphotography.com. It breaks my heart when couples skimp on the most important piece of the wedding budget. - Gail]

Let’s face it. Weddings are crazy expensive. I’m all about finding ways to save money, and there are lots of ways you can do so. But if you only splurge on one thing for your wedding, LET IT BE PHOTOGRAPHY. Why? Because chances are you know someone who is a “photographer” and its tempting to hire them for cheap or even have them shoot your wedding as a wedding gift to you to save money, but hear me now and believe me later, DON’T DO IT!!!

Here’s why:

1. You will not get this chance again.

This is your wedding. Hopefully you will only be having one. Isn’t it worth the investment? The #1 regret I hear from Southall Eden brides about their wedding day is that they are not happy with their photos. Don’t be one of them. Besides, when else will all your family and friends be gathered in one place? Probably never, except for at your funeral, and by then you won’t care. My own sister had a very mediocre photographer at her wedding. Within a year, both my grandma and my mom passed away. Those are the last family pictures we will ever have, and they are not good. The value of that now far exceeds the $1,000 or whatever money was saved on the photographer.

2. It’s not just for you, it’s for everyone who loves you.

Your uncle couldn’t capture this with his Point and Shoot camera! Of course your wedding day should be all about you and your fiance, but don’t forget how much time, effort, and money your family and wedding party have put into it as well. They deserve some nice photos to remember the occasion by. But even more than that, think about future generations. Won’t your kids and grandchildren want to see these? What girl doesn’t love seeing old wedding photos of the generations before her? This is the one aspect of your wedding (aside from your marriage itself) that will last forever.

3. A wedding photographer can anticipate what will happen next.

This is why you should not only get a great photographer, you should get a great wedding photographer. The word “photographer” encompasses a variety of people – family photographers, fashion photographers, commercial photographers, etc. Being good at one area doesn’t necessarily mean you are good at another. If you hire someone whose livelihood is shooting weddings, there is a pretty good chance they have done this enough times to not only know where they need to be in order to capture certain moments, but also random things like what kind of light will come through a stained glass window at 5:00 in May, etc.

4. A great photographer can turn an ordinary wedding into an extraordinary wedding.

I have seen this first hand on multiple occasions. A couple is on a tight budget and doesn’t have a lot of money for decor or fancy extras at their wedding. But they hire a great photographer, and lo and behold when you see the photos you would think the wedding cost twice what it really did. The photographer captures everything at its best, and everything that is wonderful about the day, and when you look at your photos you remember your wedding day fondly.

5. If it doesn’t turn out well, you don’t want to have hard feelings with a friend.

This is a big one. If you hire (or ask a favor from) a friend and the photos don’t turn out well, it can seriously damage your relationship. [Underexposed photos, out of focus pictures, no useable photographs from an entire wedding -- or WORSE, you never receive any images from your wedding -- NightinGail has seen and heard it all from people who didn't choose a professional photographer.] Every time you see that person for the rest of your life you will think of how s/he “ruined” your wedding photos. It may not be intentional, but you will. Its kind of like they ran over your cat with their car tire. You know it’s not intentional, but you can’t help but associating them with this one unfortunate act.

So how much does a great wedding photographer cost? This depends on what all is included. Some photographers quote their rates for shooting only, while others quote packages that include both shooting and prints, albums, digital images, etc. When you are researching photographers you should keep this in mind and make sure you are comparing apples to apples with regard to pricing. That being said, I know a couple of great photographers whose coverage starts around $2,000, but you should not be startled at a base price of $3,500 either. Sure that’s a lot of money, but what you get in return is priceless. How can you argue with that???

Can I Just Buy the Disc? I’ll Make My Own Prints…

gailk — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 01:16:44 +0000

I found this article last week and have not been able to stop thinking about it….why??? Because this is totally our generation. Most of us are putting all our images on disc or worse yet leaving them on the computer. What happens when the disc gets lost or damaged or worse, you have a computer crash and all the photos of your special moments are gone forever? My heart sinks and I am refusing to not be “this grandma”.

Author: Fred Molesworth, Salem, Oregon

I’m willing to bet your grandchildren will be upset with you. Here’s why. Imagine, 50 years from now, as your grandchildren or great grandchildren are going through the boxes in the attic. They are enthralled with the treasures and keepsakes they find and how they tie into the story of your life.

Amongst all the old items, they find a number of round silver objects. Some have writing on them, some are blank, but they resemble some kind of a small platter about 4″ across, with a hole in the middle.

