Are you looking for the perfect photographer for wedding photos that reflect who you are, but you don’t know how to make this choice? In this article, I detail all the criteria for making the right choice for your wedding photographer.
Note: I use the feminine form of “photographer” throughout this site.
Why is choosing your wedding photographer carefully so crucial?
Your wedding photographer is one of the most important vendors. This choice should not be left to chance or to anyone other than you.
Indeed, you are entrusting your photographer with the creation of a family legacy, meaning memories to revisit in 10, 30, 50 years… and to show to your children and grandchildren.
Your photographer will not simply “take photos,” but this person will above all capture the emotions and every detail that makes your wedding unique and reflects who you are.
For this, you should not just be a figurehead in these images (appearing in the images but nothing more) by taking uncomfortable poses just because “So-and-so did that for their wedding.”
Rather, your photos should reflect your personalities, your tastes, and your story.
You will then truly be able to claim these memories as your own and be proud of them.
Finally, and this is a significant aspect: a wedding is an event, so it is ephemeral. If after the wedding you realize that you don’t like the images from your photographer, it will be too late because you won’t be able to gather all your guests again, recreate the decoration in the same venue, etc.
It is therefore important to choose a professional photographer whose work you love
✅ personality: you absolutely must have good chemistry!
✅ approach = the way of seeing things and values
✅ and especially the style.
Wedding photos are an investment in the memories of one of the most important moments of your life, one that you cannot redo. It is therefore an area that deserves your full attention.
And like any investment, you need to ask the right questions before making a choice and committing to your vendor.
How to Choose Your Wedding Photographer?
Professional Photographer = Registered Photographer
We speak of a registered photographer (or any other vendor) when their business exists and the person declares their income.
Why choose a registered person?
Because as clients, you are protected and have possible recourse if the service is not completed with a registered vendor. You can notably contact the DGAE in Polynesia (or the DGCCRF in mainland France). If the person is not registered, in case of a problem and if the person “disappears,” you cannot do anything. If you have already paid amounts to your vendor, ⚠️ you may never recover your money with an unregistered person ⚠️ (if you are indeed in a situation that allows you to claim it), in addition to the risk of not having the expected photos.
And be careful: if your “fake-tographer” abandons you on the big day (which I have seen happen a few times…), it is too late to find a competent replacement, and it will stress you out even more, in addition to ruining the wedding…
By declaring their income, your vendor contributes to the healthcare system. Choosing an unregistered person means condoning the fact that people are taking work from professionals and therefore their income, and earning money without reinvesting it in our system. Moreover, undeclared income allows these people to abuse social benefits that might not be paid to them if they declared their income, in addition to taking work from registered persons.
How to know if the person has a business license and declares their income?
All registered businesses are listed in the ISPF database. To find your photographer, you simply need to search for their name on the ISPF website.
💡 In my case, you need to search for Studio Marama or Vaikehu Shan.
If you cannot find your photographer’s name, it means they are not registered, or their business name is different from what is publicly communicated.
You know that your vendor declares their income if they send you accounting documents that allow transactions to be traced: quotes and invoices. I also recommend absolutely signing a service contract with your wedding photographer, which establishes all the terms of the service and your relationship.
Professional Photographer = Appropriate Work Process
Being professional does not only mean being registered, but also knowing your profession and doing it properly and according to best practices.
Wedding photography is no exception to this. It would be far too long to explain everything you need to know in this already very long article, so let’s get to the essentials.
What are the particularities of wedding photography?
It’s quite obvious, but a wedding is an event. Behind this word lie many parameters to consider as a photographer:
✅ You don’t decide the schedule and locations, so you must know how to adapt: to the weather, to available light, to indoor/outdoor photos, know how to work without an assistant or team, with many people and noise around you, etc. This is, for example, the complete opposite of studio photography work.
✅ Since a wedding is a unique event in our lives (normally!), photographers must know how to anticipate because you cannot redo moments missed in photos. You must be in the right place at the right time.
