What to look for in a Wedding photographer?

£1,000 is a little on the low side.

Off my head...

Time spent-
Correspondence, initial meeting, 2 to 3 hours
10 am to 10pm. - 12 hours.
Travel time – 1 hour (lets say 30 min each way for local)
Editing – depending on the job/photographer/software/skill at processing/methods, for the sake of argument. 15 hours (including importing/exporting)
Book design if included + correspondence for this on top

Expenses
Disc or personalised USB
Personalised case for the above
May be a photo album
Travel – petrol
Misc. costs - electricity, computer hardware/software, insurance, accountant costs

Finally 20% tax under £32,000 annual salary. (lets just presume its under £32,000 to make this simple).

At least 1/3 of that £1,000 would be written off from the start.
 
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Another thing, if budget is tight i would skip having an album an just the best disc or usb only package you can afford. Later down the road you can order an album once you have saved some cash, but you can't buy better pictures.
 
You don't have to spend allot of money, you can do it on a shoe string and still have it look great and have a great time. The key is being resourceful and knowing where to spend the budget.
 
If budgets are tight then there's some thinking to do. There is an argument surrounding 'pro vs newbie vs weekender', I'll try and sum up my thoughts as best I can!

Professional
- You'll pay more for quality and/or experience
- May wait a little while for photos if they're busy during the summer
- May know your venue and where to get good shots, reducing the amount of time you'll be away from guests
- If very experienced but not top end, may be complaisant/unwilling to do things out of their 'usual' shots

Newbie
- Will be excited at the prospect of your wedding and be willing to try anything new or anything you want or suggest
- May not have the right or the best gear for the job but will get by
- May be less confident when it comes to herding people around and organising set shots

Weekender
- Doesn't have to justify kit cost so may actually have as good kit if not better than a pro
- Will be cheaper as anything is just extra pocket money
- Won't be as experienced or as used to working on the job/with other suppliers
- Probably wouldn't usually offer a pre-shoot, but may do one for free if you ask

Hope that helps, though it probably just confuses matters even more :p.

But yes, £1,000 is relatively low end which will mean they're either new to the game, not very good, annoying or all three.

And just to add to An Exception, the best wedding I've ever been at filming was the cheapest :). And I've been to some where the budgets are hundreds of thousands.
 
Unless they've been recommended via word of mouth alone then the pricing mentioned already is fairly low end yes but.. And here's the big but, a high fee does not mean you will get results that deserve that kind of fee.


Down here there are plenty of outfits that have standard packages that are around £1.5k but I wouldn't consider a single one to be worthy of that kind of price having seen their galleries. They charge so much but deliver so little because they've been long established as a business and have overheads to cover. Most don't care about evolving their photography but instead about getting the fees in and it's with those that you'll find the most problems like arsey photographers, ones that are too pushy or awkward and the like. To them it's just a business.

Look for someone who makes images personal rather than someone who just takes pictures and charges a fee. The fee doesn't matter it's the personal experience with you guys and your guests and how the photographer handles that whole package that matters.

When you meet them ask them why they shoot weddings, what drives them to it and how do they keep things fresh. Hell just ask a few random ones locally anyway and just observe the responses because I'm gonna bet if they're anything like the ones here then they will be stuck for a moment on what to respond with.
 
Just to add to Russ's post above

Newbie
- Will be excited at the prospect of your wedding and be willing to try anything new or anything you want or suggest
- May not have the right or the best gear for the job but will get by
- May be less confident when it comes to herding people around and organising set shots
- May be a train wreck
 
Sorry, by newbie I meant someone in the first year or two of being a wedding photographer but with half a dozen weddings under their belt. Do not choose someone who has either photographed none or very few weddings, it's just not worth it.
 
Having had our wedding pictures recently, we went for a recommended photographer that had covered my wife's sister's wedding. We had 2 appointments to discuss what was needed and spend a good deal of time with the photographer before the wedding.