Puzzled, they take them to their parents. “What are these, Mom?” they ask. “Oh, I think those are all of grandma’s photographs. Yep, here’s one labeled ‘My Wedding’. Here’s some more labeled ‘Family Photos,’ and some more labeled ‘Vacations’.”

“How do we look at them?” they ask.

“Well, I’m not sure we can. First of all, no one has the device that reads these anymore. Besides that, I doubt after all these years that they’re any good anymore. Being stored in the attic, the heat and cold probably ruined them.”

The kids are very disappointed. Nowhere amongst all the treasures are any actual prints. All that history is lost. Their connection with the past and all the wonderful stories that might have gone along with all those photographs are gone as well.

Along with all the wonders of our digital age come some significant problems that most people have never thought of.

Did you know that over 90% of all images taken on today’s digital cameras are NEVER PRINTED? I’m guilty of that myself. I have gigabytes of personal photographs that have never been seen other than on a computer screen.

In the old days, film went to the lab and everything that was printable was printed. Even if it was a bad photograph, it still was a hard copy, a part of your family history and it had permanence. Even if they never went in an album, they at least went into a box, to be discovered as treasures years later.

The same problem exists in professional portrait studios today. Many people are simply asking for the images on CD. “I’ll print them later” or “I’ll design my own wedding album” are common phrases. Usually this is done with the thought that they’ll save some money by doing it themselves.

But you know what? Most never make it into any kind of an album. Life gets busy and 20 years later they’ll be looking for some way to read those disks.

I bring this up only to point out the importance of what we, as a professional studio do. Our job is not just to create the images, to create wonderful story telling photographs about the people in front of our camera; it’s to create a final product, whether it be a professionally retouched and printed single image, a family heirloom wall portrait, or an incredible storybook album using a collection of the images that were created.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a wedding, a newborn baby, a senior or a family. Having the final product created for you is important. To do less is to leave the job half done and to short change the customer.

So, if you’re asked for a disk with all the images “so I can print them later”, that’s fine, just make sure your customers understand that if not printed, the conversation their grandchildren will want to have about their family history may never be able to happen.

A Bit About Fred Molesworth:

In addition to running a full time portrait studio in Salem Oregon, Fred Molesworth is a small business teacher and advisor, and the author of the Portrait Studio Marketing blog (www.portraitstudiomarketing.com). He’s also a nationally known business and marketing speaker in the portrait industry, and past president of the Professional Photographers of Oregon.

I know when I was a kid there were albums of photographs in my grandmother’s attic as well as a large box of old black & white and sepia pictures. Pictures were important because it was very expensive to have them taken and produced so they were cherished. Those albums are some of my most cherished possessions because they show our family history.

I have been guilty of not printing a lot of our personal family photos because I’ve been thinking (like many of our clients), I’ll do them later and guess what, later never comes. One of my personal goals for 2010 is to go through all of my on-computer photos and make sure that they make it into albums for our family history!

And something else, make sure that you document who is in the photo on the back because in 50 years, there may be no-one around who knows who the people are and that would be a shame.

Please DO “print your pictures!”

411 – For Couples

gailk — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:33:00 +0000

As part of our 411 info section, here is something that might be helpful for couples planning their wedding.

Wedding Planning Tools

Upon Engagement:
Talk with your fiancé and all parents or family members you choose to involve regarding budget, style, size of event, location, time of year and attendees. (FYI – The national average for the cost of a wedding for 2009 is $28,000.)
Determine whether or not you would like to hire an event planner to assist in all the research and planning details. (your other option is a partial, or day–of coordinator—which can be hired at a later date)
Start thinking about the overall style and theme of your reception.
Begin researching and visiting reception sites.
Set the date and locations; reserve the ceremony site, reception site, and accommodations for out–of–town guests.
Book your hotel room for your wedding night and pre-wedding night.
Select your wedding party attendants.
Book your engagement portrait session.
Send your engagement notice to your local newspaper. Be sure to get multiple copies of the newspaper in order to send to grandparents and family members.

12 Months Before or sooner:
Start researching and booking your wedding vendors.
Research these major planning details, determine your style and vision and start creating the perfect event –
oCatering (if not provided by your reception venue)
oCeremony
oOfficiant (if not provided by your ceremony site)
oFlowers
oMusic
oPhotography
oCakes (if not provided by your reception venue or caterer)
oDresses
oStationery & Invitations
oTransportation
oFavours & Gifts
Interview and begin booking your vendors. Concentrate on booking major vendors such as the caterer, officiant, florist, musicians, photographer and baker first.

