What to look for in a photographer?

Same here. I’ve been speaking with my potential photographers/videographers over the phone. Setup a zoom meeting.

View Quoted Comment Wow I don’t know how I didn’t think of a zoom meeting. Thanks! What kind of questions have you been asking potential photographers?

View Quoted Comment They should be able to set up the zoom/FaceTime meeting for you. The photographers / videographers that I have been speaking with are international. I noticed that I have received lower rates for countries where the USD is higher. My first question is how many photographers and videographers come with the package. How many packages do I have to choose from. Is the engagement shoot mandatory and can it be supplemented with something else like a wedding album for the parents. Since my vendors are international I want to know what am I responsible for covering (equipment insurance, travel, lodging, etc). I hope these questions help. Feel free to message me if you have any additional questions.

We planned our entire wedding in less than 8 months, you're fine!

Do you have friends or neighbors who recently got married?

Ask to see their wedding pics, and if you like the style, ask for their photographer!

Our venue has an all inclusive package that we signed up for. They have 3 photographers & we looked at their work. Contacted all 3 & locked in our favorite. Questions we asked were:
1. What time will you be at the venue?
2. We’re allotted a certain amount of time, how will you budget that?3. We want the evening sun for some of our pics, how will work that out?4. Are you going to need a 2nd shooter &, if so, how much will that cost?I wouldn’t wait too long, there are a ton of weddings that got postponed to 2021, that’s gonna severely limit your options.

The outdoor garden where we got married had several photographer recommendations. I picked the one photographer because I really liked her business card design. We emailed before meeting and we discussed what kind of shots we would want & hubby n I looked on her website. Pre-pandemic we met her at a Starbucks and we saw more of her pics & loved her style

I never met with mine in person I emailed him. I've seen his work ALOT he is a pretty popular photographer in my area and does many weddings

I can only half help here because in the process of doing this now! We started with a list of suggested photographers (from the venue, friends, etc.) & then I supplemented that by looking on Google & Insta for other photographers who had worked at our venue before. When we started emailing, we got some who were already booked & then added their additional suggestions to the list.

All that being said, it looks like we’re going with a photographer who I found accidentally online & who has never shot at our venue! Haha.

We first reviewed their website & social media. If we liked them, I did a search for reviews, usually on WeddingWire. If we wanted to speak with them, we emailed to ask for detailed pricing information & to see several full galleries (with some information about our wedding plans/size/venue style to get comparable galleries to view). We’ve done mostly phone calls, some Zooms/Skypes.

We have a list of questions for each, usually the same. Anything that wasn’t addressed on their website or brought up in initial conversation we asked directly. Our big questions: pricing & packages, deposit amount, postponement policy, how many photos we should expect, are all the delivered photos edited, any additional fees, how many weddings they do (a weekend, a year), what the turnaround time on delivery is. A lot of these were answered naturally or on their websites, so the conversation really became “do we like this person & do we get along with them.”

I found mine on thumbtack. I read reviews and saw pictures from reviewers on thumbtack then I looked at his pictures on his website. I never called him nor met him in person. All communication was done via email but I'm confident he would have met me in person or spoke to me on the phone if I had asked. I found him just 5 weeks before we wanted engagement puctures done.

My fiance and I searched online for photographers, and looked at their portfolios to get an idea of their styles. Once we found a few options that were in our price range and that we liked the portfolios of, we setup in-person meetings with them (though this was before the pandemic). We asked all kinds of questions about anything from what's included in the photography package to where they stand during the ceremony to capture pictures to timelines and when we can expect to receive photos (and how many), etc. We also asked for a link to see a couple full albums of weddings they recently shot, so we could see what photos they typically capture, whether they use the same poses or if they're more creative for each wedding, etc. Once we met with a few photographers and got to talk with them a bit, we found one that we were both in immediate agreement that we wanted to hire for our wedding.

I was scrolling down Facebook when I found my photographers. I looked into their page and I watched a wedding video that I fell in love with. I sent them a message on fb, no luck, but then I found their website and Instagram and sent them an email. They had a sale going on and I ended up getting 8 hours of photography for the wedding day, a wedding video, and an engagement shoot for $2,200. I had two photographers for the engagement shoot, I'm sure I'll have 2 again for the wedding. They also allow me 2 locations on the wedding day.

We looked at several portfolios online and then had a meeting. The company we chose has several photographers all specializing in different styles of photography. When we had our initial meeting, we were given 4 albums to look through to see which style we preferred. Our photos came out BEAUTIFUL!!!
My advice, look at different styles so you have a direction in what you prefer. Not all photographers are going excell in all categories. We had our leed photographer who was very artistic in the photos he shot. Our second shooter was a more classic wedding photographer.
Also, if you're considering a wedding video, try looking at a company who can do both. Having people who have worked together and know each other's flow is convenient so nobody ends up in the way.

We found ours pre-covid so we got to meet a lot of them at a bridal show, including the one we eventually went with. Once we narrowed things down we had phone conversations, looked at galleries and went from there

Hey! First, you aren’t cutting it close. You have plenty of time so please don’t panic. Secondly, we first viewed their online work and got quotes from other photographers. We then set up FaceTime consultations. There was one photographer who stuck out to us completely because we felt like we instantly clicked with her. Also, our vision for pictures fo perfectly with her shooting style. (If you have a certain look in mind for pictures that may probably help) and also just interview different ones and see which one based on personality and budget (and availability) you like more. Hope that helps.

So I went a little more in-depth with photography research than most people do. I read about different photography styles (e.g., fine art, documentary, etc.) just to get a sense of what's out there, and then looked at different editing styles to see what jumped out at me.

I found my actual photographer through Instagram! A co-worker's wife is a florist, so I was looking through the wedding accounts she followed and stumbled upon my photographer. I scrolled through her Instagram then went to her website and read about her and her philosophy, and clicked through her portfolio.

We booked her via email and didn't actually meet until our engagement shoot, but I had a pretty good sense of her before that and have been so happy with our choice. We plan on going out to dinner with her and her husband after we get married and we're beyond the vendor/client relationship.