8 Secrets you don't know about Wedding Photographer!

This is a repost article from a very wide spread article on Facebook of this Original Article from 沾醬泥 (Taiwan Overseas Photographer)

Alot of couple did not understand how you should communicate to local bridal, so brides to be and grooms to be will usually go online to get information. Among all the sources and forum, you may get information teaching you how to behave like a bad or dissatisfied couple so you can get more perks or a better bargain. Some will teach you to behave as rowdy or as bad as possible to get the best deal you can. Squeeze as much as you can from the Bridal!

To share some experience and advice from a bridal wedding photographer whom were in this wedding industry for very long, he will like to highlight to wedding couples that these actions had mostly likely cross the line of acceptable behaviour and usually it may bring more bad than good for your wedding package and overall benefits.

This will be from a true standpoint of a wedding photographer that explain to you how they feel and in the end, ways to benefit brides and grooms for their wedding packages.

The Yeah Feeling! that we all want to feel in our Pre Wedding Photoshoot (Dream Wedding Bridal)

1. During your consultations or signing of the bridal package, you behave in a very arrogant manner.

By behaving in this unreasonable manner, this may let you get a slightly better deal or more free gifts. But wedding consultant will share your deeds, attitude and actions to the photographer on your case. The photographer will straight away have a bad impression of you and it leaves with a bad “feel”.

Photographers are artist and they need “feeling” to take great pictures too. With a bad “feel” towards couples whom have a tendency to create bad situations & to make things difficult, being stingy and having a bad attitude. As a result, photographers will have some reservations and it is understandable that they will only deliver half of their enthusiasm even though they have the potential to take great picture for you. (To make sure they are not under fire too)

With the negative influences from past experiences, how can you expect that they have great “feel” towards you? Photography for wedding is about taking great pictures of the couples' love stories, we are not filming an object or robot, thus the connections between the photographers and brides-to-be & grooms-to-be have to be great too!

2. The belief of a 2 months timeline is all you need for having your photoshoot and album done.

Wedding Couples assume that the whole process to do a wedding album is very fast and you can simply print into an album after the pre wedding photoshoot sessions. It is not true, but Why will you need such a long time to do this?

Let us show you the real situations:

From photoshoot to getting the album, if everything goes smoothly, you will just need about 45 days. But what if there are situations in between?

Example: What if during the photography day, the weather was very terribly that you can't have the photoshoot. You may need to rescedule the local pre wedding photoshoot to another day. As bridal shop will not be having just you as their only couple thus every reschedule will take 15 – 40 days. Why so long, you may ask?

Because if a Wedding Bridal allows you to reschedule according to your whatsoever time , you should be very worried as it may means that the bridal shop doesn't have any business, the photographer will be standby for you.

After the photoshoot sessions, you will need to take some time to do the selection of photos. In general, it will takes 3 – 7 days after your photoshoot for the digital adjustment. If you can't free out a slot on your busy schedule, there will be a need in delaying your photo selection process.

All these are not inclusive of the time and effort that you need to spend on your other wedding planning process such as selecting of your wedding gown, hotel banquet, invitations cards, logistic, actual day itinerary run down and many more items that can make sure you stay busy till your wedding day.

So the best suggestions is to prepare 6 months in advance for your Pre Wedding Photoshoot so you can at least be more assured that you can handle any contingencies.

Picture of Enthusiastic Photographer from Dream Wedding Boutique

3. You must do your homework before you meet the photographer, so as to find the style that you like .

You may feel that by paying the local bridal company, wedding photographer have the obligation to make sure that you look like a super model in your wedding pictures. This type of expectation is irresponsible and it is as good as sending your children to schools and solely demand the teachers to teach the kids to be humble, good, hardworking, excellent in languages, science, art, business, good with money, exceptional in every way a student can be. Possible?

For a good wedding photography portraits, the wedding photographer skills only take 50% of the up lifting effect. The rest is entirely up to you to complete it. If you do not care about anything and leave it all to the photographer without any responsibility, you can only expect a normal standards. The background, images you like, colour adjustment style, body actions, expressions to capture and many more, you will need to communicate these details to the photographer too so  they will know your liking and style. Wedding photographer will then be able to provide professional advice to you based on your request and preference.

A common problem which occurred to most wedding photographer is that wedding couple will ask photographer to provide wedding photoshoot venue but they will rejected all of the suggested places. Then when you ask couple again about their preferred area of photoshoot, they will ask photographer again, “Where will you recommend us to take the photoshoot?”

This is equivalent to going to a restaurant and have no idea what to order. When the waiter recommend certain dish, you mentioned that this is yucky or disgusting. Or another example is that you enter a shopping emporium and every single items the sales consultant show you, you commented poorly against it yet you do not have a single ideal about what you want.

I believe as long as you are in service line, you will had met these couples and get so frustrated with them!! You Know!!

4. A lot of Wedding Couples will take Celebrity and Model sample photoshoot to compare

It is a very cruel world that we are living in. You may feel that that picture and wedding gown is very beautiful simply because that person is a celebrity or a super model instead of focusing if the picture quality is good or not. Usually the photos that you feel that the pose is very natural or the expression is very loving, it is due to the model whom spent long hours of practicing in front of a mirrors so that the muscle memory can deliver the perfect smile every time. It may be also due to the perfect figure, silhouette , golden proportions and distinctive facial features they have.

