Ten questions to ask your wedding photographer

The practical questions ✦

The first things most people ask me are the obvious ones: how many hours, how many photographs, when do we get them. I don't mind those questions. They come from somewhere real — you're trusting someone to be present for one of the most unrepeatable days of your life, and it makes sense to understand the basics before you hand over a deposit.

On coverage hours: most weddings need eight to ten. If yours genuinely needs fewer, I'll say so — I'm not trying to sell you time you won't use. Getting ready, the ceremony, portraits, dinner, first dances; that's usually where the day lives. If you're planning a long reception with a band and a late crowd, we can talk about what it looks like to extend. My advice is to book more time than you think you'll need, then be pleasantly surprised when the day moves at its own pace.

On gallery turnaround: I deliver within four weeks. Not because I work slowly, but because the edit is where the work actually finishes. I'd rather send you sixty photographs you hang on the wall than four hundred you scroll past once. Most clients receive somewhere between three and five hundred images, though some weddings produce more and some fewer. What I won't do is rush that process because you're impatient. It's worth waiting for.

The work doesn't end when the reception does. The edit is where I finish what I started.

Film, digital, and the question nobody asks ✦

I shoot both, always. Film for the frames I know I want to live on a wall — the wider Mamiya shots, the quieter moments, anything where I have more than a half-second to feel certain. Digital for everything that moves fast: the first kiss, the toast, the dance floor at midnight. I don't ask couples to choose, and I don't separate the galleries. You get both, edited together into a single sequence, and you won't always be able to tell which is which. That's intentional.

The question I'm asked less often than I should be: do you see the light before the day? I always do. A walkthrough, or at minimum a careful look at the venue at the same time of day as your ceremony. That single hour of preparation is worth more than years of general experience at a venue I've never been to. If your photographer hasn't asked to visit — or isn't willing to — that's worth noting.

The day itself ✦

On second shooters: I work alone. A second camera in the room changes the way people hold themselves — they become aware of being photographed in a way they aren't when there's just one. If your venue is genuinely complex, or your guest list runs past three hundred, we can have an honest conversation about whether it makes sense. Otherwise, my preference is one person who's in the right place at the right moment, rather than two people covering everything and feeling nothing in particular.

On family formals: I do them, I just don't linger. We block twenty minutes on the timeline, I ask you to send me a shot list in advance, and we move through it efficiently. It's not the part of the day I find most interesting to photograph — and I suspect it's not the part of the day you find most interesting to be in. Let's be honest about that, do it well, and get back to everything else.

On rain: it isn't a problem, and I'd encourage you to stop thinking of it as one. Some of my most honest frames have come from overcast afternoons and the covered corners of terraces. If the light goes flat and grey, that can be beautiful. If it rains during portraits, we find shelter, we slow down, and we make something that actually looks like how the day felt. That tends to be more interesting than a perfect sky with nothing underneath it.