Wedding Photographer Questions – Lee Brown
What to expect when you are planning to research for the right wedding photographer in and around the Stockport, Manchester areas of the UK, or booking a holiday wedding abroad.
Lee explains the procedure before booking his services:
1 – Meeting in Person
I always try my very best to meet up with all my couples before they make a booking with me, it allows me to find out a bit about them and them about me. We chat through their plans for their wedding day, go over the information about what I offer and it also allows them to view my portfolio and albums. Skype is my back up plan for couples that live far away or abroad, I don’t mind a midnight call.
2 – Background Information
I usually begin by asking what my couple do with their lives, jobs can really say a lot about a person and this helps me relate with them on their level. We talk about hobbies and things they do for fun, I find this helps the couple relax and open up a little and I may then ask them about their tastes in movies or music.
We then chat about how they met, if they had a first date and how they got engaged. This is usually a great bunch of often funny and sometimes awkward stories that allows me to see their connection to each other and lets me become a little more involved within their story.
3 – Wedding Day Venue
We then move on to chatting about their wedding day, why they chose their particular date and venue. Couples usually try to correspond their wedding date to a particularly poignant time in their life, anniversary of meeting, birthday or something more family related. This gives a little more of a special buzz about their wedding day.
Asking about their wedding venue gives me a few pointers about the couple, urban venues for those who enjoy the atmosphere of the city, country estates for couples who enjoy they great outdoors or quirky village halls for those who like a little wedding DIY. It also gives an indication on what they would like from their wedding photography and because I don’t have a particular style, this allows me to adapt and shoot their wedding they way they want it. This is usually followed by chatting about other details of their day, finding out a little about their bridal party, the people who mean to most to them and are there to make their day even more awesome.
Wedding Photographer – Important Information
4 – Schedule of Photographic Services – Brochure Provided
I then pass out a few brochures and we delve into some information about me, why I’m a little different from other photographers and what I offer as a package.
Even though every wedding is different, they all follow a simple timed schedule so I chat through what I’m usually doing throughout the day. I then go into some detail about the editing process and what the couple are expected to receive from the package. It’s about this time that I break out the albums. Although I have access to any album in the world, I feature two different types to show off to couples. This allows them to see some full weddings from start to finish and also allows them to start imagining how they will look on their wedding day though the images I make for them.
5 – Choose From Traditional Print or USB
Although we’re moving forwards with the ways we deliver images to couples either through USB Drives or downloads from the cloud, albums will always be something a little bit special. They allow us to feel like kids again holding our parents albums and let us go back to a simpler digital free time.
6 – Free Guide with Legal Tips
Finally I go though my ‘Guide to Planning Your Photography’ which consists of a few tips that I share from past experience before we go though a comprehensive questions and answers section covering things like booking information, copyright, insurance and illness. These are often points, especially insurance and illness what couples don’t always think about but can be very important. Having relevant insurances, Public Liability for the venue, Indemnity for the couple and Equipment for the photographer is there for everyone’s piece of mind.
Equally having a back up plan in place for illness is very important because at the end of the day to me, my reputation and more importantly my customer service is everything. It’s usually as this point that I leave the couple to digest all the information that I have passed on. I always recommend that couples sleep on their decision to make a booking and to show the brochure to family and friends for a second opinion.