It may be a simple task for them, but to common people like you and me, it is going though hell of a ride. (Example, you walk in heel for a full day)

It can be easily understood that why there are difference even though we may be at the same pose, same position, same angle yet we can never capture it as perfect as we want it to be. This is especially common when wedding couple used caucasian model for the discussion. Because Caucasian features are more prominent, taller than asian couple and they are usually more “open” to let go of themselves and enjoy the photoshoot experience totally. It is different from our asian culture and thus it may turn out to be awkward in the final photoshoot pictures.

Picture of Model In Korea Photoshoot from Dream Wedding Boutique

5. Choose your Photos just like how you will choose your clothes. You must choose according to your style & feeling!

You must never choose according to trend or because your friends have this style thus you must have this style too! It is totally wrong.

An example will be you want your picture to display that you are an extrovert, playful and open couple in the wedding photography but in fact you are not. We must say that, photographer cannot capture nothing and create wonders if it is not in you.

When your expression during photoshoot was not ideal, photographer have no choice but to retake and retake to make sure that the picture is as good. It is a very tiring process for everyone but the looks of the picture, 80% of the success element will be due to your acting skills. If its not tiring, everyone can easily be a model too!

So don't expect that when your actions are pretty rigid and definitely not as perfect as a model and you can have pictures turn out like Lin Chi Ling(林志玲).

6. You can pretend to know that you knew Photography and make fun of the photographer but it is totally of no benefit to you.

Wedding Photographer are not machines and they are infact made of flesh & blood like you and me. It is important to give your respect and trust to their professional work. By doubting or disrespecting the wedding photographer and expecting him/her to deliver excellent works for you. We will suggest that to change a photographer instead.

7. When you demand wedding photographers to allow your friend to take photos during your wedding photoshoot sessions, You are actually sentencing them to death.

Wedding Photography is a professional occupations.

Can you imagine how much effort and time they have to spent from being a wedding photography assistant to who they are today as a Wedding Photographer? It is all consists of their sweat, blood and tears.

Do you really think that photographer's job is just to click on the shutter? The real fact is wedding photographer has to get you in mood, positions, expression,  overseeing the big picture of the area (like being a director to the shoot), coordinating the assistant and make up artist to move to their positions for lighting and effect. They have lots more on their plate.

Wedding Photography is indeed a hard earn money professions. A professions that needs many handwork with low returns. Long Hours of Work and Less rest time. On average, a photographer will work more than 300 hours in a month easily.

As you are complaining that a day of shoot is hard, imagine that photographer still need to edit your photos after you leave for home and sacrificing the time they can spend with their loved one, family or friends. (Even when they are sad such as a passing of a friend, they must hide their sorrow with a happy face for your photoshoot and lead you to the full enjoyment of your pre wedding photoshoot sessions)

Because of your greediness to have your friends or family member to take picture by the side during the photoshoot sessions, all the efforts your wedding photographer had input comes to naught. It is an insult and great disrespect to the professionalism of a photographer work.

So you may ask again, Can we have a friends to come along to take picture by the side? You may go ask the movie theatre if you may record the whole movie with a video camera. Do you think they will allow you to do that?

This example is simple to understand and it is the copy right of a photographer. Even if you managed to convince the wedding bridal to allow side photo taken, we are sure that the enthusiasm of the photographer for your pre wedding photoshoot session is diminished by 80%. He will not be as excited to take great pictures for you.

 Pre Wedding Photoshoot by Dream Wedding Bridal with a lot of spectator

8. A common misconception that wedding photographer always want couples to choose more photos and are motivated by money only!

A lot of people usually think that wedding photography is a easy to earn industry, just a few click on the shutter will result in earning lots of money. But infact it is not, the average salary of a photographer is very low and they need to earn commission from your additional selections to reach its target.

Just like any sales executives, they earn their living due to more purchases from you. As Simple as that.

There is no right or wrong in this topic, it is more towards the different standpoint you are at.

Imagine if photographers doesn't have commission earning chances, do you think they will invest their 100% effort in your memories recording process?

It is shallow to believe that wedding photographer are here solely for your money, they have to pay bills,taxes, food just like you. Please be fair to them as this is a realistic world!

Actually Photographer do understand that not every couple have the ability or buying power to purchase additional photos as they knew that Wedding cost are super high!

What they are really looking out for is to hear you say that you like the photos and thanks him for the effort and professional skills in capturing the picture even though (due to some reasons) you can't buy any additional photos. I think most wedding photographer will be able to accept it and congrats you both wholeheartedly. 

Instead of:

Your picture is really Ugly and I totally Hate it! It hurts the pride of the photographer and diminish the professions of a photographer too. 

Your online “friends” will never tell you above mentioned points and they can never understand the life of a wedding photographer. You can choose to follow the cruel way of the “keyboard Warrior” or you can choose to be a sensible and fair consumer.

Life is about giving and taking, change your position and you see a different side of the story. Anyway, hearing from those whom have that only 1 time wedding experience, teaching you how to get the best from your pre wedding photography package, how trustable are they? You may not know how much you are really losing out.

We hope you will enjoy this article reposted from this photographer and know more of their hard earn money stories.

Contact Us Here for Your Dream Wedding Enquiry!

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