10 Questions to Ask Your North East Wedding Photographer
So you’ve gotten engaged. Congrats! Now comes the tricky part - planning your wedding.
There’s loads to think about. What type of dress will you wear? What flavour cake is the most popular? Who on earth is trustworthy enough to take out photos and make us look good?
As north east wedding photographers ourselves, we regularly get a lot of questions from our clients. We’d always recommend you ask questions of your photographer; this helps you get to know them, helps to alleviate any concerns you might have and will help you make the big decision on who’ll finally get the job as your wedding photographer.
So without further ado…here’s 10 questions we’d recommend you ask that person doing your wedding snaps.
10 - Where Are You Based?
Did you know the phrase wedding photographer near me is one of the biggest searches on Google when people are searching for big day photographers?
There’s a reason for that - location matters.
You could, in theory, hire a wedding photographer from down south. But chances are if you did, they’d charge you a fortune for travel.
See, most photographers charge for mileage. We’ll be honest, we do too! This just helps us out as there’s sometimes a lot of travel involved for wedding photography.
The difference of having a local photographer always pays off; they’re more familiar with the area and their travel costs will be lower.
So when it comes to booking your North East wedding photographer, ask them where they’re from!
9 - How Much Does Your Wedding Photography Cost?
Quite honestly, wedding photography prices are all over the place.
No photographer is quite the same as the other. You might get highly experienced photographers who’ve been doing this for years, charging you upwards of £2000 for your wedding. At the other end of the spectrum, you might get people just starting out who may charge less.
At Booth & Curtis Photography, we believe in being completely transparent with our pricing. That’s why we have two different packages, for whatever your needs. These include:
Half Day Shoot, £800
Full Day Shoot, £1250
If you want more info on those…click here to be whisked away to another page >>
We’d always recommend shopping around and getting different quotes to compare. Your wedding photography prices aren’t the be-all-and-end-all of why you’ll employ a photographer, but we get that they’re absolutely important.
8 - Is My Wedding Date Available?
This is a big one - you should probably immediately check with the photographer if they’re booked up already for your day.
If you’re getting married in the summer, doubly so! Photographers are never busier than in the summer in peak wedding season, and they may well be unavailable.
It also really pays to get a photographer booked in quickly. A lot of weddings are planned far in advance, if you lock down your photographer early, they’ll probably have less booking and be available for your date.
7 - The Deposit
Just like your wedding photography prices, you’re probably also going to know how much it’s gonna cost you up-front.
Again, like prices, the cost of a deposit for a photographer will vary depending on who they are, their experience, and what they price themselves at.
In the case of us, it’s crystal clear just like our wedding photography prices.
If you book us as your North East wedding photographer, we take the following deposits on booking:
Half Day Shoot, £200
Full Day Shoot, £300 (optional free pre-wedding shoot if you want one too)
You’re probably wondering when the rest will be paid too, right? At B&C Photography, we ask that the full payment is sent at least 7 days before the wedding.
It’s all included in a wedding photography contract we’d send to you if you book us.
6 - Ask About a Meeting
If a photographer really cares about their work, they’re gonna want to meet up with you before your wedding.
That’s why it’s worth asking if this is something they do.
For your wedding, you want someone you can trust, and who you get a good vibe from. That’s why meeting your north east wedding photographer is crucial.
Most photographers will be happy to do this, and it’s a great way to discuss exactly what you want from the big day. Which leads us straight into…
5 - What’s The Photographer’s Style?
Did you know there are several different styles of wedding photography?
For example, you’ve got your traditional style, which is all about poses, big group shots and ‘classic’ photos. Then there’s documentary style, where the photographer captures more candid moments of the day, and they spend less time posing you.
Most wedding photographers have a particular style.
At B&C Photography, we’ll most likely be described as documentary but we also like to ask our clients what they want. We then adapt our ‘style’ to that client.
Say you wanted those classic, posed wedding photos. We’d do that, no bother. Want us to merge with the scenery and pretend we’re not there and capture sneaky, candid shots? Let’s do it.
4 - Do You Have Insurance?
This isn’t true for all venues, but in the case of many, they want any suppliers who are working there to have what’s called public liability insurance.
Many different wedding venues in the North East ask for this. It basically covers the photographer from any mishaps that might happen during the day. So if Great Auntie Ethel actually gets hit on the noggin with a tripod, the venue and the photographer are covered too.
A venue will usually ask to see the photographer’s public liability insurance certificate before the big day kicks off.
So it’s definitely worth asking your north east wedding photographer if they’ve actually got it or not!
3 - How Many Photographers are Included?
That’s us! The faces of Booth & Curtis photography aka Crystal & Dan.
Every wedding photography provider is completely different. Some work alone, while others come as a pair.
At B&C, we come as a pair! We’re a real-life married couple and we do our photography together.
We’re great believers in two photographers being better than one.
Here’s an example for you. You’re at the altar, gazing into each other’s eyes. You’re about to get married. You’ve only got one photographer there, and they’re at a particular spot. So that’s the only angle you’ll get your photos from.
Then add another photographer into the mix. You’ve got two angles covered. Even the best wedding photographer in the world can’t be in two places at once!
That’s not to say solo photographers don’t do good work. They absolutely do and work their socks off doing it too. But if you want just that little bit extra….we’d deffo recommend looking for a North East wedding photography packages that comes with two.
2 - What Info Do You Need From Us Before the Big Day?
You’ve got questions for your north east wedding photographer….and your photographer has questions for you too!
The big thing we always need to know are the logistics. Where are you getting married? We need the exact time and date of the ceremony. Where’s the reception? Is there anywhere else we need to go? What style photos do you want?
When things are progressing with your wedding photography booking, it’s well worth asking your photographer what they want to know from you.
1 - Do We Need to Provide You with Food?
We’ve put this at number 1 because…well…we love our scran at Booth & Curtis Photography.
Again, whether or not you need to provide a wedding photographer with food completely varies depending on the photographer.
For us, we’ll include a little line in your contract which states we will require some form of sustenance at some point if we’re shooting a full day. This usually means adding a couple of extra meals to your wedding package for the photographers.
This helps us to keep going, fueled up and ready for all the rest of the photos you’ll throw our way after everyone’s finished tucking in. It’s also the perfect time for us to eat as well, as nobody wants a photo of them shoveling ham sandwiches, canapes and roast beef dinners into their mouths.
Booth & Curtis’s North East Wedding Photography
And that concludes our blog on things to ask your wedding photographer!
Now that you’re here, fancy reading up a bit more on our wedding photography? We’d love to be involved with your big day.
