How to choose wedding photographer

Choosing a good wedding photographer is arguably even more important than choosing the best venue. While it’s important to pick all the best things to enjoy your dream event while it lasts, what you are going to be left with after the celebration are just your photos. In this post we’ll look into various aspects of how to choose a wedding photographer: from understanding photography styles, to timing and pricing.

Do I need a wedding photographer?

We all know how important the memories from such big days like your wedding are, but it might be hard to understand the significance of photography when so many other priorities catch our attention when preparing for a wedding.

Think about it: we put so much effort into making our wedding day perfect. We spend hours picking out the best outfits, the prettiest flowers, and the tastiest menu. So much thought goes into details that only matter for that one day. While it’s important to create the celebration of your dreams, it’s just as important to focus on what truly matters in life. Who is this celebration really for? What’s most important to you about your wedding? Why do people come together for something like a wedding in the first place? Answering these bigger questions will help guide you in choosing the right photographer.

What to look for in a wedding photographer

There are a lot of photographers out there, and going through countless websites and portfolios can make everything start to look the same. However, there are definitely great artists in your area for every budget, so let us help guide you through the process of choosing the right one.

First, we recommend settling on a particular style and then searching for photographers who work in that style. There are many different photography styles and endless combinations, so be clear about the kind of photos you want before you even start looking at portfolios—otherwise, you’ll quickly feel overwhelmed. Don’t go for someone with a generic style, or the result will be just that: generic. Choose someone whose work you truly admire, as this is your chance to get the photos you’ll cherish for the rest of your life. We talk about wedding photography styles in more detail in the next section.

Second, look for a person you’d actually want to be friends with. Your photographer is the person you’ll be interacting with most throughout your wedding day, so choose someone you feel comfortable with. It can be hard to know this before meeting them, and we understand you don’t want to set up endless “get to know each other” calls. However, you can get a sense of someone’s personality by looking through their website and reading their descriptions. What values do they communicate? What are their interests and perspectives? Do they align with yours? Also, check their reviews to see if past clients value the same qualities you do in a photographer.

Lastly, consider the photographer’s experience. Experienced photographers are often better equipped (both mentally and physically) to handle unexpected situations, which can be crucial for complex weddings. Of course, this comes at a cost, but don’t be discouraged if you can’t afford the most seasoned expert in your area. There are plenty of talented artists who are relatively new to the industry and therefore charge less. They might not have seen it all yet, but if they nail the first two factors we mentioned, we wouldn’t worry too much about experience. Ultimately, trust your gut feeling when choosing a photographer.

Now let us dive into photography styles so that you can better understand the terms used by photographers and maybe get a better idea of what kind of pictures you’d like to get.

Wedding photography styles

You should think about photography during the very initial phase of planning your wedding, just as you think about the overall look and feel of the whole event. What you should do during the planning phase is decide on a photography style that will suit your wedding the most. There are a couple of important aspects to photography styles, and we want to make this distinction clear: there are two main dimensions of style, one being the photographer’s approach and the other their aesthetic. Each photographer uses some combination of at least one approach and at least one style, often focusing on one style the most and throwing in some images in other styles for balance.

Photographer’s approach: documentary vs editorial

By “approach,” we mean how much a photographer likes to influence the scene in front of them. This affects the overall narrative of their photo story and the types of shots they’ll take. Think about how you want your event remembered.

If you prefer a candid view, with genuine expressions and imperfect details, look for a photographer with a documentary or photojournalistic style.

If you want a polished, flawless look, an editorial-style photographer is your best bet.

For a mix of both, go for lifestyle photography. This popular style balances candid and directed shots, without requiring too much posing. A good lifestyle photographer will guide you naturally, helping you feel comfortable while capturing authentic moments. Most photographers lean towards this approach, even if they don’t label it that way. And yes, everyone does group photos.

Documentary photography / photojournalism

Photojournalistic or documentary approach is characterised by capturing canding images without the photographer interfering with the scene. This results in images that are the most true to life and show your wedding as if it was shot by a journalist covering a public event for a press release. Not to say that these cannot be artistic, quite the opposite: documentary photographers blend in with the scene and can focus primarily on capturing interesting scenes and with creative compositions. Not all the photos are super sharp or even in focus, because priority is given to capturing moments rather than making everything look perfect.

Editorial photography

Editorial images are, in contrast to documentary ones, made in a highly controlled manner. The term “editorial” comes from photos created for the fashion industry, where a team of stylists together with a photographer create unique posed images for magazines. Shooting a wedding is not the same as working with a model in a professional photography studio, so “editorial” means a more polished look in this context. The photos are technically impeccable, the compositions and poses are well-thought-through, and you’ll have to be a bit patient in holding your poses so that the perfect frame is captured. This is not something we do ourselves, but you can find plenty of examples in The Knot magazine.

