Don’t book a wedding photographer based on a few pictures.

Take a look at these two pictures below, do you like them? Are they the sort of thing you’re after in the search for your perfect wedding photographer? Do they solidify my position in your mind as ‘the one’?

They do? Oh that’s absolutely wonderful, I’ll take your money right now then.  Obviously I’m taking the mick, no-one would be stupid enough to book a photographer, hand over their money based on seeing a couple of pictures....would they??? 

Well, it seems like some people would, Ok admittedly not a couple of pictures, but certainly a handful of carefully selected wedding pictures chosen to impress the pants off you on a website.  

I’m rather active in weddingy and photographer groups, and I’ve seen an alarming increase in the number of unhappy couples and photographers in their respective groups (brides complaining they haven’t got what they expected quality-wise, and photographers saying wtf why don’t they like all my pictures in exasperated tones).  

You know what the problem is?  The cause of this misery? It’s people only showing the stuff they think will attract couples, WOW pictures, a carefully selected snippet from a full wedding gallery.  Some of these pictures receive extra editing to grab your attention, which in itself causes a problem because unless I knew better I would naturally assume all the pictures will have the same amount of attention during the editing process.   An assumption is (quite rightly) made by couples that every picture is going to look like these ones, unfortunately this isn’t always the case.

Don't be a dummy

I'm not calling you a dummy, nor insinuating you will ever be one, but as the saying goes "In the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is King" - if you don't know, you don't know.  It's quite easy to get carried away with the WOW pictures.  Do yourself a favour though, dig a bit deeper.  Personally I think there should be a wide selection of pictures on display, a balanced presentation to give a real honest view of what to expect from your full gallery.  If there isn't, ask to see some full galleries, set your expectations properly. 

Don't be pulled in by blog posts with 50 pictures, look past the shiny stuff, look at the normal stuff - often they're the ones that really make your wedding gallery what it is, the pictures that hold the real memories for you.