How To Choose a Wedding Photographer

When you’re planning a wedding, every decision feels like an important one. Between finding the perfect venue to deciding on what you’ll wear to finalizing a guest list and hiring a caterer, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a couple who thinks about making choices for their wedding (and spending the money) can be willy-nilly. Rather, most couples—like you—are putting in the time to thoughtfully research their vendors because they want their wedding to be an unforgettable experience.

Capturing that unforgettable experience is a big responsibility, which has brought you here—you want to make sure you’re making the right choice when it comes to booking a photographer. And we want to help you feel confident about this important decision! So here is our expert advice so you know how to choose a wedding photographer (read: vet the best one) for your big day.

Ask to see a full wedding gallery

When you’ve found a wedding photographer you’re really interested in, our advice is not to wait too long before inquiring with them (photographers can get booked out far in advance). And when you do, we recommend asking to see a full wedding gallery after you’ve shared the initial details of what you’re planning. The reason is what photographers (us included) show on social media or the portfolio pages of our websites are the best-of-the-best images—and there is so much more to a wedding gallery than the highlight reel you see. When you receive a link to a full gallery, look at the breadth of photos that were captured throughout the day, and pay attention to the types of images that are important to you. When you do, you can better understand the photographer’s style.

Read reviews

This may feel like an obvious tip to share, but you’d be surprised by how many couples skip this step! Read the reviews on a wedding photographer’s website but also look for ones on Google, The Knot, and WeddingWire. The reason being these “public” places are where you’ll read the most honest accounts of what it was like working with them.

In the case you come across a less-than-stellar review, don’t automatically cross the wedding photographer off your list (especially if the majority of the reviews are great). Instead, ask the photographer about that wedding and how they have adjusted their process to avoid that kind of situation in the future or what they did in an attempt to make things right.

Set up an in-person consultation

The most important thing to do as you try and figure out how to choose a wedding photographer? Have a human interaction with them! Whether you set up an in-person consultation or a video call, you should absolutely take the time to meet with them because your wedding photographer will be glued to you all day, and it’s incredibly important you feel comfortable with and have a connection with them. But don’t overthink this meeting, there aren’t right or wrong questions to ask!

Getting married in the Fresno area and looking for a photographer to document your wedding? We’d love to chat! Check out our portfolio, and if you feel like our style fits yours, let’s chat!