From the Wedding Tip Series, providing a new piece of advice every Wednesday to help brides get the most out of their wedding photography. This Wednesday, we are proud to unveil tip twelve:
“Watch Your Time at the End of the Night”
So suppose you booked 8 hours of coverage and your photographer was scheduled to start at noon and leave at 8 p.m., well, 8 p.m. rolls around and you have yet to cut the cake or toss the bouquet/garter. Your photographer comes up to you (maybe as early as 7:45) to notify you they he/she is leaving and you go into panic mode because you REALLY wanted those shots! However, there isn’t money in the budget to ask for an extra last-minute hour, and your photographer may not even be able to stay if he or she has a wedding the day after yours. Well, this just stinks, and it’s an extra stress on your wedding day that you don’t need.
Maybe you even get upset with your photographer that he/she didn’t tell you that time was running out and you needed to get these events in sooner. However, this is not the job of the photographer. We were not hired to boss you around on your day, be disruptive, or stress you out by hurrying you along all day. When all is said and done, if we did do that, you might get everything you wanted photography-wise, but you surely wouldn’t like us very much because we stressed you out on your wedding day to get those shots! That being said, it is your responsibility to keep track of the time and make sure you get all of the events you want photographed in before your photographer is scheduled to leave.
If you’ve hired a wedding coordinator/planner, that’s even better, because then it’s their responsibility and you don’t even have to worry about it! Along the same lines, if you have a receiving line and have formal photos scheduled after, it is your job to notify the photographer of when you are ready to start your photo time. Personally, even if I’m sweating bullets that things are running too slowly and there isn’t going to be enough time left for photos, I still will not interrupt people hugging/greeting/talking to bother you with, “It’s time for photos already!”
Generally speaking, here is a list of the things photographers are typically happy to help you with regard to planning your wedding:
Photographers will gladly…
1.) Help you create a wedding-day timeline that fits your photography needs.
2.) Offer feedback regarding the potential locations you are considering using for your wedding photos. We cannot choose this location for you – they are your photos and too important of a decision for us to make, but we can advise you which of your considerations we think would work best for photos.
3.) Recommend other VENDORS! Most photographers have a list of other vendors that they have worked with and can strongly recommend.
If you find yourself contacting your photographer regularly to help you with things not on this list, you might want to consider hiring a planner, and of course, we’ve usually got names and are happy to refer one that we think would be just great!