One of the important things to me was bonding a little with the photographer, you need to remember this is someone that will play a bit part in organizing you and your friends and family on your day. Having like their work is a obviously a good start, having someone you actually can have a laugh with on the day is a very good indication too IMO.
 
Just to reiterate the point about having a backup photographer, we got married last year and my best friend who is a very good weekend photographer was going to do our photos (We were on a budget and he had done a couple of weddings previous so we knew what to expect) had a massive motocycle accident a week before the wedding and ended up in a wheelchair. After much scrambling we ended up asking another friend who had never shot a wedding before and predictably it didn't turn out as good.

Lesson is *always* have a back up plan or make sure the pro your paying has a backup photographer!
 
A few years ago a photographer friend of mine was on holiday and just before he was due to fly back to the UK when the volcano in Iceland blew up and all flights in the UK was grounded for a couple of days, (I myself landed 9pm that night and woke up to the same news! Missed it by about 3 hours)….there was a decision of whether to wait it out or rush and dash to land in Spain or France and take the rail or ferry back, but the point is, you can be as careful as you like, sometimes the unthinkable happens.

Nobody really have a "back up" photographer, unless whom you hired is a company who has a list of photographers on their books. What normally happen is photographers has other friends in the business who they get on with and trust their quality of work so if one is booked on said date, they would send each other referrals, perhaps an arrangement so that if an emergency happens, and that person is free that weekend, they could cover.

This by no means is something concrete or written down, it is merely out of courtesy and kindness, otherwise one would be on call all the time, and the "back up" would have to leave every weekend free, not book any holidays away. Accidents happen, I am sure your photographer would rather shoot your wedding then getting into a car accident so the fact that he doesn't have a back up is of no fault of his own. The risk of that is so small it would be like having a back up venue in case the one you booked has burned down the week before.

At most, the photographer have an assistant or partner they shoot with together., I guess the assistant could do the entire day but then again, he is not the one you have chosen in the first place. The assistant could be as a second tog who mainly shoot candids (possibly around 20% to 50% of the normal shoot) or just someone he has on the books to assist with gear, organising and set up. It depends on the role, if the assistant has only ever shot as the second and the main photographer had an accident then you would be taking a chance whether to go through with it either way, unless the assistant has an assistant of his own.

The alternative is a photographer (and he should, it’s the least he could do) is to go on places like DWF or such to ask for help, see if a photographer can help out. Unless of course he is in a hospital in a coma.
 
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Boycie said:
Just to reiterate the point about having a backup photographer, we got married last year and my best friend who is a very good weekend photographer was going to do our photos (We were on a budget and he had done a couple of weddings previous so we knew what to expect) had a massive motocycle accident a week before the wedding and ended up in a wheelchair. After much scrambling we ended up asking another friend who had never shot a wedding before and predictably it didn't turn out as good.

Lesson is *always* have a back up plan or make sure the pro your paying has a backup photographer!
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Seriously? Not a single bit of concern that the photographer is now paralysed?! As long as your wedding wasn't ruined though, eh?
 
That's not what I was implying. It was the "Ugh, how inconsiderate of the photographer to get paralysed right before our wedding." undertone to the post that I was attacking.
 
Dj_Jestar said:
Seriously? Not a single bit of concern that the photographer is now paralysed?! As long as your wedding wasn't ruined though, eh?
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I'm sorry where's the part that I state he is now paralysed? He broke his right arm and left leg and we decided to make him best man. Now get back in your box.
 
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I'm not promoting my other half at all, we're getting married next year and because she's into photography, she has lots of friends who are also into photography too. So we did the cheap option, she did a friends wedding, he's doing ours, all for free, that's £1000 saved
 
An Exception said:
10 in 150 is pretty slim pickings, either you have particularly high standards or I underestimated how **** most wedding togs are.

+1 for engagement shoot.
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I work for a bespoke mounting and froaming company and we have a lot of wedding shots come through and a lot of them are truly terrible or cringeworthy
 
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