A Photographer’s Thoughts: Following Your Own Agenda

Happy New Year everyone, and for all of those new recently engaged couples joining us for the first time welcome to Bride Vs Groom’s photographer’s thoughts – a place where our resident pro photographer likes to give you the inside scoop and help you in your search for the right photographer for you! With so much choice out there it’s often difficult to find that one photographer whose images you really click with but in these regular photography related posts we’ll try to help you along the way!

When planning a wedding there’s all kinds of help on offer to you, from your families – desperate for everything to be perfect for you, to venues offering helpful advice on scheduling and suppliers to friends eager to share their own experiences to blogs like this one – designed to share ideas and advice with people just like yourselves. Everyone wants your big day to the most magical of your lives but the trouble is that whilst your best interests may be in their hearts, sometimes there can be so much advice that it’s difficult to ignore other’s agendas and follow your own.

Choosing a photographer is an area where these well-intentioned influences can definitely come into play and not always for the best. Your photographs are on of the relatively few things that you will keep from your wedding day and look back over for the rest of your lives, and so whilst all of that freely offered advice can be a great starting point to aid you in your search they should never be the decisive factor – that final decision has to be down to you – a decision made in your gut rather than in your head. Otherwise you may never be truly happy with a choice made not by your heart but by an outside agenda.

As long as you keep an open mind and ensure that you don’t become too influenced by someone else’s thoughts rather than your own though there are lots of really helpful sources to get you started:

Parents – As we already mentioned parents are often the hardest working wedding scouts you’re ever likely to find! It might be argued that mums and dads aren’t always up-to-date with the latest styles and fashions, but remember wedding photography isn’t about fads and fashions, it’s about timeless images that will never age and resonate with you for the rest of your lives, and here your parents may be especially helpful. They will have seen trends come and go and may have a greater understanding of what type of images will most likely stand the test of time. Make sure you build some flexibility into your photography budget though as if they’re the ones paying the bulk of the costs then budget may be front and centre in their thinking!

Friends – Again your friends of course have a very personal interest in helping you to have the greatest day of your lives and, given rough guidelines as to your thinking are often more than happy to scour the web searching for possible photographers for you that you may not have come across in your own searches. The disadvantage here is perhaps that friends are likely to be heavily influenced by their own tastes rather than your own, particularly if they are recently married themselves and had a great experience with their own photographer, but having this alternative perspective may well encourage you to look more thoroughly at work you may otherwise have ignored which can help to develop your ideas.

Venue Coordinators – Wedding venues see lots of different photographers at work and have a unique perspective on the various contrasts and styles of those they have worked with meaning they are often able to make great recommendations of photographers for you to look at. One thing to be conscious of with any venue-recommended suppliers though is that some venues do have agreements in place that they will only recommend certain suppliers, sometimes through a contractual or financial agreement. They are also likely to be biased towards photographers that have captured their venue particularly well rather than how well they have captured the day as a whole, as those are the images they’re most likely to have seen themselves. They’re also likely to only recommend very local suppliers which can be both a positive and a negative as it gives you a strong perspective on those photographers closest to you but limits the scope of photographers they can recommend.

Wedding Blogs: Blogs are one of the most popular ways to find photographers as they regularly showcase a range of work from a variety of photographers from across the nation and even further afield. Blogs are designed specifically to help you in this way, but do remember that most blogs will be looking for a particular style in the photographs they publish, whether that be contemporary, documentary, vintage etc, and so you are unlikely to see the true range of what’s available by searching just one blog. It’s also important to remember that some blogs do accept sponsored posts or prioritise photographers that advertise with them so it’s difficult to guarantee that any advice is always completely impartial.

Other Suppliers: Just like venue staff your wedding suppliers will probably have worked alongside numerous photographers and are generally more than happy to make suggestions if you ask them. Suppliers are only likely to suggest photographers they got along with which can be a good indication of the personality of the photographer and how helpful and friendly they are on the day, although again sometimes recommendations can be based on friendships or mutual agreements rather than necessarily being the perfect fit for you.

So those are just a few of the people and places you can go to to aid you in your own research. You can find more suggestions of where to look here but the point we’re really trying to make is that your final choice should be completely down to you and not influenced too heavily by the opinions of others. Their advice can be valuable in helping you to get started but somewhere along the line it’s necessary to come to your own independent decisions about who you want your photographer to be – to follow your own agenda and no-one else’s. Photography is a personal interpretation just like choosing the art you love or even the way you choose to decorate your home. There is a lid for every pot, we just need to find it.