✅ Wedding coverage contains a very large quantity of images (generally several hundred photos). The photographer must therefore have the reflexes that allow them to have a composition and images that are “clean” enough from the moment of capture to lighten their post-production work. Given the quantity of images to deliver in wedding photography, we favor sending a private, downloadable online gallery, where the couple can hide certain images from guests.
In short: even if a photographer is talented in their specialty, it doesn’t mean you can ask them to do wedding photos because there are many things that cannot be improvised. On the contrary, wedding photography requires having a rigorous and appropriate work process!
How to know if a photographer is truly competent for weddings?
✅ First of all, as I already advised in a previous post, ask to view at least one complete wedding gallery with moments similar to your wedding (city hall? church/temple? traditional ceremony? reception?) If the person provides you with this access quickly, that’s a good sign.
✅ Next, pay attention to the consistency of the entire coverage: do you sense a “common thread” in the style of the images throughout the day? Even if you cannot explain it, that’s fine, but you can still have the overall impression that the style is consistent.
✅ Finally, focus on the details of the images more specifically: are there often details that “clutter” the images? or on the contrary, do you find that the images are very clean in general? I say in general, because for example a trash can/bag/fluorescent cable present in a photo is not serious on the scale of an entire coverage. However, if you find a detail that visually clutters 15 photos in a row, you can see that the photographer is not attentive enough during shooting…
This is not an easy exercise, but really try to do it, because even if you don’t necessarily see this kind of detail in other people’s photos, I can tell you that it’s often the first thing you see in your own wedding photos, especially when you want to print them. And it’s too late to regret your choice of photographer once the wedding is over.
Your Wedding Photographer's Style
This is often the first reason that prompts us to contact one photographer rather than another.
By “style,” I’m talking about two things:
✅ the color grading of the images: this mainly concerns the “colors” and “brightness” of the images. Some color grading styles are widespread enough in the world to have names, such as the moody style (rather dark and very warm colors) or the fine art style (very bright with pastel colors, and very “posed”). For my part, my images are colorful, soft, and documentary in nature.
✅ the type of images: some photographers
- have a documentary style,
- photograph details, decoration, and venues, others very little or not at all,
- focus almost exclusively on the couple, others also photograph as many guests as possible,
- are better at portraits and posing (the art of posing models), others better at wide shots (overall and atmosphere photos)
- do a lot of B&W, others not at all,
- show creativity for group and couple photos,
- use supplementary lighting, others prefer natural light,
- take some more “artistic” photos when the couple plays along, etc.
This list is not exhaustive; feel free to add your own criteria.
How to know which style you like?
By browsing social media (especially Instagram and Pinterest) and wedding blogs. Pin or save the photos you prefer, distinguishing those you like for their color grading from those you like for the type of image. I recommend spending some time on this step.
Once you have roughly defined the color grading style(s) you like and the types of photos you want, then contact the photographers who match them.
💡My best advice: ask photographers to show you at least one complete wedding gallery with moments similar to your wedding (city hall? religious ceremony? secular? traditional? reception? entertainment? evening?) and take time as a couple to view all of this. This will allow you to better determine if it corresponds well to what you want, and especially to see if the photographers are consistent in the quality of their images… Indeed, you should know that wedding photographers only share the images they want to show on social media and their websites.
The Chemistry with Your Wedding Photographer
When you have refined your photographer selection, it is important to verify that the chemistry is good between you.
How to know if the chemistry is good?
Simply by taking the time to meet the photographer you have ranked as your first choice on your list according to the previous criteria, and by taking the time to get to know each other.
In Summary
Select a few photographers based on their styles.
Ask to view at least one complete gallery to get a better idea of the style.
Once you have chosen a person, meet them to see if you have good chemistry!
All of this is a first step in choosing your wedding photographer. However, even if these subjective criteria are the most important for making an initial selection, it remains necessary to entrust the memories of your wedding to a rigorous person trained in this practice.
