Can I see a full wedding set?
This is a must ask question! Actually, you should ask to see a couple of full wedding sets of pictures. These days it’s very easy as most professional photographers are using online galleries or cloud file hosting like Dropbox etc. If possible, you could ask to see weddings in similar venues to yours like: barn venue, dark indoor venue or open space venue. You also want to know that your photographer can work with any body type, not just “pretty-model” types of couples, so ask if they can share with you, weddings of people who look similar to you (ie: if you’re a plus size bride or if there’s a huge height difference between the bride and the groom, etc.)
What kind of lighting do you use?
If the photographer says “3 Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT controlled with pocket wizards or Canon ST-E3-RT” would that mean anything to you? I don’t think so, and that’s why this question drives me a bit crazy! Plenty of photographers call themselves “natural light photographers”. There’s nothing wrong with that, but usually this is a way of masking the fact that they have no idea how to use flashes. So the rationale behind this question is this: a great wedding photographer should be flexible in every situation. If it starts raining in your lovely park or field and you need to use some dark indoor location for photos, you need to be sure that your wedding photographer is able to shoot there too. If your photographer uses one flash only that is mounted to the camera, their photos may not be “wow”. If your wedding photographer can and knows how to use multiple flashes properly, definitely you will get more of a ”wow” in your pictures.
Have you ever shot in ‘my venue or location’ before?
Decent wedding photographers have the great skills and equipment to shoot at any location at any time. To be honest, as a wedding photographer London, I find I’m actually more creative and inspired when I get the chance to shoot in a location that I’ve never been to. However, in case you’re worried about your photographer not knowing the area, you could request that they scout it with you before hand – they may be doing this regardless. There is no need to waste yours and their time, so if you are one of those couples who insist that they will only hire a photographer who has been to the wedding venue before, please ask your photographer this question before your in-person meeting. If you ask this question a destination wedding photographer the chance that they shoot in your venue or location before are close to zero. They are shooting worldwide…
How many weddings have you shot so far?
Dear bride and groom, there is no magic wedding amount that makes a wedding photographer deserving of your business. Each photographer works in different ways, some of them shoot only 15 weddings per year and do their own editing, while others can shoot 50 or more weddings and pay someone else to edit their pictures. Two different business types can’t be compared. This is like comparing melons to grapes – simply doesn’t work. But if you really want to ask this, you could do it in a different way. Simply engage a wedding photographer in a chat and get them to tell you more about the previous wedding season: what it was like, what locations did they shoot and what challenges were there, what kind of clients did they work with (plus size, shy, etc.), what workshops they attend, etc. This will definitely give you an idea of how balanced they are as a business person and an artist.
What editing do you do on the pictures?
This is a question where the couple doesn’t realise what they are actually asking about. Many brides ask if the pictures will be photoshopped or edited? Those are two different things – editing and enhancing. Most wedding photographers do classic editing on all the pictures. Photoshop/enhancing is usually reserved for printing or special requests because to do that on a single photo it takes anywhere between 20 minutes to a couple of hours. Don’t be fooled, if a wedding photographer tells you that they will smooth your skin on every single photo, it is either a lie or they are working for pennies per hour because it will take a very, very long time to do that in a professional way.
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