Questions to Ask a Wedding Photographer

Meeting with potential wedding photographers is probably going to be one of the first steps you take to start planning your wedding. To make the most of your consultations, I recommend going in with a handful of questions to make sure you feel comfortable trusting them with your wedding photos while also assessing their personality to make sure you click! If you’ve read my blogs or social media posts before, you’ll know how much I advocate for hiring wedding vendors who are a good personality fit- especially the vendors you spend the most time with such as your photographer and wedding planner. That said, my list of questions to ask a wedding photographer are more about the logistics of their photography and business policies, so make sure you brainstorm your own personality fit questions or things to look for!

Questions to ask a wedding photographer

• Have you shot a wedding at my venue or similar venues before?

• Have you ever worked with my (insert other vendors here)?

• Do you have a backup/contingency plan if you’re unable to make it to my wedding?

• How do you break up payments? Is there a deposit/retainer?

• What is your policy for reschedules and cancellations?

• Do you charge for travel?

• Do you bring an assistant or second shooter? What is their role?

• How do you back up your images?

• Can I see a full gallery (or a few)?

• Do we get print rights to digital images or are we required to order through you?

• What is the turnaround time for sneak peeks and the full gallery?

• If not already included in your package, how much would an engagement session be?

• How many weddings have you shot?

• Do you use additional equipment on the wedding day (like lighting)?

• What makes you different from other photographers?

• What is your booking process?

Questions that aren’t as helpful as you’d think

• How long have you been shooting weddings?

  • I prefer asking about the number of weddings they’ve photographed. Someone could work 50 weddings in 2 years or 50 weddings in 10 years, and those are both dramatically different experiences. How long they’ve been shooting weddings is important, but it doesn’t give you as full of a picture as asking how many weddings they’ve done will.

• How many images will we get back?

  • Obviously this is important to know, but ranges could be very different and you don’t  want to automatically choose the photographer who gives you back the most images. Getting 2,000 images back sounds great at first, but if 40 of those images are slightly different angles of your engagement ring, is that really valuable to you? Instead, look through their galleries and see that a story is being told through a variety of different images.

• What camera do you use?

  • Unless you’re a photographer yourself, you probably are going to have no clue what the answer to this question means anyway. Let their work speak for itself!

Overwhelmed by the idea of interviewing photographers? You might need a kickass wedding planner to help. Contact me to schedule a call!