Photography Aesthetics

Now, let’s talk about the aesthetic part of photography style. This is not as easy to define as approach. Aesthetic mostly comes down to framing (what the photographer focuses on and at which angles they shoot) and colour grading (how the images are edited, do they have a warm or cold palette, how bright and saturated the colours are). When thinking about which aesthetics there are, almost all the same words can be used that you use to describe your overall wedding theme. Let us list some that are popular now: bright and airy, classic, fine art, vintage, moody, etc. Our personal favourite that has gained some popularity recently is cinematic style. Here is a quick overview of all these.

Classic / Traditional

Classic is a broad term, which can have many different meanings. In wedding photography, it most often means photos reminiscent of traditional wedding photography that you might see in your parents’ photo album. This is more about poses and framing than anything else. To emulate a classic look, photographers shoot from eye level at right angles and pose their clients in a traditional way, looking straight into the camera. The colours are true to life and the frames are well-lit.

Fine Art

Fine art photography is the opposite to traditional and is characterised by highly creative frames and experimentation. The best fine art wedding photographs look like works of art. This takes a lot of skill and a unique artistic vision, but also involves lots of experimentation, so be ready to not see all the ideas that time was spent on in the final gallery.

Bright and Airy

Embracing light and editing photos in a way that accentuates how brightly lit the scene was, the airy style is very romantic. It works well for outdoor weddings, making the memories of your wedding day look as happy as it gets. This is one of the most popular wedding photography aesthetics nowadays, which makes sense, as it has the mood many people want their wedding day to be remembered with: lighthearted and joyous.

Dark and Moody

In contrast to the bright and airy style, dark and moody style is not afraid of the shadows. Focusing on the shapes and moods that shadows create, moody photographers accentuate the dark by increasing the contrast of their images. Their pictures take all the drama and depth of emotions and amplify them visually.

Vintage

Vintage style is characterised by a film-like look with soft shadows, detail in the highlights and warm colour tones. These can be digital photos edited to look like film, or actual old-fashioned 35mm film photos. With the popularity of film growing recently, more and more wedding photographers offer film photography as an optional add-on in their packages. This is definitely a niche, but almost in every area one can find a photographer specialising on vintage and boho weddings.

Cinematic

Cinematic photography is, as the name suggests, in the style of cinema. Photographers working in this style pride themselves at capturing complex compositions and interesting scenes. They heavily focus on light and the story that each picture tells. A cinematic wedding photography gallery should look like a collection of stills from an independent film. More creative colour choices, use of film and black-and-white photography are all very characteristic tools of cinematic photography.

Where to look for a wedding photographer?

Because photography style is so important, the internet is your best friend here. Try searching for various combinations of your chosen style keywords in google and social media. 

It might be worth looking through some wedding vendor aggregator websites, as they have filters for wedding themes, but not everyone is there. Also, bear in mind that these websites often have photographers pay to appear higher on the list, so the results might be biased. Another option is to ask your venue or other vendors you’ve already chosen. This might provide a benefit of the photographer being familiar with the location, but a big downside is that their style might not be suitable for you.

Of course, not every photographer’s work can be described in just a couple of words, so try broader searches too. If you are willing to consider a destination photographer, it might be easier to find someone whose work aligns with your taste the closest, but will also cost more than hiring locally.

When to start looking for a wedding photographer?

Make sure to start looking as soon as you have an overall idea of the kind of wedding you want to have. Reach out to your first choice as soon as you have a date for your wedding. Wedding photography is a lot of work, and most photographers only shoot up to 20 weddings per year, so their availability is highly limited. The best ones out there can be fully booked up to a year in advance.

Why are wedding photographers so expensive?

There’s a lot more to wedding photography than most people realise. It’s not just about showing up, taking photos, and sending a gallery. Initial consultations, prep work, and post-production often take significantly more time than the actual shooting.

Most photographers cover full-day weddings, which means being on their feet for 12 hours straight, constantly paying attention to every detail. It’s a demanding job that requires a lot of focus and stamina. After a day like that, they can’t shoot another wedding the same weekend, which limits how many bookings they can take.

Then comes post-production. A photographer might shoot around 5,000 images during a full wedding day, and just reviewing these can take several hours. Depending on their style and level of detail, editing a full gallery can take up to 20 hours. If skin retouching is needed, it can take up to 30 minutes per portrait. Modern tools can speed things up with automatic settings and presets (like filters, but more customisable). However, the editor still needs to go through each photo, fine-tune lighting and colour, and crop for the best composition. Since it’s a creative process, multiple iterations are often required for each image. A lot of thought also goes into curating the entire gallery through careful image selection.

Conclusion

Here we looked at how to choose a wedding photographer, which is not an easy task, and a lot comes to it. Picking the right person for your character and personal aesthetic preferences is arguably the most important decision associated with your wedding. It might take some time to carefully consider all the options available to you, but approaching this decision with care will certainly pay off. Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of what comes into choosing a photographer, and are ready to start looking.

How to Choose a Wedding Photographer By Comet Photography