I photographed a wedding at a private estate two years ago where hair and makeup ran behind. We went from having an hour and a half for all of the portraits to having thirty minutes, and that thirty minutes still had to cover the bride and groom, the wedding party, and both families.
While we waited, I kept talking to the planner. I told her exactly where we were and what my team and I could still pull off before the ceremony, and I was honest about what was going to have to move to after. She took that and ran with it, shifting a few things in the timeline so nothing got lost.
The couple had no idea how far behind we were. They found out after their First Look and portraits were done, when we finally told them.
That is what I tell when someone asks me what I do. The photographs are the deliverable. The reason they look the way they do is everything that happened before anyone picked up a camera.
If you are in the middle of hiring a wedding photographer right now, you are probably comparing galleries. That’s the easiest thing to compare, so it’s where most couples start.
I want to give you the rest of it, because after almost twenty years and hundreds of weddings, I have watched the same handful of decisions determine whether a wedding weekend feels smooth or feels like something you had to manage.
Who this post is for
I am writing this to you, the couple. Your planner may have been the one who sent you here, and if she did, she already knows most of what follows. She has watched it play out at dozens of weddings.
What I want to give you is the same working knowledge she has, so that when the two of you sit down to talk about photographers, you are having a better conversation.
I have written before about why your wedding photographer and planner need to like each other, and this post is the companion piece to it, written for your side of the table.
What a gallery can and cannot tell you
Every photographer you are considering has a portfolio full of their strongest images from their strongest weddings. What you are seeing is a highlight reel edited over months and curated for exactly this moment. It tells you a great deal about their eye and their editing. It tells you nothing about their behavior.
A gallery leaves out:
- How they handled a ceremony that ran thirty minutes long
- Whether the planner would work with them again
- What they did when a grandmother was too tired to stand for the family photos
- How many hours passed between “one more of the two of you” and the couple sitting down to eat
- Whether the images you are looking at came from a wedding with three assistants and a full production team
Ask to see a complete gallery from a wedding weekend similar to yours. Not a blog post. The whole thing, start to finish. You will learn more in twenty minutes of scrolling through 1000+ images than you will from a year of Instagram.
The questions worth asking when you are hiring a wedding photographer
Most couples ask about deliverables… how many images, how long until we get them, do you offer albums. These are absolutely reasonable questions to ask, but there are a few others I encourage you to also ask…
1. Who builds the photography timeline, and when?
The photography timeline is the spine of your wedding weekend. It determines when you get ready, when you see each other, when you eat, and how much of your own party you get to attend.
I build mine in collaboration with the planner, usually eight to ten weeks out, and I build it backward from ceremony time. Every photographer should be able to tell you their process for this in specific terms. A vague answer means the timeline gets made on the fly, and you will know it.
2. How do you work with the planner?
Your planner is running a production with dozens of moving pieces. Your photographer either makes that easier or makes it harder, and there is no third option.
I require a full-service planner or a planner brought on at least sixty days out. I ask for the master timeline. I introduce myself to the planner early and stay in touch through the weekend. When the planner has you, I do not go looking for you.
Ask any photographer you are considering for three planners who will speak to how they operate.
3. What happens when the weather turns?
Every photographer has a rain plan in theory, so ask them for a specific story instead, one with a venue and an outcome and a decision they had to make in the moment.
The story will tell you whether they have been through it enough times to have a system.
4. What are you doing during the reception?
There are long stretches of a wedding weekend where nothing is scheduled and everything is happening. Someone gives an unplanned toast at the bar, your father sits down for a minute with his brother, and two cousins who have not seen each other in six years find each other near the dance floor.
Ask a photographer what they are looking for during dinner. The answer is a window into how they see your weekend. If candid coverage matters to you, this is the question that gets at it.
5. What is included, and what happens if the weekend runs long?
Coverage hours are where budgets get complicated after the fact. Get clear on what your package includes, what an additional hour costs, and whether an engagement session, welcome dinner and farewell brunch coverage are available. My wedding weekend coverage starts at $15,000+, and I say that plainly because couples deserve to know before they schedule a call. I also know every wedding is different (an elopement and full wedding weekend are two very different things that need different coverage and I love to chat with couples to customize collections specifically for them and their wants/needs).
If you are earlier in the process than this, I wrote a whole post on the five things to know before inquiring about wedding photography that covers the front end of this conversation.
Why full wedding weekend coverage changes what you end up with
The wedding is one day inside a weekend that you spend a year building.
The welcome dinner is when your college roommate meets your fiancé’s college roommate.
The morning of, before hair and makeup, is when your sister brings you coffee.
The farewell brunch is when your grandparents say goodbye to people they will not see again for a long time.
I have made the case for farewell brunch coverage at length, because it is consistently the coverage couples are most surprised they loved.
Couples who book eight hours of coverage get their wedding. Couples who book the weekend get the story around it, and I have never once heard from a couple who wished they had less of it.
You can see what that looks like in practice in Meredith and JG’s wedding weekend in Highlands, which I documented from the night before through the farewell brunch.
What full weekend coverage includes for my clients
- Welcome dinner and rehearsal coverage
- Nine to ten hours of wedding day coverage
- Farewell brunch coverage
- A custom timeline built with your planner
- Sneak peek within one week
- Full gallery
- 1500+ images across the weekend
What experience buys you at a destination wedding
I photograph all over the Carolinas and the East Coast, and I go wherever my couples are getting married, including the Northeast and out West.
After photographing weddings for almost twenty years, I can walk into a space I’ve never seen before and read it fast. I know what I’m looking for. I know where the light’s going to be at 4:00 pm. I know how long it really takes to get 200 guests from the ceremony to the reception. I know which corner we’ll move the family to if it starts raining. That’s what I’ve built over hundreds of weddings.
So when a venue is new to me, I do my homework. I study it ahead of time, I show up early, and I walk the whole thing with the planner before the day gets going. By the time you’re getting ready, I already know where we’re headed.
There are places I’ve gotten to know really well over the years too, like Old Edwards, and I love that familiarity when I have it. But it’s honestly never been the thing that makes or breaks a wedding day. Being prepared is.
If you’re still figuring out where to host your weekend, I keep a running list of the best East Coast wedding venues for a destination weekend that might help.
Why your planner recommends the photographers she recommends
When your planner hands you a shortlist, she is doing two things at once:
She is recommending photographers whose work she loves. That part is real, and it comes first. She has looked at hundreds of galleries and she has strong opinions about which ones will do justice to a wedding she spent a year designing.
She is also recommending photographers whose presence at a wedding makes the weekend run well. She knows who arrives early. She knows who reads a timeline. She knows who will find her before the ceremony instead of after.
The photographers who make her shortlist have earned both.
What I’m here to do
I am not trying to build my portfolio at your wedding. I am trying to keep your weekend running cleanly and give you a record of it that you will hand to your children.
Your planner protects the timeline. I protect the story. You get to be at your own wedding.
That is our arrangement, and it is the reason I ask for a planner in the first place. When the two of us are doing our jobs well, you should barely notice either one of us.
Where to start
If you are early in your search, ask for a complete gallery, ask for planner references, and ask how the timeline gets built. Those three answers will sort your list quickly.
And if you are planning a wedding weekend and want to talk through what coverage would look like for yours, wherever you are getting married, reach out here. I would love to hear where you are in the process. You can also see what working with me looks like from the inside if you want a fuller picture first.
