I grew up in a house full of photos. My dad or I when I was old enough, was always behind a camera…family dinners, road trips, Sunday afternoons that probably didn’t seem worth documenting but somehow always were. That’s where I fell in love with this work. And somewhere along the way, I also learned something that still holds true 19 years into this career: the best images happen when the people around you feel cared for and at ease.
That instinct shapes everything about how I approach a wedding weekend, including the relationships I build with the planners I work alongside.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why some wedding weekends feel genuinely seamless, and others feel like everyone’s just barely managing. In my experience, one of the biggest factors is something couples don’t always think to ask about: whether the photographer and the planner truly have a good working relationship.
When that relationship is solid, couples feel settled. They’re more relaxed, more present, and the whole day has a different rhythm. When it’s strained, that comes through in the mood on the floor, in how the day flows, in how supported everyone feels.
What trust between vendors looks like
When I say your photographer and planner need to like each other, I mean genuine trust. The kind that gets built over time, through real conversations and shared experience at venues together.
Think about how much time these two people spend in each other’s orbit. They’re in communication for months before your wedding, working through your timeline, your priorities, your vision for the weekend. On the wedding day itself, they’re side by side from getting-ready through the last song of the night. When the floral designer is running behind and the light is moving faster than the timeline allows, they’re the ones figuring it out together in real time, with no room for a long discussion about whose responsibility it is.
That kind of working relationship runs on mutual respect, a shared commitment to putting the couple’s experience first, and the willingness to back each other’s judgment when something comes up.
What happens when egos get in the way
Planners have a vision for how the day should unfold. Photographers have needs around light, timing, and being in the right place at the right moment. Those two things bump into each other sometimes, and that’s completely normal. What matters is how it gets handled.
When there’s genuine trust between a planner and a photographer, those friction points get resolved before they become anything. A portrait timeline shifts because the ceremony ran long—my planner lets me know, I adjust, and we keep moving without missing a beat.
I’ve heard from couples and fellow vendors what it looks like when that trust isn’t there. A photographer and planner holding their ground on something small because neither wants to concede, with the stress landing squarely on the couple, who deserved none of it. It happens more than it should, and it’s avoidable.
What both people have to keep coming back to is that what the couple wants matters more than what either of them wants. More than any preference about timeline structure or creative direction or who gets the last word. The couple’s experience is the whole point, and every decision should come back to that.
What real teamwork looks like on a hard day
Marlee and Beck’s wedding day is one I go back to a lot when I talk about this. The weather was all over the place—genuinely beautiful when I arrived, then a full sideways rainstorm, then back to sunshine. In the hands of a team that wasn’t working well together, that could have unraveled quickly.
It didn’t…because the people on that team trusted each other. Nobody froze waiting for someone else to make the call. Nobody was pointing fingers about whose job it was to adapt. We just handled it, together, and Marlee and Beck had a day that felt exactly the way they’d hoped: joyful, relaxed, and fully theirs.
That’s what a good photographer-planner relationship produces in practice. It’s two people who’ve built enough trust that they can adapt together when the day asks it of them, and the couple gets to stay completely present for all of it.
Why that trust has to be built before the wedding weekend
The wedding day is not the place to be figuring out whether you can trust someone. That either exists going in or it doesn’t.
The planners I work best with are the ones I’ve had real conversations with before we ever show up together. We’ve talked through our approaches. I understand how she thinks when a timeline is slipping. She knows how I work when the light is doing something unexpected and I need a few extra minutes. If we’re working together for the first time, we make the effort to connect beforehand so we’re not essentially meeting each other on the floor.
I’m a mom of two girls, and I know what it’s like to be moving fast through something that matters and need to completely trust the people around you. I want every couple I work with to have that experience on their wedding weekend…a team that has already done the work of learning to work together, so the couple never has to think about it.
Why it matters for the moments I’m there to capture
The moments I’m there for (the real ones, the unrepeatable ones) happen in a fraction of a second. To catch them, I have to be entirely present and entirely focused on what’s in front of me.
When I trust my planner completely, I can give the work my full attention. I know the timeline is in good hands. I know that if something shifts, she’ll get to me. That kind of confidence frees me up to do the one thing I’m there to do: be in the right place at the right moment.
A planner who trusts her photographer works the same way. She handles the flow of the day knowing I’m covering what I need to cover. We’re not overlapping or second-guessing each other; we’re just working, each of us doing our part well, and the couple gets the benefit of both.
What to pay attention to when you’re building your team
If you’re still putting your vendor team together, here are a few things worth asking about.
- Ask your photographer which planners they love working with…and then ask why. If they can speak specifically to what makes those working relationships good, that tells you something real. Vagueness here is worth noticing.
- Ask your planner the same thing. Planners have strong opinions about photographers, and they’ve earned them. If she keeps recommending the same few names, there’s a reason.
- Pay attention to whether your vendors are in touch with each other before the wedding. Are they talking? Are they aligned on your vision? A photographer who proactively reaches out to your planner is a photographer who understands that this is a team effort, not a solo job.
- And trust your read on how the whole group feels. You’ve done the work to find people you believe in individually. The last piece is making sure they can work together.
You want people who have each other’s backs
The weddings I look back on with the most warmth are always the ones where the planner and I were genuinely on the same team…communicating well, covering each other, staying focused on the same goal.
That shows up in the day in concrete ways. The couple moves through the timeline easily. Decisions get made quickly and cleanly. When something unexpected happens, it gets handled before it becomes a problem. The whole day runs the way it’s supposed to, and the couple is free to be completely in it.
Your wedding weekend is too important, and goes too fast, to leave that dynamic to chance. The relationship between your photographer and your planner is one of the most meaningful things you can get right.
Curious what it feels like to work with me from the first email through final delivery? This post walks through the whole experience, including what happens after you hit submit on that inquiry form.
And if you’re still in the early stages of figuring out whether I’m the right fit, this post lays out exactly how I work and what makes my approach different.
If you’re building your wedding team and want to talk through what that looks like, I’d love to connect. Reach out here and let’s start the conversation.
