What Wedding Blogs (Including this One) Don’t Show You
Gorgeous wedding details like these are great but they can never tell the whole story.
Wedding blogs are about one thing—selling you the idea of perfection.
If you’re like me, you’ve probably spent a lot of time looking at wedding blogs, Pinterest boards, and sites with “inspiration” photos while you’re planning your wedding. One thing it can be easy to forget while we’re enjoying the gorgeous photos of strangers’ weddings—these magazines and blogs are a business.
These publications are making money by repackaging someone else’s wedding as inspiration for your wedding. By necessity, they’re going to primarily show photos that their audience (engaged coupes) can imagine themselves in. What does this mean you’re going to see? You can probably already picture it: tons of details photos of tables and chairs, arches, and signs. Photos of people often don’t include their faces, think photos of the bride that focus on how her dress fits or her hairstyle or makeup, not how she feels. Suspiciously missing from almost every blog and magazine are photos most of us would expect to see at our own wedding: family group photos, church ceremonies, surprised faces when things go wrong, happy ugly tears. Blogs often skip the best things in life: unhinged moments, inside jokes, silly traditions with work buddies, and dorky but typical interactions with siblings or best friends.
Inspiration serves a purpose, but when it’s your wedding you probably want more than just perfection, you want real connection too.
To me, the most fun photos to look back on are the photos of your grandparents dancing together, or your niece falling on her face on the way down the aisle, the candid photos people you love being their typical selves even if they’re not perfect.
This is why, before selecting a wedding photographer, you’ll be doing yourself a favor if you ask to see a full gallery.
Look for great looking candid moments that the photographer couldn’t have staged.
A full gallery is every single wedding photo that your photographer has delivered to a couple. Looking at an entire wedding will give you the best idea of what exactly you’re paying for when you hire a wedding photographer. A full gallery of wedding photos is the product (despite whatever else your package includes). You wouldn’t buy a house based on only touring the master bedroom. You shouldn’t book a wedding photographer after only seeing how they do couple’s portraits and details. You can’t see your own wedding photos ahead of time, so the best you can do is ask to see exactly how your photographer captured someone else’s wedding.
When you look through every photo your photographer delivered, you’ll also learn your photographer’s weak spots. Their dance floor photos might be blurry or too bright for your taste. Indoor ceremony photos might be dark and have a weird color cast in situations when flash can’t be used (many churches have this rule). Family photos might not be arranged so that you can see everyone’s face. If a photographer’s weak spot happens to be in an area that’s a high priority for you (for example if you plan to hang your portrait of your extended family on the wall, and your photographer’s extended family photos are in uneven lighting with half the people wearing sunglasses) then you’re not going to feel great about your wedding photos no matter how much you loved your photographer’s portfolio.
Here’s what I think you should look for when you are evaluating a full gallery:
(My opinions are based on having photographed nearly 300 weddings in 14 years and planning my own wedding this year)
The perfect moments are great, but when your groom feeds you French fries on your wedding day that’s what real love looks like.
Look for candids and portraits of people who aren’t conventionally attractive. The societal beauty standard is BS and everyone you love deserves to be remembered.
Family portraits: verify that these are getting taken (a lot of photographers dislike this work and some don’t take them). You’ll also want to see lots of different groupings of people (both small and big groups), and evenly lit photos where you can see everyone’s face with lots of space on the sides/top/bottom to give you options for how to frame them. These photos are the boring ones to look at if it’s not your family—and the boring ones to take even if it is your family—but trust me they are massively important especially as time goes on.
If you have a huge family, look for how they handle a very large family portrait. Can you see everyone’s face? Is this photographer capable of organizing and documenting 100+ family members in a single image? (Specifically ask to see a wedding with a large family group photo if this is your family)
Photos without either the bride or groom. You’re the focus of the day, but don’t you want to see the people that matter to you having a good time?
