Every now and then, we hear how bad wedding photographers disappointed about-to-wed couples. After the wedding day, there’s really nothing you can do with bad printed pictures since no one throws another wedding just to have better pictures (than their last wedding). If you’ve not yet chosen a photographer, there is something you can do to avoid becoming a victim – scroll down to read and follow our 10 tips for finding a photographer that won’t disappoint, PLUS our advice on what to do if after your wedding, you found you have bad pictures. In a previous article, (here) I told you the ‘wedding photography fail’ story from a wedding I attended a few months ago where the couple has still not received a single printed copy of their wedding photos. In that article, I also told you about a newlywed whose photographer delivered massively bad pictures they are ashamed to show people. In this post, you will get our 10 tips to avoid making mistakes when choosing your own wedding photographer PLUS what to do if your wedding photos turned out bad due to hiring an unskilled photographer. Read on.
10 Wedding Photography Lessons: Learn from Where Other Brides Failed
Consider the following 10 lessons as a guide, when hiring a wedding photographer. Here are the things you should do, things to avoid, where to shine your eyes:
- Don’t believe what a vendor tells you. Just because someone walks around hanging a camera does not mean he knows how to use it well.
- May be s/he didn’t snap the photos they show off as their work. Just because someone showed you professionally photographed pictures does not mean he was the one that snapped them.
- Don’t choose them from only seeing their website or social media. Just because someone referred you to ‘their photography website or Instagram’ does not mean that they are the ones that snapped the pictures you saw – did you read their Instagram comments and saw some sort of testimonials from the people in the pictures? Did you hear from anyone who has used them before?
- Be careful if it’s unusually very cheap. Too cheap usually turns out bad. Don’t plan to pay too-cheap for a wedding photographer – the good ones don’t come cheap. Instead, cut down costs from one wedding area to make up the cost of a GOOD PHOTOGRAPHER. Examples of where to cut costs are: number of guests to invite (so that you can lower the cost of food/ drinks, venue), outfits etc.
- Decide early on to make GOOD PHOTOGRAPHY a priority, not just about having wedding pictures. Plan and decide to have GOOD WEDDING PICTURES.
- Decide that you will hire a good photographer.
- Decide upfront that ‘CHEAP’ will not be the primary reason or basis for you to choose or hire ‘just anyone’ as your wedding photographer. Evaluate photographers on other areas such as their equipment, their store location, the number of customers you see in their shop, verifiable evidences and proofs of past clients such as verifiable instagram tags to clients and mentions from other social media ordinary people.
- Be true to yourself in what you can afford. Don’t plan to have both a videographer and a photographer IF you have a small budget and all you can afford is only a photographer. *If you have GOOD WEDDING PICTURES, you can make them into a slideshow video, and that will be nice – instead of horrible or low quality pictures and low quality video.
- Be sure that your photographer will come with a second shooter/ assistant. If not, arrange for someone else to also snap photos – just in case your main photographer fails to capture some important shots.
- Make down payment to lock down a good photographer as soon as you find them. If you find a very good, professional wedding photographer, hire them fast and don’t look back
Scroll down for our Top 2 Tips that Always Work when Faced With Badly Snapped Pictures (because, sometimes, people get unlucky with wedding photographers)
RELATED: How to Plan a Nigerian Wedding with Minimal Disappointments
Below is the lamentation Facebook post from a real-life newlywed whose wedding photographer delivered very bad printed snapshots – in some, she was snapped in awkward angles and funny poses, some snapshots caught her with her eyes half-closed looking like she was drunk; in some snapshots, the camera-man snapped total strangers looking funny; in some, the camera caught her and her husband with a random, passing-guest in-between. Annoying pictures! She recently shared the pictures on her FB page – and her case/ story has gone viral on the internet. Guess what? The photographer is notable as ‘one of the best and most reputable’ in her area – so he charged her plenty of money. His own funny way of ‘correcting’ the situation is an apology and an offer to buy them a cup of coffee. **LWKMD**
RELATED: Top 5 Wedding Mistakes that Make Almost All Brides to Arrive Late to their Own Weddings
What to Do If A Bad Wedding Photographer Happens to You
We know that sometimes nice brides still get unfortunate, and we have a tip for that. If you suddenly got handed bad pictures by your photographer, here are some tips to salvage the situation:
- Some guests may have snapped much better photos of you and your hubby – JUST ASK: After the wedding, contact your family and friends via WhatsApp, email or social media, and beg them to share any nice random photos they took at your wedding – who knows, come may be better than what your photographer sent you.
- Photoshopping the pictures can make them a bit or a lot better: So, collect all the digital copies that your photographer snapped (all), and search for someone with photoshop experience to edit them for you. After this, pick the best of the best from the photoshopped copies, and print. [In case you’re wondering how to find a photoshop expert, many young people know how to use photoshop – ask your family and friends. You can walk into an established photography studio and see if one of their picture rditors/ photoshop experts would do it for you in private, for a fee.]
RELATED: Top Tips for Planning a Wedding without Ugly Disappointments
We Love Featuring Good Wedding Pictures Here, AND Yours Would Look Nice Here
Hey brides (and grooms), we are tired of hearing about wedding photographers disappointing couples, and we want to help reduce or stop this from happening to Nigerian brides. That’s why we wrote you the above tips and advice to follow when choosing your wedding photographer. Hopefully, you can avoid the mistake most brides make when choosing a photographer. We love featuring weddings with good snapshots on this blog and on our Instagram page, and I want your wedding to be next.
Thanks for reading; I hope you’ve found our wedding photography tips helpful. Leave us a comment or additional tip down below, in the comment area.
Photo Credit: SC George Photography
My elder sister had the worst photography experience and the disappointment was so massive. The photographer told us the memory card got crashed and that was how my sister became “pictureless” in her unique and beautiful wedding that was held in 2008. I learnt great lesson from it and with these tips I know I won’t plan small for my wedding photography.
Hello Grace. Thanks for sharing your sister’s bad wedding photography experience with us. I can totally relate because my own sis had a similar experience, which prompted me to write this post to warn other brides-to-be. In another post, I also shared some brides’ experience with an unprofessional photographer.
I’m happy to know that you still have your sister’s experience to keep you away from bad photographers.
One of my major wedding budget is photography and Videography. I just can’t imagine having to live with a bad memory or poorly captured memory of one of the important days of my life that only happens once. Thanks for this article.
You’re welcome Florence. I’m happy to know that you’ve decided to give photography and video-coverage top priority at your wedding. Thanks for your feedback, dear.
These are some great tips, and I appreciate your suggestion to plan on paying more for a wedding photographer. My fiance and I are going to be getting married at the end of this fall, and pictures are really important to me, so we want to find a great photographer. We’ll definitely allot more of our budget for that so we can get quality work. Thanks for the great post!