12 Months Before:
Start shopping for your wedding gown, bridesmaids’ dresses and accessories.
Research the honeymoon. (This is a great task for the groom!)
Create gift registries at your local department stores. Many registries are also available online for those guests purchasing gifts out of town.
Discuss plans for any bridal showers, engagement or bachelorette parties with your close friends and relatives.
Schedule the ceremony rehearsal, rehearsal dinner and departure brunch.
Begin gathering names and addresses and compile your guest list.
Shop for wedding invitations and stationery.

9 Months Before:
Order your wedding dress
Decide on your bridesmaids dresses and obtain ordering instructions and deadlines from the store or boutique.
Finalize your guest list and send “Save the Date” cards with hotel information to guests. (remember that everyone who receives a save–the–date will be invited to the wedding)
Call your facility coordinator or catering director to schedule the menu tasting.
If preferred, hire an event planner to assist with final details and “day of” procedures.

6 Months Before:
Reserve the honeymoon and book flights. (remember passports if needed)
Book all wedding day transportation.
Choose and book a hair and make–up artist for your wedding day.
Reserve the groom’s and attendants’ tuxedos at a local tuxedo shop.
Shop for favors, attendant gifts and items for welcome baskets.
Order invitations.
Schedule the bridesmaids’ luncheon.
Order wedding rings.
If preferred, sign up for dance lessons.
Purchase any last accessories—stockings, lingerie, etc.
Make appointment for first dress fitting.
If preferred, hire a calligrapher and submit wording information so he/she can begin envelopes.

3 Months Before:
Finalize and confirm with your florist all flower arrangements, bouquets, and boutonnieres.
Finalize and confirm special song selections and play lists with ceremony and reception musicians.
Finalize and confirm requested shots and with your photographer.
Plan all ceremonial events with the clergy member, including any music, readings and vows.
Write your wedding vows and any speeches if you wish.
Shop for honeymoon outfits.
Mail invitations, being sure to use proper postage.
Call your wedding coordinator, catering director, and reception facility manager with an estimated guest count.

2 Months Before:
Print programs for the ceremony.
Mail rehearsal/rehearsal dinner invitations.
Pick up the wedding rings and double check the fit.
Try out hairstyle and make–up.
Log RSVP’s as they come in for meal choices.
Send wedding announcement to local newspaper.
Contact the wedding coordinator about hotel room blocks, confirm reservations for appropriate guests.
Assemble visitor gift baskets to place in the hotel rooms of those traveling from out–of–town. Remember to include directions from the hotel to the ceremony and reception site.
Schedule final dress fitting. Make sure bridesmaids have done the same.
Get name change forms if you plan to change your name.

1 Month Before:
Most room blocks will no longer be held after this date. Be sure that all visitors have confirmed their room reservations.
Begin preparing place cards and table cards.
Apply for marriage license. Different provinces and countries have different policies. You will get a marriage license in the county in which you are married, regardless of where you and your fiancé actually live.
Confirm schedule, arrival times and any other arrangements with all vendors. It may be helpful to fax directions, contact numbers and the day’s itinerary to all vendors.
Confirm honeymoon reservations: including flights, hotel accommodations, and any rental cars.
Contact wedding coordinator, catering manager, and facility manager with initial meal choices.

10 Days Before:
Make final facility rental payment.
Confirm tuxedo arrangements.
Begin packing for honeymoon.
Pick up your dress and break in your shoes.
Confirm rehearsal arrangements with bridal party.
Contact wedding coordinator, catering manager, and facility manager with final guest count estimate.
Schedule time to drop off favors, place cards, seating chart etc.

3 Days Before:
Make a check–list of final things to remember.
Drop off favors, place cards, seating chart etc.
Contact wedding coordinator, catering manager, and facility manager with final guest count, entrée choices, and clear any outstanding payments.

1 Day Before:
Complete packing for honeymoon, prepare to check into your hotel.
Take some time to relax at some point during the day, and think about something besides the wedding.
Drink plenty of fluids—especially in the summer—and avoid sodium.
Attend the rehearsal ceremony and rehearsal dinner.
Get to bed early and get some rest.

On Your Wedding Day:
Eat a good breakfast with family and friends.
Enjoy any pre–wedding primping.
Put wedding announcements in the mail.
Relax and enjoy your day.