What Do You Want To Remember About Your Wedding Day? {How To Find Your Wedding Photographer – Part 1}

This wasn’t a question I gave much thought to when planning my own wedding.  I took a friend’s recommendation that her wedding photographer was GREAT.  And.  He was a steal.  That probably should have triggered warning bells for me, because even then I believed in you get what you pay for.  But I was a young twenty two and my friend’s opinion counted for a lot.  I should have researched the photographer’s work better to see if I even liked his photographs.  If his photographs touched me or evoked emotion.  Out of the couple hundred photographs from our wedding, there are two that I love.  Two.

This is the one portrait of us that I love.  So many of them, we are just lined up and squinting into the sun with smiles that grew tight waiting for a count to three.

Please don’t let that be you.  Having only two photographs from my wedding day, one of THE most special days of MY life, makes me regretful.  And when I talk to others who don’t have images from their wedding day that they love, I am filled with sadness.  We deserve better, don’t you think?  For a sacred day that celebrates the strongest commitment two people can make to each other, to love each other no matter what comes their way, every couple deserves photographs that will spark memories of sounds, scents and emotions of the day.  To essentially relive the day, decades after the event. 

This was right after we were married and walked down the aisle and into the Mill where our reception was.  I think our photographer was probably running to catch up with us and get this shot.  It is blurry from the camera moving.  But it is the only truly lifestyle wedding photograph from our entire day.  I love it.  When I see it, I instantly remember holding my husband.  In this moment.

What I have found over the past two years of photographing weddings is that I shoot the moments that I wish I had from my own day.  When I pull the images off of my memory cards onto my computer to start the whole editing process, my first thought on so many of the images is, “I wish I had a photograph of that happening on my wedding day.”  And then my second thought is, “I can’t wait to show my couple this image!” 
Which leads me to the first round of questions you should be asking when deciding upon your wedding photographer.
Do you connect with their photographs?
Do their images draw you in and make you feel like you were there?
Do you want photographs like what you see?
Because what you see on their blog or website is likely a very good indicator of what you will receive from that photographer after your wedding day.

Part 2 coming next Wednesday.