Details that aren’t just magazine worthy. A memorial table for relatives who have passed is not usually a magazine moment, partly because it’s so personal, but if you put time, money, attention, energy, or thought into any detail, it should make it into your full gallery because photos are the only thing you really have after the wedding.
Cliché details: Not everyone has the money or energy to keep up with every single trend. The truth about weddings is that pampas grass and mason jars and burlap are all “out” now, but the fact that they were in for a long time means they are now affordable. Most of us have to make choices about our wedding budget, and for those of us who value experiences over things, hiring a great photographer who will thoroughly capture your memories might be a good tradeoff for less than up-to-the-moment tableware. If your photographer believes that your wedding details are only worth photographing for their portfolio, they’ll miss a lot of things that are important to you.
Candid moments that are really candid. Portraits can look candid, but your photographer should also be prepared, talented, and paying attention to you enough to be able to capture real meaningful moments that aren’t staged. Look for situations where there are more than just the couple in the frame, or candid moments that are sprinkled throughout the day, not just during “portrait time.”
Photos taken from multiple angles and both close up and far away. You want to feel like you really saw the moment, not just a few shots of the whole room or only close ups. To tell the story fully you need big wide shots, close ups, and mid range.
Editing—do they edit the photos of the rest of the day with the same care that they put into their portfolio or Instagram.
Photos of very large families are always challenging and not in every photographer’s skill set. Make sure your photographer can organize and effectively capture a very large group if you want this kind of photo.
A few more elements of a full wedding gallery that are less important :
Delivery method: do you get a dropbox file? Or is this a professional gallery website that makes it easy to find and download the photo youre looking for?
I think you get bonus points for good gallery organization. Not just the photographer’s favorite photos at the top and the rest of them dumped in a proverbial pile, but folders or divisions that can help YOU find the moments you are looking for. 1000 photos is a LOT. Organizing personal photos is a chore most of us hate. Your photographer should make that part easy for you. (My galleries download in folders based on part of the day, but they’re also organized for you chronologically)
A concise gallery without too many duplicates is nice, but not strictly necessary. Too many similar photos of an event that you can never re-create might be obnoxious to look through, but is kind of a non-problem. A lot of photographers will include more photos ‘just in case you like one of these better than the others.” Personally, I like lots of options because I want to have a choice. After the wedding is over, you can never go back and take more photos if there aren’t enough. The only exception to this is when a gallery LOOKS full because there area. lot of photos, but not a lot of distinct moments are captured. A good way to think about this is “what do I expect to see when I imagine my wedding day?” and make sure you see those moments and details in the gallery.
The question you’re trying to answer here is essentially: Is this photographer just thinking of their portfolio, or are they making art for you?
Details and story matter. This couple hired snow cats to take their guests up a snowy mountain.
Will your photographer be the historian making beautiful photos about your memories, your life, and your day? A great photographer should be able to produce gorgeous portfolio-worthy images at your wedding, and also capture everything that is meaningful to you even if it’s not meaningful to them.
Even if it doesn’t help their career—you’re not hiring a wedding photographer to get you into Vogue magazine (maybe you are…but most of us aren’t). You’re hiring a wedding photographer to tell the story of your life. Magazines accept 100 images and publish 12, and only photos their audience wants, not stuff that is important to you as a couple. Your wedding day should have all these photos too, but your full gallery should include many many more photos to capture all the moments and memories you will want to look back on.
Should every single image be as high quality, well lit, well composed, and “magazine worthy” as possible? Absolutely yes. Is it even more important to tell your story? Even more yes. There can always be another photoshoot. You only have one wedding, so choosing a photographer who will capture it well is a big deal.
My advice is to ask any photographer you’re considering to see full galleries (even if it’s not me). Any reasonably experienced wedding photographer should be able to share multiple full galleries with you. They’re often not posted directly on photographers websites out of respect for the client so you will likely have to ask.
Want to see my full galleries? Inquire about your wedding below.
—Libby